Year in Read, 2024

2024: not my favorite! Everyone I love lived, which was great, but even without death, there were disappointments. Mainly, I could not find an agent for my novel about a secret vasectomy and Korean adoption, which careful followers of this reading round-up know, I had worked on for some time.

Sometimes creative failures are precursors to success, but sometimes they are just failures. And we have a survivorship bias around artists: we only hear about those who made it, not those who bankrupted themselves trying to. And I can’t frame this novel’s failure as a small disappointment, only an anecdote in my inevitable Paris Review Art of Fiction interview. It just sucks. And it’s boring. Rejection is not narratively interesting.

But I’m still writing. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not in an endless cycle of buying groceries and throwing out trash. I’m working on a new project, which, for now, is just a bunch of Word documents. It has not yet become something I think about on runs, but I think it will.

But work, creative and otherwise, is just one part of me. There was a lot of joy this year too, including, but not limited to, my son starting kindergarten and becoming obsessed with the Burj Khalifa and infinity, my daughter making friends and calling homes under construction “trash houses,” and a couple’s retreat to San Francisco, where Bryon and I walked 35,000 steps a day, saw the ocean, and felt a joy that we hadn’t known together, even before we had kids.

Another joy of this year—and all years, really—has been reading. Here’s the list of books I read in 2024:

Howards End, E.M. Forster
Grand Union, Zadie Smith

Even if you’re not a short story person, please check out “Now More Than Ever.” Though published in July 2019, this story is politically evergreen, and I think about it like once a month.  

I Must Be Dreaming, Roz Chast

This year, I finally got my kids into the library, and I got into the library myself. This is the perfect book to borrow from a public institution. I’m glad to have read it, but I don’t need a book of cartoons about someone else’s dreams on my shelves.

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
Intimations, Zadie Smith

Do you want to be reminded of early pandemic mania? Probably not! But Zadie Smith was there, exploring the dislocation, class stratification, and memes of it all. And while maybe you want to resent her for being able to create something so precise so quickly, she’s very frank in this book that for her, writing is something to do, a way to pass the time, and not that different from making sourdough bread. I like that framing. I, too, feel like writing helps structure my days, and I’m grateful for it.

On Beauty, Zadie Smith

I reread On Beauty after reading Howards End, as Zadie Smith must have hoped a few of us would do. This book has the same kind of propulsive energy as White Teeth, but more moral structure, and is a true gem.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, Leslie Jamison

I have a para-social relationship with Leslie Jamison. Ahead of our first date, Bryon asked me 17 questions taken from her first collection of essays. Almost four years later, and six days after he became the father of my child, I saw Leslie Jamison speak and told her about her role in my baby’s origin story. So her divorce somehow made me sad. While I wished she had spilled a bit more tea on her marriage and her relationship with her stepdaughter, I still enjoyed reading about her process motherhood. While I never felt the manic love she felt for her daughter with my newborns, I still found her experience interesting.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell
There Are No Grown-Ups, Pamela Druckerman
Oh William!, Elizabeth Strout

I love the Crosby, Maine Cinematic Universe Elizabeth Strout has created, and I really enjoyed this book. William, while still kind of an asshole, has a rough go of it in this installment, and I loved being with Lucy as she describes it all. Three cheers for quiet domestic dramas!

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

This is a book about time, so revisiting it 10 years after last reading it was fun. The novel still slapped, but the last, vaguely dystopian story about everyone having online social capital was almost too prescient.

Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman
Knife, Salman Rushdie

I listened to the audio recording and found Rushdie’s self-regard unbearable. He takes himself so seriously as an artist, but he’s not wrong. He was stabbed in the eye for his art! I kept ping-ponging between those two feelings—what a jerk and I guess he’s a big deal—until I remembered that I didn’t owe anyone anything and stopped listening.

The Candy House, Jennifer Egan

This was my favorite reading experience of 2024. You don’t need to read, or reread, Good Squad to enjoy this time-hopping novel in stories, though having all the characters’ deep backstories fresh did make The Candy House extra wonderful. Right before I started this book, my son developed a screaming habit to get attention—he still has the occasional “scream of the day”—which is not so dissimilar from the screamer in this book. Also, Lulu forever!

Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro

She died and I did a reread. Since her death, the revelation of her willful disregard of her husband’s abuse has clouded her legacy, but like Michael Jackson, her impact can’t be canceled. The New Yorker fiction podcast had a valedictory episode on her before her daughter’s revelations came out. The story that’s read involves another willful disregard of the truth, and showcases why Munro was so good, but that all along, her stories were about secrets.

