The Guilt of Reading Deep Backlist

I recently took a week off from work — and, in general, being in charge of anything —and it was glorious! One of the reasons I felt restored as a person after the week was that I was able to read the way I used to when I was a teenager on vacation: I read whatever I wanted to without looking at publishing dates, took zero notes, and I didn’t think about how/when/where I would/could write about the book. Since my work reading did not intrude into my solely-for-me reading I felt my full, unrestrained passion for reading as I inhaled one book after another. I finally got around to reading Circe, The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, Honey & Spice, The Knockout Queen, and from the new release section I grabbed The Diablo’s Curse. Then I reached for the third book in The Murderbot Series, which led to me thinking that it was a great time to catch up on more series. Except my brain did a record scratch when I tried to start the third book in The Spellman’s series.

Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz My work reading had just intruded. Except maybe there was a deeper issue, since the last few times I’d tried to continue with Lisa Lutz’s series — which I was really enjoying for its dark humor and quirky detective family —the same thing had happened to me. Things weren’t adding up: I love standalone books and series equally, so that couldn’t be the reason; the previous times this had happened, I was picking up books for work reading; I’m all caught up with a bunch of other series. In relation to the latter point, I’ve dropped whatever I was doing whenever there was a new release for the Lady Sherlock series; Her Majesty’s Royal Coven series; Wyndham & Banerjee series; Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak series; Truly Devious series….

As I thought about this more, still unable to click play on Revenge of the Spellmans , it was the word “new” that stood out to me: I was caught up with many recent series and the series that I was struggling to pick up were all deep backlists. The “guilt” I was feeling was because, after reviewing the first book, I had no reason to review later entries this long after their releases and it felt like I was “wasting” that time when I could be reading a new book that needed new attention. Typing that out sounds as ridiculous as it felt when I realized why I was putting off reading deep backlist series.

Yes, books can become outdated and go out of print, but in general, they don’t expire. I don’t want to miss out on continuing to enjoy a series and watching the characters develop over time just because I’ve created an absurd reason to feel guilty. When a thing you love becomes your job or a part of your job, it will change your connection to it no matter how much you promise that it won’t. Change is the nature of life after all, regardless of how much we refuse to get on board sometimes.

And so it happened to me.

As a lifelong reader, I’ve adjusted and pivoted many times, from being burnt out with university reading to realizing that my tastes had changed. Not realizing when it’s time to adjust or be flexible is what leads me down a path of frustration, and I’d much rather remain engaged and learning. It was time to overhaul my work reading and my just-for-me reading and find new balances. I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, the third Spellman book, and it just so happened that I did find a way to talk about a deep backlist series again, though I need to let go of the feeling that everything has to have a purpose. Something that I think applies beyond being a reader.

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