Hi, this is against everyone with Connor Habib.

Friends, reading is what got me here.

It's what got me resilient.

It's what got me more compassionate, more successful, happier, more thoughtful, more inventive, more durable.

So why would I or you or anyone who reads give reading less importance in the scheme of things when we've got

to consider how to live in this year of challenges. This is the sixth and final episode in a series

of episodes on how to live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive,

develop, create, and resist. In other words, we'll be

talking about tools that don't merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that

assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world all at once. At the end of each

of these episodes, there's an exercise that you can do that brings you

into the conversation and helps you carry its vitality forward. This time, the theme is

read, and my guest is author Alexander Chee. Alex is the author of three books, most recently

his essay collection, How to Write an

autobiographical novel, and also two novels, Edinburgh and the Queen of the Night.

Alex's essay, The Quirant, is about reading tarot, and it's great and completely relevant to

this episode, because we won't just be talking about reading books, but also reading tarot. There is a deep connection in the kinds of readings, reading books and

reading taros. While reading books, as well as reading tarot as profession, of course,

are increasingly regulated by political power. They still defy being

contained by the political. The refusal to simply be absorbed into politics, even though both

books and divination have political functions and sometimes political ambitions, set them in a space

that is beyond the demands of political life and maneuvers.

...