I want to read Intermezzo, but I don’t want to have to read Intermezzo

Resisting the pressure to read all the right books

Everyone is reading Intermezzo. Intermezzo is everywhere. I can’t turn a London street corner or scroll through the Internet without seeing it. I want to read Intermezzo.

But I don’t want to have to read Intermezzo.

I used to happily read books or watch movies years after they were released, with only a vague conception of whether they were ‘recent’, and I don’t usually follow trends (explaining my stubborn side part, other than a brief entanglement with a middle part, and my tidy ankle socks). But perhaps since Tiger King in 2020 when we were desperately clinging to connections with each other, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon.

I want to read the latest books, understand what resonates with people around me, what makes today’s society tick. In recent years, I can go into most bookshops and immediately point to books I’ve read. I raced through the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century this summer and was indignant that only 4 of my books had made the list (and felt slightly better when I had 22 of the NYT’s 100 Readers’ Choice), but also excited that to add some of these to my TBR list.

Some people pride themselves on keeping up with the latest fashions, I pride myself on being on the pulse of the coolest books.

But with that comes pressure that’s hard to shrug off. New books are published every day. The Booker Prize and International Booker Prize shortlists have six each and the NYT Bestsellers are updated daily, not to mention all of the other ways I find brilliant new books. I simply cannot keep up. And that’s just the new books. I want to read more classics terribly—would you believe I haven’t read a single Charlotte Brontë book?—and there are books from just a few years ago that I still really want to read. Am I meant to put them aside simply because people aren’t talking about them anymore?

The answer must be no. I do not read to keep up with the Joneses, though I admit a thrill when I’ve read a good number in the Foyles or Hatchards shopfront. I do not read simply to tick a box—I read to experience, learn, and enjoy, then let all the thoughts simmer (sometimes resulting in newsletters). I must resist the urge to rush through a list, lest I end up like one of those who mistreat books in The Cat Who Saved Books, though I don’t think I will ever not have the urge to inhale books.

So: Yes, I want to read Intermezzo. Maybe I even want to read it now. But I want to read Intermezzo because a book about two brothers, after reading Hello Beautiful and Blue Sisters about sisters, deeply appeals to me, not because I have to.