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

I found this in a free library and thought, why not reread it? It remains great.

Five Tuesdays in Winter, Lily King
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

I read this book on a road trip in Wyoming, and I felt some parallels between Tom Ripley’s disgust at the indulgence of Venetian meals and how I felt consuming so much red meat. Also, that road trip was a true highlight of the year: the kids got along, we drove by the one-room school Bryon briefly attended, and we visited the hot springs capital of the world: Thermopolis, Wyoming.

Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld

Of all the writers around, Curtis Sittenfeld seems to be having the most fun. This book, set in the world of SNL with a John Meyer-esque heartthrob, was a true delight and I’d recommend it to anyone in need of a vacation, mental or otherwise.

Any Person Is the Only Self, Elisa Gabbert
All Fours, Miranda July

What can I say that hasn’t already been said in praise of this book? Like you’ve heard, this novel (memoir?) is funny and sexy, and about a very significant human experience—perimenopause—that happens to half our population and we never discuss. Miranda July is not just great company on the page, she’s a frank guide to my next big body transformation.

Are You My Mother, Alison Bechdel
Writing for Busy Readers, Jessica Lasky-Fink and Todd Rogers

TL;DR: this book is too long for its one point: readers don’t have the attention for your long-ass writing.

Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Another basic B recommendation, but I loved this fatty of a domestic novel. Taffy BA is so generous with her characters, perhaps more than they deserve, and I was truly happy for Nathan at his sons’ B’Nai Mitzvah.

The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
Truth & Beauty, Ann Patchett
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

I think I would have liked this book more if I had read it on vacation. As I actually read it, in 15-minute increments before falling asleep, I could never really get into the action sequences and I found the whole thing too long.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

Everyone I knew had read this book, and so I did too. While there were some sloppy parts (like why did Sam experience phantom limb pain driving when he had lost his left foot?) I found Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow bingeable, which is no small feat. 

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Like with A Visit from the Goon Squad, reading this book offered a certain pleasure in seeing myself age against the same text. This time, it was nice to read about Huck’s evolution, and willingness to go to hell, without having to write a paper on it.

Blood Test: A Comedy, Charles Baxter

I had a dream about recommending this book to Curtis Sittenfeld, and I’ll recommend it to all of you. The plot and pacing of this novel are on point, and as I work on my latest project, I thought a lot about how well-structured this book is. But like all great art, you don’t need to notice the inner mechanics to appreciate result.

Charles Baxter was one of my friend Mike’s favorite writers, or at least one of the writers he picked for our short story club. Plus, there’s a photo of him reading There’s Something I Want You to Do with his infant son sleeping on his chest somewhere on the internet. This book made me miss Mike, as he would have both loved this book and wished he had written it. 

James, Percival Everett

I’m not sure if James works without Huck Finn, but I also think it’s not trying to work outside of that context. Slavery is condemned in Huck Finn, but the physical and mental suffering of slaves is ignored. Who knows if Percival Everett is a fan of Zadie Smith, but James reminded me of this passage in “Now More Than Ever:”

“[Elizabeth] Taylor’s parents’ black maid happens to be making lunch. You see her only three or four times, and she barely speaks, but let’s just say that she had my full attention. I admired the way she acted as if she were fully invested in this drama unfolding at Taylor’s parents’ beach house even though, in my mental version, this fictional maid’s fictional brother was one of the several thousand people who were lynched I.R.L. in the first half of the twentieth century. Each time she appeared, I gave her a little improvised dialogue, whispering it into Scout’s ear: ‘Yes, Miss, I’ll bring the dessert out now. I mean, my brother was lynched not long ago, down in Arkansas, but I can see you’ve got bigger fish to fry—I’ll get right on it.’” 

Long Island, Colm Tóibín
Improve Attention to Detail, Chris Denny

In 2024, I tried to make every month detail awareness month. When I mentioned this to a detail-oriented friend, she said that attention to detail is innate. I was hoping this book would have new, revelatory suggestions about how to catch typos. Unfortunately, it did not. But there were some decent, if basic, suggestions around increasing attention at large, like meditating, keeping a clean physical and digital workplace, and not always consuming content, that I will take with me into 2025.

Family Life, Akhil Sharma

Previously read: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2023

I turned 40 this year. And with age, I am trying to move on from delusions of grandeur to accepting the grandeur that is my life. A tall and kind husband, two healthy kids, and a home in a walkable city with good public schools.

