From the shelf, #1

titles to be obsessed with

I spent last week in Mexico City with friends staying in an incredible airbnb and exploring the city. There were so many highlights of the trip but one was a day trip we took to the Waters of Tolantongo. I had great intentions of reading through some titles that have been hanging out on my TBR list but there were ten years to make up for with friends and I’m glad I did.

Here are two titles that talk about obsession, that I’m obsessed with, and that you should be obsessed with too.

The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the Word’s Most Coveted Fish by Emily Voigt Give me a book about an animal and an entire subculture wilding out about them any day of the week and I will love it. In The Dragon Behind the Glass, we explore the Asian arowana (“dragon fish”), those that are obsessed with them, and follow Voigt as she takes us along for the ride.

It was obvious where to start. At the center of the glamorous world of the Southeast Asian aquaculture reigned a flamboyant Singaporean tastemaker known as Kenny the Fish, a chain-smoking millionaire fond of posing nude behind strategically placed aquatic pets. The Fish’s real name was Kenny Yap, and he was the executive chairman of an ornamental-fish farm so lucrative that it listed on Singapore’s main stock exchange. Recently, the Singaporean press had dubbed him one of the city’s most eligible bachelors and called for him to host a national spin-off of Donaly Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice. To enter his website, I had to click on his belly button.

I’ve since come to think of this navel as the rabbit hole into which I fell, not to emerge for some three and a half years.

Emily Voigt, The Dragon Behind the Glass

Godshot by

Chelsea Bieker

I have bought and suggested this book so many times, I can’t even count them all. Meet Lacey in the Central Valley of California, watch how she survives the obsession of religion, and how she finds her way in the world after enduring religious trauma.

Sometimes now I pass by churches. I park my car in the back rows of lots and watch the bodies file in. I don’t follow. It doesn’t mean God is nothing to me now. It means I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to figure out belief, and if the good I know of God is true, there is time enough.

Chelsea Bieker, Godshot

What are you reading lately? Anything we should be obsessed with?