Just like Eminem hated boy bands and pop princesses, I, as someone with a bachelor’s and master’s in English, dislike people who put on airs that they are sophisticated readers, meanwhile they pose with cliché, trite, and trendy books. I’m not saying the following list are bad books (in fact, they are good books), but what I am saying is you can learn deeply from any book you love, not just “critically acclaimed” classics. And if anything, these books make you look more superficial than “original and chic.” I don’t mean to be a hater, I’m just saying: the tote bag, iced oat milk latte, and a copy of The Stranger at a window seat vibe is not original. Swap that book with something you actually picked out and like yourself, and the picture becomes something noteworthy.

In the spirit of “The Real Slim Shady,” will the real readers please stand up? Because right now, all I see are people sitting down with these fourteen titles.

The Republic (c. 375 BC) by Plato

Meditations (c. 180 AD) by Marcus Aurelius

The Prince (1532) by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prophet (1923) by Kahlil Gibran

Siddhartha (1922) by Hermann Hesse

The Stranger (1942) by Albert Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) by Albert Camus

The Second Sex (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir

The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) by Joan Didion

The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho

The Sympathizer (2015) by Viet Thanh Nguyen

My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh

The Creative Act (2023) by Rick Rubin

Most of these copies people have probably have “unbroken spines.” Nothing is more superficial than a book that’s been carried for three months but never opened past page 10.

Rather than “posing” with one of these books on Instagram, I would respect if more if you did a deep-dive quote analysis that relates to your life.

You can read Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Huck Finn, Moby-Dick, Beowulf, graphic novels, comic books, even Time Magazine, it truly doesn’t matter so long as it’s genuine. The point is engagement and how much you actually like a book, not how you look reading it.