Maria’s bookshelf observes you with a clever, but unnerving eye. Her shelf is an ocean. Sprinkled with stories that are the sunshine stretched across the water’s surface, but constructed of tales from the shadowy depths beneath. An inky black that you might not escape, but you’re not about to try. You don’t want to.
If you took a bite out of this shelf, it might be bitter and sweet and odd and all of the things that you think about in the moments before you fall asleep. It would make you nostalgic for a place you have never been. A land you cannot reach because it only exists when you make a wrong turn and a faint whisper hints that you are close, but never quite there.
You should try squinting at it. Hard. If you do, you might see the marks from the demons that scurry out from the swamps at night to peer at these covers with eyes as round as quarters. They like what they see.
So do I.
“If you wrote an autobiography, what would it be called?” I asked her.
“It's All About Me(me).”
Let’s start.
Q: Where did you get your bookshelf?
Maria Tahir: So, I've had this bookshelf since I've lived at my parents and since I've moved out of my mother's room, out of sleeping with my mother in her room. That's how old this bookshelf is and I'm pretty sure it's just some crappy bookshelf from like Rooms2Go or some shit. It's not even spectacular. There's no family heirloom past. It's simply your bargain bin, everyday bookshelf that I've just had and I've just keep using out of convenience.
Q: If someone saw your bookshelf, how would you feel?
MT: If someone saw my bookshelf, they would initially be like, “Oh, this person is totally feminist.” This person is probably a person of color cuz I have a lot of people of color writers. A lot of female writers, a lot of feminist writers.
I think as they look more, they'd be like, "Hmm. Why is 120 Days of Sodom in here?" Or like, if you why— if you look behind Ghost World, it's not like a written book, but it's a picture book by Roman Slocombe called City of the Broken Dolls. It's a fetish book of pictures of Japanese girls in hospital clothing and it's just very fetish-y and very sexual. I think they'd initially be like, "Dang. You're really cool" And really normal and basic feminist.
And then they'd read more and be like, "Oh, you into some freaky shit." Because I also have buku Nabokov. That used to be my favorite writer of all time. I have this sick copy of Ada which is about like incest, basically. I have a lot of books that are...maybe, a little bit more...yeah.
I have self-help books peppered among there that are hidden. I may have lent it out, but I have You Are a Badass and some other zen meditation books.
Q: How would you describe your reading collection: overall and in one word?
MT: I would describe it as a mix between cynical—I don't want to say slice of life, that makes it sound like an anime. But, cynical slice of life female writers and then romantic flowery Eastern European male writers. And then poetry is Anne Carson. God, yeah, basically that.
(In one word)
MT: Hmm. Oh my God, I wish I could just say David Lynch. I wanted to say somber and cynical, but beautiful and erotic. But, that's not one word. Maybe...flowery?
Yeah, I guess maybe that.
Q: So, what is your favorite book on the shelf?
MT: Do I have to pick one?
Courtney: Or of the moment!
MT: Well, I just finished reading The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro. I really loved it. I have loved everything she's written. I think she's most well-known for having short stories and The Beggar Maid is kind of a novel. It's a collection of short stories, but it's the same characters throughout. I really enjoyed it. She's an excellent writer. That would be my favorite now.
My favorite in general? Probably, this is going to sound so cheesy me being a les or whatever, but I really love my copy of Rubyfruit Jungle. It belonged to my older sister, who is also a lesbian. Actually, all my sisters are lesbians. I'm still really attached to it. I've reread it several times. It's kind of, at this point - I know a lot of people don't think it's a very good book. And I know as far as literature goes, it's not the best book. You know, but it just has meaning. And if I'm depressed, I just reread it cuz it's a short read.
Q: Have you ever received a book as a gift?
MT: Yes. I have. Actually, that copy of The Tiger's Wife from Blue Cypress is a gift from one of my other sisters. My older sister, Sheila, she's a very avid reader and I get a lot of books from her, actually, that she thinks I should read. I send her books. We talk a lot about books.
And Andi lent me her copy—I had never read by Camus. I never read anything by him and she bought me a copy of The Stranger and I really enjoyed it. And then I read some of his other stuff after reading that, but I still think that The Stranger is his best. She lent me her copy of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Kundera.
Q: Have you read every book on your shelf?
MT: No. [laughing] Nooooo, no, no. Ha, ha, ha. My dead laugh. Ha, ha, ha. When you were talking earlier about how I keep on buying books, I wanted to be like, I cannot stop. I keep telling myself. I have not read every book on that shelf, but I just cannot stop. I want to.
It'll be an author that I've read other stuff by and I'm like I need to read more stuff by them. Or it'll be someone that I know is on the periphery of the authors' genre that I liked. I'm like, I need to branch out and read this so I'll just buy it.
Q: This might be a weird question. If your bookshelf could talk, what it would say to you?
MT: I don't think that's a weird question at all because I totally think objects—if you're a person that you obsess over things and your objects are a reflection of who you are—if you care, rather, I should say, than obsess. If you care about your things and your life and whatever and what you put into your life, I think obviously—like, my shoes could say something about me.
I think my bookshelf would say to me...It would say, "I know life is hard sometimes and weird, but it's worth living. Keep going at it. All your weird sex things are okay and it's okay that you're down sometimes, but things are so pretty."
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