Last year, I found myself in the company of people I’ve never met; writers, thinkers, observers, who somehow feel familiar. The kind who quietly rearrange your perspective without making a spectacle of it. Through sociology and anthropology especially, I’ve encountered voices that don’t just argue; they explain, untangle and steady something in me. There’s a clarity in their plainness, a reassurance in the fact that their ideas are not just felt but evidenced.

Reading them is both stretching and soothing. They challenge how I see the world but also make it feel more understandable, less chaotic, more interpretable. However, I often keep this to myself. There’s a lingering sense that talking about these reflections might make me seem dull, as though thinking too much is somehow socially inconvenient. So I drift between bursts of writing and long silences, convincing myself I have nothing new to add.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? If I don’t write, then of course I have nothing to say. The thoughts don’t disappear; they just remain unarticulated, half-formed. So which is worse: having something to say and withholding it, or saying nothing at all?

I read for more reasons than I can neatly justify. For rest, curiosity and a kind of quiet control over a world that often feels unreliable. For reassurance that confusion is shared and for the slow improvement of putting thoughts into words. Sometimes it’s habit, sometimes obligation, sometimes opportunity. And yes, sometimes it’s simply because it’s my job; to keep learning so I can teach honestly. I don’t recommend books I haven’t lived with, at least for a while.

Maybe that’s what all of this comes down to: reading as a form of companionship, and writing as a way of acknowledging it.

More on that later…

Judith Butler

Eric Fromm

Elif Shafak

Sherry Ortner

Anne Marie Pahuus

John Berger

Elizabeth Wilson

Cheryl Buckley

Andrew Tolson

Annie Albers

Tom Inglis

Diane Crane

Adam Geczy

Dame Louisa Lumsden

Vicky Karaminas

Camille Paglia

Ian Chambers

Bill Bryson

Angela McRobbie

Shaun Cole