Read Anything Good Lately? #2
Let's share some of our treasured books to help each other stay grounded, sane, and joyful.
Hello Friends,
Time for another reading roundup!
Let’s share books that have helped us through difficult times. Perhaps something you’re reading now. Or last year. Or when you were twelve. Books that gave you hope, insight, guidance, inspiration. Or distracted you enough to help you get through. Books that made you laugh. Books that you started again the moment you read the last word. Books that you had to keep putting down because the language or the images blew your mind. Books you bought for all your friends. Books that made you want to write. Or travel or paint or sing. Books that live in your heart. Tattered, stained books with folded down corners and marginalia that you’ve lovingly carried from home to home. Books your parents read to you. Books you’ve read to children. Books you’ve read to lovers. Books you’ve read to dying loved ones. Books that made you weep with sorrow or joy or both. Books that restored your belief in the world. Books that restored your belief in yourself. And books that you just love for no specific reason.
Recent-ish books I’ve read that blew open my heart and my mind and gave me hope include: Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch. If you haven’t yet read this, I’d encourage you to do so now. Here’s a link to my interview with Lidia where she discusses this glorious masterpiece. Heavy by Kiese Laymon is one of my most-most favorite books ever. Tender, wise, gentle, hard, this book about intergenerational trauma, racism, and love changed everything for me. Here’s a link to my interview with Kiese for LARB. And I was bowled over by The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. a story of queer love on a Southern cotton plantation—but also a story of inheritance, ancestors, community, transcendence and so much more. The prose is exquisite.
Childhood books that I return to: The Once And Future King by T.H. White. This is the legend of King Arthur I grew up on. In the shadows of WWII, White reportedly wrote it as an act of resistance against Hitler. We first meet Arthur as a child (Wart) who pulls the sword from the stone, proving himself to be king, and stay by his side during lessons with Merlin (where he’s transformed into an ant, a hawk, an owl, a wild goose, and a badger) to his earnest yet troubled attempts to bring peace to England by tempering might (violence) with right (justice). The prose is delightful: witty yet resolute and smart. And Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. When I was so ill my dad had to move in with me, he would sit by my bed each evening in the rocking chair and read this to me. These enchanting, wise renderings were all I could handle; they helped me stay hopeful during my darkest time.
One whose (very!) tattered pages live in my heart: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Those who know me even just a little, know I’m obsessed with both the book and the BBC mini-series. Friendship, queer love, family, the fall of the British upper class, war, betrayal, substance abuse, loyalty, intergenerational trauma, religion, death, beauty, what we carry with us by choice and by obligation—and what we leave behind. This book is astoundingly gorgeous. And holds myriad truths.
I’d love to hear from you! What are some books that changed everything?
So many books!
I'm reading UNRAVELED: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A GARMENT by Maxine Bedat and it's so eye opening. I'd give a copy to everyone.
I recently read and loved THE GIRL IN DULUTH by Sigrid Brown (pen name of Cheri Johnson) and it was so good--all the complexity of literary fiction and all the page turning of genre.
TRUST EXERCISES by Susan Choi was . . . Wow. She's an amazing writer at the sentence level and the way she shifted things throughout the novel was fascinating.
Last year, Susanne Clarke’s Piranesi was such a revelation for me. I read it twice and listened to the audiobook (which is beautifully narrated). Fantasy is definitely not usually my jam but the way Clarke write this unusual, isolated character so beautifully really touched me. I also found the drip feeding of information about Piranesi’s world just so clever. This year I’ve also enjoyed Per Petterson’s books, particularly Out Stealing Horses and It’s Fine By Me. Short, atmospheric, rural books are definitely my jam. Oh and Play it As it Lays by Didion is what I pick up if I forget what kid of writer I want to be.