I have always loved reading, but as I’ve gotten older and taken on more responsibility, I find myself reading less and drifting into the land of my cellphone more. There is no place like a book, as a child the library became my second home, a place of reprieve, and this year I wanted to get back to that love of literature, so I embarked on a challenge to read 50 books in 365. Granted, the year is not quite over yet and I still have time, but I did not complete my goal. Capping in at just 29, I feel invigorated and satiated to complete the goal next year. Of the 29 books I read this year, I will list my top five here and why I chose them.
Marilou is Everywhere - Sarah Elaine Smith
American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin - Terrance Hayes
Odes to Lithium - Shira Erlichman
One Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Voung
Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
What these books did for me this year was to introduce me to characters and places that I could not shake. In Marilou is Everywhere, I was introduced to Cindy, who, while I did not agree with many of her decisions, I empathized with greatly. Her hunger for a life that wasn’t her own drove her to do mad things, a sin I am definitely guilty of. I even met Jude and Bernadette, a mother and daughter simultaneously pulled together and torn apart by the lives they lead and the town they live in. The prose in this book is inescapable, meaning it grips you and won’t let go. Even when you’ve stopped reading, even when you’ve gone to bed.
In Odes to Lithium I found a voice for a fear I couldn’t describe, I found kinship and hope and wonder, I found that just because your mind is a trickster doesn’t mean you are untrustworthy or unloveable. Erlichman writes in poetry that is expansive and chilling, she is generous and practices a profound pleasure for the life she is able to lead.
In On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, I found myself and a familiar pain. An intimacy that reaches into and graces the small beast of your heart. Even though I know the letters are not written to me or for me I can hear them, their gentleness and exploration. I can see Little Dog, his hurt and longing, his devotion to his mother who’s pain is so consuming she becomes it.
In many of these books, I found a language that I thought inaccessible to me. As a writer, it is through reading that I understand my own voice even more. I am eternally grateful to the authors of all the books I read this year, even the ones I didn’t necessarily enjoy. Not to sound corny but reading gives me wings, it is through it that I am able to step outside of myself while climbing deeper into my own humanity.
I did a podcast about the books I read this year which you can listen to here.