What to do when you're losing it

In the interest of not burying the headline… I have finished writing the latest draft of my second book!

Called The Good Daughter, it is a love letter to classic literature and early Australian women writers of the 20th Century, following the story of a woman whose Rochesterian husband is presumed killed at The Somme, and so finds herself proprietress of a small bookshop in Subiaco. An earlier version of this book was highly commended in the 2021 Fogarty Literary Award.

I’m about to start sending it out into the world, so wish me luck!

Even though I do have ideas for the next couple of projects I am about to embark on, I’ll probably take a little bit of a break from writing for the next couple of weeks and refill the reserves, so to speak. Revising a novel and writing the first draft can feel quite different so while I get myself into that headspace, I’ll be reading as much as possible and finding inspiration for the next book. I hope that it will be a kind of feminist Western, but that’s all I’ll say for now.

A few events coming up in March if you’re interested…

• I’ll be interviewing Libby Iriks about her book Home to the Heart Country at Civic Square Library on Thursday the 19th of March

• I’ll be appearing at the Kalamunda Readers’ Festival on Saturday the 21st of March on a panel with Stefanie Koens and Sasha Wasley

During February, I had not one but TWO moments where I realised I could not find a book I was sure I owned. I couldn’t even work out if I still owned them and they were just buried in the piles of books in my room, or if it was more likely that I had declutter-bossed too close to the sun. (There’s also a third option, and that is that when I finally reclaimed the two shelves worth of books my parents were keeping for me in their spare room, I lost a whole box and I have yet to realise there are more books AWOL.)

A few days after looking everywhere for the second book, The Luminaries (because I was watching the adaptation on ABC iView) I actually managed to find both books, but sadly, I had already ordered a new copy of the first book missing in action (The Time Traveler’s Wife, which has a sequel due later this year!) and it was en route.

All this got me thinking about buying books, keeping books, and reading books, and how all three things are linked but also completely separate activities.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love book shopping. I love the communities that bookshops create, I love the way that they curate their selections and can help you find the thing you didn’t even know you were looking for, and I love that when you own books, you can be a complete mood reader. My good friend Jess introduced me to this idea that your book collection is like a wine cellar, rather than a to do list. You don’t fill your wine cellar with wine and then methodically drink your way through it in order of purchasing, so why should you do that with your books?

But (and it’s a big but) if your to be read pile (or piles) are so big that they’re filling you with productivity guilt or actively making you anxious and stopping you from reading, then there is a problem, right?

Hence why I have made it a priority this year to either read or decide to let go of some of the older books in my collection, alongside slowing down my book buying, using the library more (ya know, seeing as I work there and all), and in general, being a bit more mindful about the whole thing.

Which brings me to keeping books. You may have seen on Instagram that at the end of every month, I take a photo of the stack of books I have read that month to wrap up, but what happens after I take that photo is I have to decide what is happening with each item on the pile. The ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies, which I sometimes get through the reviewing I do for The AU Review) will often go to work, where I have set up a little book swap box in our tea room. Books that I loved and can see myself rereading at some point, I have to make space for on a shelf. As for everything else? I have to find it a new home.

Sometimes I know exactly who I want to give it to, but most of the time, I either put it in the box of books for taking to random street libraries (or if it’s my turn to host Howl’s Moving Library, for going in that selection) or in a box for taking to the local book exchange next time I feel the urge to browse some secondhand books. Not that I am trying to give in to that urge as often, because as I discovered when I reflected on 2025, over consumption of secondhand books can be just as overwhelming, if not more so because you can get more for less money.

In the pursuit of reading more, and reaping the physical and mental health benefits that this will bring, I need to make sure that I have curated a personal book collection that I love. This means no books that I feel like I have to read to be seen as smart or cool or whatever, because I don’t have time for that- and because forcing yourself to read a book is the fast lane to a book slump. It also means reconciling myself to the fact that books I bought ten years ago might have been to 2016 Emily’s taste, but 2026 Emily is a different reader in a lot of ways, and that’s fine.

It also means using some of the principles of weeding I use in my library life to manage my own personal library. Too much choice is overwhelming. Too many grubby books, or outdated books can make it hard to see forest for the trees, so to speak. I deserve to have a bookshelf I can look at and feel excited about. I deserve to enjoy reading.

I deserve to be able to look at my shelves and find the books I am looking for.

Let’s be realistic. If I keep up with the reading habits I have been sticking to lately, it’s unlikely that I’m going to get through much of Project Backlist this year, which means it’s time to recommit, and maybe even get out the calculator.

There are about 120 books on the Project Backlist TBR, and so far I have read… 2 of them. Odds on me upping my reading rate to ten books from this selection a month are slim to none, but I can make the decision that I HAVE to read one every month from now on. (Just remember that I am in three book clubs and I have a full review roster and do interviews and things as well, so I do have a lot of books that need to be read on deadlines… cut me a bit of slack if you’re thinking ‘what the f has she been doing?’)

Seeing as I’ve been binge watching Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road this month while I crochet, I’m clearly in the mood for some gritty crime, so I see some Tana French in my future.

That about brings us to the end of February. Shortest month of the year, over very quickly, and it never seemed like there were enough hours in the day, but as David Bowie said, ‘Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.’

On that note, I’d better go read something.