📚 What I'm Reading | Winter 2024
One book that didn't land, a handful that did, and a poem that took my breath away.
Happy (almost) spring!
The light is returning, leaves are budding, and I’m mentally preparing for a week of recovery from the impending time change. Since we’re about to enter a new season, I thought I’d share some of the books that have kept me company this winter. If you’ve read any of them I’d love to hear your thoughts, or any other good reads you’ve been enjoying.
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen. As a fan of Elise’s podcast, Pulling the Thread and reader of her Substack
, I was excited to hear about this new and important book. It unpacks the seven deadly sins (including the religious history of how they ended up in the canon to begin with) and argues that regardless of any personal religious affiliations, these concepts have infiltrated our culture so deeply that everyone is impacted. I felt myself nodding a lot as I turned pages. Yep, yes, okay that makes so much sense! It’s one of those books that makes you feel seen in ways you didn’t even know you needed, and also flips the script on how these “sins” are actually superpowers when reframed.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I was surprised to learn that the phenomenon of Marie Kondo’s approach to decluttering didn’t land with me. This might be partially due to the fact that I read it in a place that was not my home, so I couldn’t immediately get up to begin pulling everything out of drawers and closets. Also, I’m not sure my home is all that cluttered to begin with. Sure, there are a areas that could benefit from attention, but the idea of doing a massive overhaul of everything (which she suggests—no piecemeal tossing out) left me feeling more overwhelmed than excited. In theory though, I understand what she’s saying and the logic is understandable. Although has serious credentials as an organizer and years of tidying research to back up her suggestions, I didn’t end up making any massive changes after reading, and the approach felt too rigid for my current season of life. With one exception—I do like the idea of rolling my socks and giving them a proper tuck in. (I also enjoyed her Netflix show! Maybe it’s more fun to watch other people organize and have emotional breakthroughs?)
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. Do you ever revisit a book you started months earlier, but it wasn’t the right time? That was me and Our Missing Hearts. I loved Little Fires Everywhere and was eager to read her latest novel, but I happened to bring it home from the library with a stack of other books. I read about thirty pages and knew I wanted to keep going, but I didn’t want to rush myself. Back it went. One of the first things we did after getting to San Diego was pick up a non-resident library card, and I happened to catch Our Missing Hearts on one of the shelves. Now was the time! I’m not actually sure how much I can say about this book without giving away the story, but I’ll say this: It was beautifully written and felt so stitched together, but the ending was hard. Not because it wasn’t the right one, but because I fell in love with one of the characters and I didn’t want the ending for them. Ah, the heartbreak!
Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang. Without realizing it, I inadvertently read two back-to-back novels that fall into the dystopian fiction category. What’s most eerie about Our Missing Hearts (above) and also Land of Milk and Honey is that these worlds, while not the current reality as we know it, don’t feel very far off. They seem slightly out of reach, but not by much. In this novel, the world is covered in smog, with hardly any fresh ingredients to speak of. Restaurants are making do with powders and pantry staples, but one lucky chef is invited to cook in a remote Italian colony where the world’s food scarcity no longer exist. Lines are blurred, appetites are lost and found, and survival is paramount. The writing is gorgeous, sensual, and consuming. Many times I re-read sentences for their sheer beauty.
Joy Enough by Sarah McColl (Substack: .) This memoir falls into a category I often refer to as economic, which I appreciate as both a writer and reader. And by that I mean, it’s spare and poetic, where every sentence, every memory, feels chosen and necessary and doing work. There are no tangents. You won’t spend two or three pages reading an anecdote that feels unrelated to the story at hand. And that story is woven: the narrator’s mother and marriage are lost in the course of this book where sentences that cut straight to the heart:
“It’s very simple, Sarah,” she said. “I love you, and I don’t want to die.” There was nothing else to say. We each ate a cherry, then spit the pits into the blue and white bowl.”
Wave-Maker by Elizabeth Spires. Sometimes when I’m at the library I like to go to the poetry section (usually quite sparse) and grab books without really looking at them. I might read the whole collection, or maybe just a poem or two, but it keeps poetry in my orbit and I usually find some gems in the process. During the same visit I picked up Our Missing Hearts, I also grabbed Wave-Maker, and one poem caught me in my throat, capturing life’s temporal nature and the grief that follows. It’s also an excellent example of what a single photograph can yield on the page—try it as a prompt the next time you feel stuck.
Photo of You Disappearing Mt. Charleston, Nevada for my mother Seven years ago, you stood at the top of a mountain, solitary in the snow. In faded jeans and windbreaker, you smiled, or tried to smile, as a friend snapped a photo. You had gotten the news a month before, a clouded X-ray, then a scan, and now behind you (or ahead?) a range of snow-covered mountains, pine trees pointing up toward frail wisps of cloud, the sky blue cobalt bleeding into black. Are ends like beginnings? At your service, the minister said, She fixed her eyes upon that shining shore. If I climbed the mountain, would I find the trail you took? Would your footsteps lead me to a pass that opens west, always west, where you went on alone, no turning back? I stare at the picture that tells me everything and nothing. You are smiling. The air is perfectly clear.
Goldenseal by Maria Hummel. In 1990, two old friends meet in a hotel suite after a betrayal left a 40-year rift in their relationship. After waiting decades, each says what they’ve been turning over for years. Taking place over the course of a single evening, we go back in time to their girlhood and hear each side of the story through elegant, lyrical prose. (Hummel is also a poet!) Although it might be categorized as historical fiction—the characters come of age before, during, and after the second world war— the entire story had a timeless quality that truly lingered.
Until next time,
Nicole
P.S. You’ll be able to attend a free writing session with me later this month—I’ll tell you how next week!
I LOVE reading lists! Thanks, Nicole!