A Literary Dispatch from the Stars

horoscope1_1940521530Good news for every single one of us. After three years of stress and insecurity, brought upon us by Uranus and Pluto’s unfavourable position, the stars will be more propitious from the start of the new year. Although we might still be dealing with the rumpus of the last few years during the first few months of 2015, spring will bring a state of serenity to all star signs. A serenity that, according to our anonymous in-house astrologer, will give us all more time to read this year. Here’s what the stars have to tell you about your upcoming reading behaviour this year.

Aries: These past few years you’ve been running around, spreading yourself too thin, Aries. You feel like you cannot put enough energy in your job, studies, and love life. This is because you’re unable to say ‘no’ to others, providing you with an insane amount of tasks every day. 2015’s renewed calm, however, will help you become better at time management. Not only will this generate more time for reading, you will also be able to actually focus on what you’re reading. So, why don’t you finally give War and Peace, Proust or another colossus a shot this year?

Taurus: You’ve been feeling claustrophobic lately. Maybe your current relationship isn’t on the right track, your apartment is feeling too small or your job or current university degree isn’t creating any exhilarating opportunities for you. 2015 will bring you more freedom to explore or even break with these boundaries. Your taste in literature will be focused on exploration and travelling as well and you discover a newfound liking for South-American and Japanese literature.

Gemini: Dear Gemini, 2015 will be quite a turbulent year for you, a year composed of many highs and lows. Despite all the tumult, you will luckily be able to balance your inner calm after each bump in the road. Buckle up this year, but also enjoy your intensified emotions. You might make many mistakes this year, but you also learn a lot and are sensitive to other people’s vibes. Your reading this year will consist of a haphazard mix of Zen poetry, modernisms, and drug-fuelled literature.

Cancer: The spring of 2015 will start a cascade of events. Whether these events will be beneficial for you depends on your own alertness. If you don’t pay attention, you might miss out on very profitable opportunities. 2015 will be the year in which you take charge of your own life. This might not give you that much time to read, but the things you do read are books that are somehow life-changing. Depending on what you’re going through this year, these could be self-help books, or maybe The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison, or the works of Slavoj Žižek.

Leo: Leo, please stop hunting this year. You’ve been scouring too many different genres, leaving no stone unturned in your hunger for wisdom. It’s time to return to your own shelves and stop buying books for a while. You might feel uncomfortable at first and almost start to drool when you pass a bookstore, but soon you will realize the richness of the undiscovered treasures that have accumulated on your shelves over the years. Read on, Leo, read on.

Virgo: From the beginning of spring this year and onwards, a lot of attention will be on you. Your friends want to hang out with you all the time, your inbox will be bulging with invitations to parties, and you will even receive postcards in your mailbox (something you thought never happened anymore nowadays). Because of this, you won’t be home a lot this year and your house will mostly serve as a sanctuary from all the buzz. Being a trending topic has its limits too and reading childhood favourites and trying out those untried cookbooks on your shelves will bring you some peace.

Libra: 2015 will be a very fruitful year for your love life, Libra. If you’re not in a relationship at the moment, the chances are you will stumble upon a new lover soon. If you are currently dating someone, your relationship will improve exceedingly and you can both leave behind your previous struggles. This year you will embark on reading epic love stories as well. You might want to try out the intricate stories of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez or maybe you feel like sympathizing with Penelope’s plight in Homer’s Odyssey.

Scorpio: This year you will feel more free than ever – and you find this extremely frightening at first. However estranged you might feel at the beginning of the year, you will feel less so during the course of it after having made some significant choices. Your reading this year cannot be contained within boundaries either. Every book you touch on your shelves or in a library or bookstore will feel just right regardless of its genre. Maybe it’s Julio Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch, with its frightening table of instructions and many intertextual references, that will set in motion a great year of book devouring.

Sagittarius: You have worked hard these past few years and you will finally be rewarded for your exertions this year. You will, however, also have to close some chapters in your life and these might be some you rather hold on to. For now it’s better to accept the new things that are happening in your life. You have been reading obligatory literature for a while now, but you finally find some freedom to explore new things. Letting go of the canon might seem frightening at first, but you will be rewarded when you explore young authors and poets whom you stumble upon in the more obscure literary magazines or upon during readings hosted in your city.

Capricorn: 2015 will be a year of relaxation for you, Capricorn. Whereas Virgo is constantly being plagued by phone calls and WhatsApp messages, you’re finally let off the hook. It’s a bit bewildering at first, being used to working hard and being available at all times, but you’ll learn to enjoy your liberty in a few weeks. This year you will go on lots of holidays and your reading will mostly be done in airplanes, on beaches, and in hotel rooms. You will rekindle your love for murder mysteries and make some great discoveries between books left behind in hotel lobbies. Make a note of the novel in the lap of the person sitting next to you on a long flight.

Aquarius: Although “The Age of Aquarius” peaked on the single charts in the bygone sixties, it can be said that 2015 will be your year. You’re unstoppable and in charge of everything happening in your life this year. A newfound sense of security makes you feel strong and every obstacle that presents itself to you will be found conquerable. You will also find your mind more clear this year and will be able to tackle (philosophical) works you found unassailable before. Gravity’s Rainbow, Finnegans Wake, Heidegger or Baudrillard. You can do it all.

Pisces: Dear Pisces, 2015 may bring lots of pressure on you, but you’ll be able to bend your way through it. While you used to be plagued by guilt or a feeling of lowliness when not living up to other people’s expectations and demands, you feel more flexible and at ease this year. You will be able to keep a cool head in stressful situations, making you prosper at your job and studies. Your reading will bring you places far away from daily demands. Magical realism, ghost stories, and revenge novels will be your thing this year. Perhaps you should immerse yourself in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter or Juan Rulfo’s mindboggling Pedro Páramo.

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