This life has also afforded me some basic pleasures, including a trip to Las Vegas as my husband’s plue-one at the World of Concrete and a 40th birthday trip with 13 other women to what was effectively Las Vegas, Mexico—that is, an all-inclusive resort on the Pacific Coast. I learned nothing about myself or the world on these vacations, just had a good time. When I was younger, I might have objected. But who am I to look down on eating a sushi burrito while watching a syndicated Friends episode or drinking fresh-squeezed juice with a view of the Pacific?

I read during these trips, and all year round. To be honest, I was surprised that I had read so many books this year. Most nights, I can stay awake for approximately 94-seconds after putting the kids down. But I gave up on many of these books about halfway through and I did it without shame. There’s only so much time left for reading, maybe just 40 more years, and I won’t waste any of what’s left on the mediocre.

The Palace Papers, Tina Brown

Read by the author, this gossipy morsel went down easy on the long drive to and from Laramie, Wyoming. As a second child with a penchant for existential drama, I’m Team Harry, but I still enjoyed this institutionalist romp through recent monarch history.

Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney

Shout out to the Montclair Rec Center’s free library, where I found this gem and Between the World and Me.

I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron

I think a Nora Ephron born in 2000 would still find success. She’s so authentically herself, unembarrassed by her proclivities, vanities, and insecurities. Narrated by the author, this book made good company while shoveling the sidewalk.

The End of Vandalism, Tom Drury

Last year ended with the suicide of a friend. Instead of being sad in a non-specific way, I read this book; it was one of his favorites. I liked it too. Tom Drury’s sensibility is so funny and dry, and I also appreciate a romance between adult characters who know what real companionship looks like. I emailed Tom Drury about why he uses the word davenports so much. Apparently, it was just what they called sofas in his childhood. Toward the end of his life, my friend had a manic correspondence with Noam Chomsky. You can email anyone you want these days, and often they’ll email you back. Unfortunately, there still isn’t technology for emailing the dead.

Drury curious? An excerpt of this novel was on the New Yorker fiction podcast in 2015; it’s a delight!

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hunts in Dreams, Tom Drury

Strangers to Ourselves, Rachel Aviv

I had a bad listening experience on the 15L with this one, but generally I love Rachel Aviv. Her profile of the philosopher Agnes Collard, who lives with her current husband and her ex-husband, was one of the best things I read this year.

Mr. Bridge, Evan S. O’Connell

If you’re still open to novels about the quiet desperation of straight, white men, Mr. Bridge is a true gem.

Flowers on Fire, Hawon Jung

I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai

A Swim in a Pound in the Rain, George Saunders

Barbarian Days, William Finnegan

The Fourth Child, Jessica Winter

Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear, Matthew Salesses

Euphoria, Lily King

Basically, and in the best possible way, anthropology fan fic. Bring it on a plane or give it to the anthropology major in your life.

White Teeth, Zadie Smith

I’m doing a slow re-read of the Zadie Smith oeuvre, and man, I cannot believe she wrote this in her 20s. It’s maybe a little long, maybe a little didactic, but it’s also fun and sweeping and full of interesting characters, beautiful sentences, and captivating scenes.

The Guest, Emma Kline

Yellowface, R.F. Kuang

Deep Work, Cal Newport

I’ve listened to this book before and honestly, self-help is just the wisdom of the obvious. I already know that I should block out time to focus, email is a scam, and the best work comes without distraction. Still, it’s good to be reminded.

What finally got me to drop some of my bad habits, like listening to music while writing, was learning about Zadie Smith’s good habits. She listens to brown noise and makes a list of topics to Google after her writing session. I don’t listen to brown noise, but I don’t have live concerts streaming on my second screen anymore.

Related: Zadie Smith on the Toure Show

Autograph Man, Zadie Smith

Nudge, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

Intimations, Zadie Smith

This was quick and fun and curious. If like me, you’ve blocked out those early, dark days of the pandemic, Zadie Smith has recorded what a total bananas time that was to be alive.

Related: Zadie Smith on Call Your Girlfriend

Tom Lake, Ann Patchett

What can I say about Ann Patchett that your local librarian hasn’t already said? This book is about the difference between love in your 20s and love as an adult, with some narrative tricks and compelling descriptions of northern Michigan in the summer. Mostly, Patchett is good company on the page, and there’s no greater compliment than that.

Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

The Fraud, Zadie Smith

I listened to like 800 interviews with Zadie Smith this year, and they were all in anticipation of this book. I was perhaps too poised to like it. While there were some tricky spots—all the jumps in timelines didn’t make this an easy read—The Fraud is such a rich and interesting book. She’s written a deconstructed 19th century novel and who can object to experimentation? Take my recommendation with a grain of salt, I would read 10,000 words of her on almost any topic.

Related: Zadie Smith on The Talk Easy Podcast and Desert Island Discs

My Ántonia, Willa Cather

We went to a wedding in August where the grooms gave out copies of their favorite books as wedding favors. I got this book and oh my, what a delight to uncover a classic that was so engrossing. If you haven’t read this one, do. You won’t have to write an essay about what the Nebraska prairie symbolizes, you can just enjoy it. And there’s a lot to enjoy.

The Woman in Me, Britney Spears

Spare, Prince Harry

Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey

I listened to these three memoirs in a row, but I could only finish Greenlights. Britney Spears and Prince Harry have not had easy lives. Their books almost felt like catalogues of their despair, more bullet points of injuries than plot. In its title alone, Greenlights is more optimistic. The frame of “greenlights” gives McConaughey a focus that serves him and the reader well. I imagine I’ll be saying “greenlight” in McConaughey’s twang for some time.

Even though I couldn’t get through the Woman in Me, Michelle Williams’s reading was magical and now Britney Spears sounds like Michelle Williams to me.

Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri

I’m too close to Jhumpa Lahiri, not personally, just in my head, to give an accurate assessment of this book. Lahiri was the first contemporary writer I really loved. As an adult, my affection for her is still in the high school crush register. On a sentence level, she remains a master. But she’s uninterested in narrative. One of the stories is just a series of very sharp character studies. Even in the Italian language, her preoccupations haven’t changed. Still, my best reading experience of the year was waking up before the rest of the house and reading the last story in this collection with my first cup of coffee.

Less, Andrew Sean Greer

This is delightful and fun, but like Less himself might fear, I have trouble empathizing with the main character’s anxieties around his middling literary success—that is, success beyond what I could reasonably dream of.

Previously read: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2022

For a while, these recaps were full of drama. An aspiring dictator elected for president, a contagious virus that shutdown the world, and last year, a dead mom and a new baby. I thought this year was going to be different. And in fact, for most of the year, it did feel different. I hadn’t just lost a parent, within our borders, politics were more or less sane, and I was getting enough sleep. At parties, I had blessedly little to say. My kids were cute, my husband was great, my job was fine, my writing was consistent. But on the day before the darkest day of the year, my friend killed himself.

I met M. through writing. He was an incredible first-draft writer. If he were at the keyboard now, he would have written this whole thing straight, in just a bit longer than it would have taken to type it. But he wasn’t great at revision; he took everyone’s feedback. Instead of finding his voice, his work got more and more diluted on each draft. This is maybe symbolic; M. never wanted to own up to his sadness in real life or his weirdness on the page.

The past few years—COVID, but before that, too—had been rough for him. He was impulsive, easily excited, and apparently, hiding the depths of his sadness. But he was still M., a guy I had known forever, or since 2014, who believed in my writing and our friends’ writing, who started a short story club in 2017 that became weekly during the pandemic and still continues. In short, he was a friend, and he had a lot of friends. We were supposed to meet the day after he committed suicide to talk about my book in progress; he had seen our mutual friends five times that week. He had support, he had a community. I don’t know if that makes that better or worse. Probably worse.

In the spring, he keyed his car as an act of creative genius and then defended the installation as at worst protecting his car from theft. And truly, when M. asked me what was wrong with superficially damaging his own property, I had no answer. In this debate, he sounded like a self-righteous teen, and I, a phony adult. Scratching his car just felt inherently insane to me, and even if I had trouble explaining why, it wasn’t art.

A month or so after that, he and his wife separated, but he soon seemed back on track. He bought a condo, got joint custody of their four-year-old, and found a new girlfriend. Whatever he had gone through, there seemed to be more friendship ahead of us. Our sons, 10 months apart, were starting to feel like the same age, and there’s always more to read and more to write.

In October, the car he had keyed did get stolen, and he was normal-person bummed about it. By November, he had found a good price on a used car near where he grew up, and put together a plan to accompany his new girlfriend on her work trip to Italy, have his mother watch his kid while he was away, fly back to Chicago and then take the train to his hometown, where his mother had taken his son, and finally drive back to Denver with his kid, with a stop in Omaha to visit friends from our reading group.

