My Q2 2026 Consumption List (Steal it?)
A few months ago I wrote this blog post called "Curate or Die", and in that I spoke about how if you don't curate what you consume, then the algorithm decides for you, and you end up consuming really generic, trendy content (aka garbage), which will turn you into a really generic person (aka garbage). You’ll sound and think like everyone else, which is dangerous if you need to be creative for a living.
You will become basic (and regurgitate things you hear on YouTube videos). Your writing will taste like hospital food. Your ideas will arrive pre-chewed. It's easy to write a manifesto, but living it is much harder. So I am putting my money where my mouth is.
I'm going to be building myself a consumption list for each quarter of the year and I'm going to share it with you (in case you are interested). Yes the list is going to be large. Yes it is designed to be ambitious and almost overwhelming. Will I finish all of it? Probably not. I think I'll end up consuming maybe 60 or 70% of it, which by itself is a big victory, because I've spent my whole life consuming things with no rhyme or reason post school. I'm now trying to consume in a more thoughtful fashion, which has resulted in me making a university grade syllabus for myself, that you'll find below.
Why do I need this so badly? It's because I market software for a living and I write fiction in all my free time and I really need to get better at both. So this requires me to get better at storytelling, noticing, thinking clearly and having opinions that are not just recycled Twitter/YouTube takes. And the only way to do that is to be intentional about what goes into my head, because right now my head is a shared apartment and the algorithm has been a terrible roommate. It eats my food, forgets to wash dishes, plays loud music at 3 AM, and keeps inviting over garbage-esque content I never asked for.
So. Q2 2026. April, May, June. Here's what I'm consuming, split into "essential" (the stuff I will actually do) and "if you have time" (the stuff I'll do if I'm ahead, and move to Q3 if I'm not, which is statistically more likely). So lessgo!
Books
The list is going to mostly include fiction because I really enjoy reading fiction. I've learned, honestly, more from fiction than I have learned from non-fiction in this lifetime. Because you can't write a good story unless there is some truth in what you are saying. And that's why I think fiction has so much to teach us - it's just how it is.
Essential
Blood Meridian — Cormac McCarthy. I've owned this on my Kindle for an embarrassing amount of time. Everyone who's read it talks about the prose like they've seen God, and everyone who hasn't read it (me, until now) just says “it's on my reading list”.
Trust — Hernan Diaz. Won the Pulitzer. Layers of unreliable narration. I'm writing a novella right now and I need to study how other people handle the gap between what characters say happened and what actually happened. I’ve been told that this book is a masterclass in that art.
The Demon of Unrest — Erik Larson. I watched one episode of Ken Burns' The Vietnam War documentary and it rearranged something in my brain. This is the same energy, said someone on Reddt, narrative nonfiction about a country sleepwalking into catastrophe. (I'm also finishing the Vietnam War doc this quarter. More on that below.)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — Hunter S. Thompson. Short. Electric. A book-length lesson in voice. Based on the word 200 page word count, I can finish this in two or three days, and I prayit'll make me want to write sentences that sound like they're on FIREE.
Persepolis — Marjane Satrapi. My graphic novel pick for the quarter. Memoir in comic form about growing up during the Islamic Revolution. It's been sitting on my desk for weeks, which is either destiny or laziness. This quarter I'm calling it destiny.
The Complete Cosmicomics — Italo Calvino. Short stories about the origin of the universe told by a character named Qfwfq. If that sentence doesn't make you want to read it, I don't know what to tell you. One story per sitting, a few times a week. Low commitment, high eccentricity.
An Immense World — Ed Yong. About how animals perceive reality through senses we don't have. I want access to metaphors that don't come from the human experience for once.
If I have more time
Safe Area Goražde — Joe Sacco. War journalism in comics form. Was originally in my essentials but I bumped it to make room for Persepolis. Still a must, just a Q3 must.
Living Things — Munir Hachemi. Short, odd literary fiction from Fitzcarraldo Editions, which is basically a publishing house for people who think normal novels are too predictable. Iw ish I could say these were my kind of people.
Katabasis — R.F. Kuang. For when I want something propulsive and don't want to think about whether I'm growing as a person.
Movies
I've got an hour or two each evening to watch things. Some of these are short films, some are long commitments, but the mix should keep me from defaulting to whatever Netflix auto-plays at me. (Yes, I’ll judge you viciously for watching “#3 in India today” or #2 globally in Mystery.
Essential
The Vietnam War (Ken Burns, 2017). Finishing it. I saw one episode months ago and it's been haunting me since. This is my anchor project for the quarter — about 18 hours total, so roughly 1.5 hours a week. Perfectly doable.
