A Year in Reading (Take Two)

How has the first month of the year already passed? So much has happened in those short 31 days.

I kicked off the New Year spending a few days re-reading the first four books in A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window and The Miserable Mill. I’m quite sure I’ve read them all three or four times already, but I wanted to have them fresh on the mind when I watched the new Netflix series so I could be appropriately disappointed and/or impressed. (Verdict: it was okay. I found the first four episodes better than episodes 5-8).

I stayed on the children’s book kick for another week, reading The Magician’s Elephant and Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo. I’m hoping to meet her at a conference in April, and I hadn’t read these two of her titles yet. I liked them both, but Raymie Nightingale better; they’re both sad.

Throughout the month I made my way through The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s in-depth, well-researched, incredibly convincing and convicting book tracing the development of America’s caste system from slavery to today’s mass incarceration. And since this was a month of book-movie comparisons, I have to mention Ava Duvernay's documentary 13th to pair with this book. They don't tell quite the same story, but their stories fit hand-in-hand. If you don't have time to read the book, stream the movie. It's on Netflix and you won't regret it.

I really tried to cheer things up at the end of the month, reading another kid’s book, but Penny from Heaven was sad too! Then of course I wanted to see the new Scorsese film so I re-read Silence, which I think actually broke my heart more this time, which I didn’t know was possible. (Verdict: the movie was amazing and everyone should see it, even though it’s over 2 ½ hours long). And then for class I read The American, which was hilarious at first and I was totally loving it, and then in the second half there were about 18 plot twists and I ended up devastated (minor spoilers there? Sorry about that.).

So: maybe it’s just the luck of the draw, maybe it’s my projection of life’s general state of affairs onto whatever story I’m reading, and most likely it just has a lot to do with my taste in books… I’d say here’s hoping for more cheerful reads to come, but I’m in a class on the Modern American Novel now, with Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald in my future, so probably not.

Maybe by the time May rolls around I’ll read something with a cheery ending. Until then, I hope y’all enjoy hearing about Modern American Novels, because that’s all I’ll be doing this semester!

Titles and Top Picks: A Year-End Review

It feels like I just started this project, tracking my books one-by-one in my new notebook as something I thought might be fun. But, looking at those crinkly pages covered in scribbles and scrawls shows that I’ve definitely come a long way since Jan. 6 (my first entry).

I did go back and count – I’ve read 108 books this year, of varying lengths and genres, and via different mediums. I’ve read books that have been on my list for years, as well as ones I’d never heard of and more I certainly thought I’d never pick up. I discovered my love for memoirs, and even found a decent amount of YA that I actually like. I read because of class, because I wanted to meet the author, because a friend or family member recommended it, because I chanced upon it at the library, or because of book club. But mostly, I read because I wanted to read. This was my first full year of not being an English major, and you know that whole concept about how choice and agency directly impacts children’s literacy and desire for reading for the better? I’m pretty sure it’s true for adults, too.

I’ve tried to provide a brief recommendation of my top 15 books for 2016 down below! They’re my “Top” books because they all had the highest ratings – I know the system is flawed, but I had to choose somehow!

Anyway, I gave the following 12 titles 4.5 stars –

Yes Please: Amy Poehler is hilarious and fantastic, as is her book. She has more of a life than just being Leslie Knope, apparently.

Brown Girl Dreaming: Jacqueline Woodson recounts her childhood in free verse, and it will change your life.

Feathers: I’m tempted to say this is Woodson’s best work. It’s a beautiful portrayal of love, resilience and hope.

Counting by 7’s: Holly Goldberg Sloan wrote a book about a middle-school genius who suffers an immense tragedy but somehow pieces together a family, and it almost made me cry.

The Violent Bear It Away: Flannery O’Connor blew my mind with her brilliant, engaging novel about family, prophecy, and baptism.

We Should All Be Feminists: This is an essay published as a small book similar to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDTalk of the same name. Every single person must read this. It will take you about thirty minutes.

Reading Picture Books To With Children: Megan Dowd Lambert explains her “Whole Book Approach” to open-ended exploration of picture books with children, which I found quite inspiring.

Crazy Busy: Kevin DeYoung points past our busyness to the state of our restless souls, urging us toward balanced lives.

The Supper of the Lamb: Fr. Robert Capon made me fall even more in love with food all while dishing out wise, hard-hitting insights on our bodies and souls in light of the eternal feast.

Another Brooklyn: Woodson’s most recent book – an ode to friendship, childhood, memory, and Brooklyn.

The Voyage Out: Virginia Woolf’s seminal novel and coming-of-age story that nevertheless contains layered characters, beautiful prose, and a solid dose of tragedy.

Fierce Convictions: Karen Swallow Prior has written an intricately detailed and incredibly comprehensive biography of Hannah More, who most people have never heard of but who was actually a total badass – as much as one could be in 17^th/18^th century England. Did I mention it’s also wonderfully cohesive and super inspiring? Because it’s that too.

You may have picked up on this over the past year, but I’m kind of a tough critic. Or I’m just really opinionated. I’m fine with either, honestly. The point is, I only gave three books a solid 5 stars, so if you wanted to start small, I’d start with these.

A Woman’s Place: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In showed us how women work, and it changed my life. But Katelyn Beaty’s book shows us why women work, along with how and why it looks different for each of us, and I love her for it with my whole heart.

Liturgy of the Ordinary: If you are a human with a body who does things like brush your teeth, sit in traffic, send emails or eat food, you need to read Tish Harrison Warren’s book about our daily liturgies and how they reflect worship on Sundays and God with us. Read it. As soon as possible.

A Room of One’s Own: I finally read this from beginning to end, and the bottom line is that Virginia Woolf just makes my heart happy, with her lyrical, quotable, writing and incisive insights. It’s Story and Argument all in one, a compelling must-read.

I’m glad to have my progress documented over the past year, and I’m looking forward to continuing my reading in 2017. I started four books this year that I never finished – two of which I’d like to go back to. I also started listening to all of the Harry Potter books on audio, so I’d like to finish that (books 4-7) this year. I’m also probably going to re-read all of the Series of Unfortunate Events books because I can’t go into the Netflix series unprepared. Plus my reading list, plus my two recommendations from friends, plus a tall stack of borrowed books.

Now I just need a new notebook…