How could a person who puts such a plan together be mentally unwell? Just writing out that 83-word sentence was hard. But three weeks later, M. was dead by his own choosing. People are impossible to know.

Many of the books and writers below I discovered through him and our short story club. I read his copy of Klara and the Sun, which he lent me in part because he knew I’d return it, which I did. I continue to read books about Korea and adoption for my novel, which M. read early parts of, but will never read all of.

Anyway, here’s the list of books I read this year:

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman

For an optimistic nihilist like myself, this book about time management, or anti-time management, reminded me that my priorities should determine how I spend my time.

Seeds from a Silent Tree: An Anthology By Korean Adoptees, edited by Jo Rankin & Tonya Bishoff

Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom

Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related, Jenny Heijun Wills

Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe

Sometimes I like to cosread as a dad on vacation. If you are a dad on vacation, or just like pretending to be one, this is a great read that lays out plain the Sacklers’ culpability in the opiod epidemic.

Quartet in Autumn, Barbara Pym

Night, Elie Wiesel

Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby

The Swimmers, Julie Otsuka

This book is about more than swimming, but was excellent enough that I’ve recommended it to every swimmer I know.

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro

Be Brief and Tell Them Everything, Brad Listi

After listening to so many Brad Listi interviews (his backlogs got me through a particular tedious web redesign in 2018), seeing what he chose to make felt like seeing the house of an architecture professor.

The Known World, Edward P. Jones

Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too, Jonny Sun

Happy-go-lucky, David Sedaris

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States, Kimberly D. McKee

Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn

Along with some truly horrifying visuals, this book has one of the best endings I’ve ever read.

There There, Tommy Orange

Raising Raffi, Keith Gessen

Ten Little Indians, Sherman Alexie

Lucy by the Sea, Elizabeth Strout

My Aunt was visiting with a copy of this book and she gave me a 40-hour loan. There was something so relaxing about binge reading, which I haven’t done since maybe 2019?

Circe, Madeline Miller

This felt like kabbalah for Greek myths, but in the best way.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett

Feel Free, Zadie Smith

This is a hodge-podge collection of essays, without a real theme or reason for being, but who cares? It’s Zadie Smith, being clever and conspiratorial, making jokes and taking names. I borrowed this book from a friend, but so enjoyed it, that I bought my own copy.

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

This also felt like kabbalah for Greek myths, but I was less into it.

Metropolitan Denver: Growth and Change in the Mile High City, Andrew R. Goetz & E. Eric Boschmann

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS, Abraham Verghese

Previously read: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2021

For now, 2021 feels only like the year that my mom died. Eventually, it will also feel like the year my daughter, named for her unmet grandmother, was born.

Maybe because my mom died when I was six months pregnant, her “passing” seemed a lot like labor. New York State does not have humane right to die laws. Though she had had pancreatic cancer for two and a half years and had run out of options and quality of life, there was nothing for her to do but suffer. In one of her last efforts, she asked the nurse what was taking so long, as if she were waiting for a check. At the very end, she was giving birth to death without a good epidural. All this reminded me of my early days with ZZ, the grandchild she had met, when I was exhausted and engorged, shocked and disgusted that one of the most primary of human experiences could be so miserable.

To me, the end of pregnancy and a newborn and the end of terminal cancer and death are two pairs that are not so much opposite, which would imply some kind of correlation, but equally intense but radically different experiences. While my mom was sick, even very sick, we could talk on the phone. Three days before she died, I told her my daughter would be named after her. But my mom never saw her namesake, not even in a photo. After all, there’s no texting the dead.

Though my mom cannot use a phone, she left behind one, along with a robust collection of coats and striped shirts, and more art than is possible to hang in all of her descendants’ homes. The latter bit is a lot: there’s a nude self-portrait of her pregnant with me, which is beautiful, but too much, at least for now.

Along with being an artist, she was also a reader. When I visited New York, I could always take something from my mom’s bookshelf and not have to return it, which is how it is with moms, or how it was with mine. As my mom hoarded her art—there are hundreds of pencil drawings of my brother and me as little kids—I hoard my books. After I die, maybe of pancreatic cancer, which my mom’s dad also died from, I wonder how many books my kids will look through to discover what postcard or concert ticket had kept my place. Eventually, they will probably be overwhelmed with the debris of the life I left behind and anyway, they can always look at this list.