Stalker (1979, Tarkovsky). I have Calvino and Philip K. Dick on my shelf. This is their cinematic cousin, said my alcoholic friend (who claims to have read them but has mostly not). Reddit said it is slow, philosophical, about a zone where the normal rules don't apply. I’ll finally watch something on MUBI after paying for it for a year. Shame, shame, puppy shame, Akash :(
Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong). Korean slow-burn mystery. Every review I've read says you'll think about it for weeks. That's the kind of movie I want right now. I doubt I will think about anything for weeks though, I wish I had more depth.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Funny, sad, about friendship and art and pettiness. On Disney+ Hotstar. I'm told it's a film about two men who stop being friends and somehow it's the most devastating thing you'll watch all year.
Apur Sansar (1959, Satyajit Ray). Or the full Apu trilogy if I'm ambitious, I’m mostly not.
Incendies (2010, Denis Villeneuve). Devastating, apparently.
If I have more time
City of God (2002). If you haven't seen it, it's pure storytelling adrenaline. If you have seen it, you know. I saw it in college, need to rewatch.
Memoria (2021, Apichatpong Weerasethakul). Extremely slow, extremely rewarding, say the reviews. I have a feeling I won’t like it. But will have to watch it at some point.
Anime
I'm doing the anime thing because I need to expose myself to a wider range of visual storytelling. I've spent years consuming mostly Western media, and I think my imagination has gotten a little... rectangular. Anime, especially older anime, bends shapes, apparently.
Essential
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000). Gorgeous, gothic, standalone film. About 80 minutes. Starting here.
Devilman Crybaby (2018, Netflix). 10 episodes. Brutal and beautiful. One weekend.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022, Netflix). 10 episodes. Visually insane, emotionally devastating. A YouTuber pitched this as "the show that made grown men cry about a cyberpunk girl" and honestly that's all the pitch I need.
Wicked City (1985, Prime Video). Noir plus body horror. 80 minutes. The kind of thing I'd never find via an algorithm. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (1998). The opposite of everything above. Quiet, melancholic, slice-of-life sci-fi. Two OVAs, about 60 minutes total. Palate cleanser. For context OVA's were basically films that were made in a time before algorithms - they were niche anime made and sold by VHS for specific audiences, since there was no theatre release or box office expectation, directors had the freedom to try risky things, and they often paid off.
If I have more time
Gunsmith Cats (1995). Fun, tight, three episodes. Internet Archive is where I can find it, gonna be a pain to watch on TV. Vampire Hunter D (1985, Prime). Will watch after Bloodlust if I want more of that world.
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (Netflix). 26 episodes. Saving for late June if I'm somehow ahead of schedule (I won't be).
Poetry
I almost didn't include this section because poetry has always intimidated me. It feels like showing up to a party where I don’t understand why everyone is so exalted and emotional about a certain thing. But that's exactly why it belongs here. Range means going to the parties that scare you. Two poems a month. That's it. I’ll read them slowly, maybe twice, and see if they do anything to me. nobody's home.
April
"Dulce et Decorum Est" — Wilfred Owen. The most famous anti-war poem ever written. Pairs with the Vietnam doc, with Persepolis, with the general theme of "governments send young people to die and then build monuments about it."
"Howl" — Allen Ginsberg. Pairs with Fear and Loathing. The same energy — American excess, madness, beauty, destruction. Relevant cause I just completed a 2.5 week trip to California last week.
May
"Ozymandias" — Percy Bysshe Shelley. Fourteen lines about empire, hubris, and sand. Pairs with Blood Meridian. Everything you build will be forgotten :( Have a nice day.
"Musée des Beaux Arts" — W.H. Auden. About suffering and how the world doesn't stop for it. About the gap between someone drowning and someone ploughing a field nearby.
June
"A Far Cry from Africa" — Derek Walcott. About being caught between two identities, two loyalties, two versions of home. "Tonight I Can Write" — Pablo Neruda. Because not everything on this list needs to be about war and empire.
If I really have time
"Digging" — Seamus Heaney. About fathers and sons and the tools they use. Short, perfect.
"The Summer Day" — Mary Oliver. Ends with the most famous question in modern poetry, apparently.
Why I’m doing this
Because I genuinely believe that if I don't curate what I consume, my taste will flatten, my writing will get worse, and some essential part of me that has high standards and unique perspective, will quietly die. The algorithm is not coming for my job. It's coming for my personality and curiority. And curiosity is the only thing I've got that your 20$/month LLM doesn't.
So this is my defence. A university-grade semester for one. In July, I’ll share my report card and hopefully I will be a good boy.
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