Books and reading have always been a big part of our babaà world. In our new series we ask friends of babaà about their reading style, favourite books, and emotional connection to the written word.
For the second in our series we chat with Galilee Peaches, an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, who is such a voracious reader she once had her library card number memorized. You can view her art here: galileepeaches.com
How do you organize your books?
By author or genre, but also by feeling. A group of books that have a strong connection to each other will often be close.
What are you going to read next?
I have my eyes on these four to read in the next month:
The Fawn – Magda Szabó
Revenge of the Scapegoat – Caren Beilin
Happening – Annie Ernaux
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The last book that made you laugh?
Voices in the Evening by Natalia Ginzburg. She writes the best dialogue and is a very keen observer of people.
Describe your ideal reading environment. Show us!
On vacation! Sitting on the beach, or at a cafe. But more realistically, I get into bed early and that’s where most of my reading is done.
What was your relationship to books growing up?
I read a lot as a young person. Every year for Christmas, my mother gave me and my sister books and a knitted item. We read a lot of fiction and handed books between ourselves. I had my library card number memorized in middle school and I would read on the long bus ride to and from school.
Is there a certain emotion you’re looking for when picking out what to read?
Escape / devastation / clarity or mystery
You have 12 uninterrupted hours to read right now, what do you reach for?
I would finish the books I’ve started and abandoned this year…. Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Harwick and Conversations With Kafka
What’s the book that has made the biggest impression on you in the last 5 years?
The Hour of the Star is the book that made me fall in love with Clarice Lispector. A perfect 77 page book that placed a spell on me: it’s funny and weird, and it breaks your heart. It felt like it was written for me.
You walk into a bookstore…what section do you go to first? How come?
Fiction, but mostly I like looking at what is set out on the tables and seeing the booksellers recommendations.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
It took time for me to find the type of books I would be really passionate about, but also I think I had to grow as a reader. I feel finally ready to read the classics that I never got to as a young person. I’m interested in the space between poetry and fiction, translated literature and stream of consciousness writing. I read much more actively now and the books all feel connected to something larger, rather than individual experiences.