In this piece, Jessa really gets at the impossibility of reading the “right” books all the time:

The idea that as a literary person there are a certain set of books you must read because they are important parts of the literary conversation is constantly implied, yet quite ridiculous. Once you get done with the Musts — the Franzens, Mitchells, Vollmanns, Roths, Shteyngarts — and then get through the Booker long list, and the same half-dozen memoirs everyone else is reading this year (crack addiction and face blindness seem incredibly important this year), you have time for maybe two quirky choices, if you are a hardcore reader. Or a critic. And then congratulations, you have had the same conversations as everyone else in the literary world.

Yes! There are just too many things I’ve missed or glossed over or never gotten around to reading, and at a certain point you have to make your choices and live with them, and realize that you are never going to have read everything you’re supposed to. But I’m not sure I’m quite at that point yet. Which is why I am speed-reading Philip Roth.

(Just for reference, it is 12:28 a.m. and I am in a hotel room all alone in Hunt Valley, Maryland, and have had a little more wine than I meant to.)