Here are the books I read in 2021:

If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha

A Promised Land, Barack Obama (L, DNF)

Commonwealth, Ann Patchett®

I totally fell into this book, but no sentence or character has stayed with me. I wonder if that matters. Is there any other metric beyond engagement?

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (DNF)

Writers & Lovers, Lily King®

A complete delight, but a book narrated by an aspiring writer mourning a dead mom who rides a bike around an East Coast city might not have expanded any empathy muscles for me.

Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu®

The screenplay structure seems like a gimmick, but Yu makes good on it. He also includes asides on legislated racism toward Chinese Americans that gives a historical perspective to the recent attacks on Asian Americans.

Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener®

A very LOLz book on modern internet capitalism; would make a great gift for the daughter of family friends who desperately want their child to return home from San Francisco.

Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (DNF)

George Saunders can be for everyone else. It’s ok that’s he not for me.

Being Mortal, Atul Gawande®

My mom, an upbeat person, recommended this book while she was going through a hard time. Then she got on an antidepressant (it worked!) and said this book was a downer. Whatever your chemical balance, this book covers dark territory, but not thinking about your mortality won’t save you from it. Very few people have an elegant death, but this book gave me a way to talk to my mom about her ideal one.

A Burning, Megha Majumdar (DNF)

I Hate Running, Brendan Leonard

When in French, Lauren Collins

Ask a Korean Dude, Kim Hyung-geu

Self-Portrait, Celia Paul

If you’re in the market for a memoir by a muse of a famous European artist, check out Françoise Gilot’s Life With Picasso.

Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

Wild, Cheryl Strayed (RR)®

Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri®

A friend said that Lahiri switching to Italian is akin to Dylan going electric. I don’t know enough about Dylan to really dig into that metaphor, but Lahiri’s style is definitely different in translation. Her observational powers remain sharp in any language.

The Friend, Sigrid Nunez

The Vacationers, Emma Straub (DNF)

Catch the Rabbit, Lana Bastašić

The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

Let Me Be Frank With You, Richard Ford®

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (DNF)

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Death’s Duel, John Donne

Seize the Day, Saul Bellow (RR)

American Marriage, Tayari Jones®

The Round House, Louise Erdrich

The Mothers, Brit Bennett

The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Alison Bechdel®

Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen®

What’s the controversy, beyond Marion’s weight? If you’re into family melodrama, Franzen is as good as it gets.

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

The Pastoral Symphony, Andé Gide

Key:

® Raronauer recommend

RR Raronauer reread

DNF Didn’t finish (No greater victory than quitting a book)

L Listened

 
Previously read: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2020

Maybe a month ago, I was walking and wondering what the specific low of this very difficult year was. I’ve adjusted to wearing masks in grocery stores and not being able to visit friends’ homes. While I suffered the usual loneliness of this pandemic, no one I know died of COVID or even fell ill. And in some (privileged) ways, the pandemic allowed me to focus on the things that matter to me. I had always wanted to have dinner as a family every night, which was easy to do working from home with no social obligations. Spending five months without enough daycare was lucky in a way: Bryon and I were able to watch ZZ come into his own. The strain of working full time without full-time care came down equally on us, which unfortunately wasn’t the case for many working moms. The good news of 2020 was that I picked the right friend for the end of the world. Somehow this year, my family and I found quite a bit of joy. The high was realizing I had what Albert Camus would call “an invincible summer” within me.

Then I recalled that on August 5, our dog Rex attacked ZZ. ZZ was ultimately fine, but he got his first scar, a not small mark under his hairline, and we had to rehome Rex. Our fallen puppy angel ended up with the custodian of an Episcopal church who had lost his dog a week before. I met this man through the woman who had been giving Rex Milk-Bones in Cheesman Park since 2014. I had forgotten about this minor tragedy. Instead of learning how to bake, during COVID, I learned how to compartmentalize.

Anyway, I didn't do much masked reading, but I still did quite a bit of reading, a lot about South Korea and adoption, as I’m trying to write a novel about those topics.

Here’s my list.

KEY:

®: Raronauer recommend

L: Listened

Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout®

I so enjoyed spending more time with Olive Kitteridge that I briefly fantasized about moving to Maine.

Exhalation, Ted Chiang®, L

Is this sci-fi or absurdist existentialism? Either way, Ted Chiang is one of the most lucid and interesting writers out there.

The Primal Wound, Nancy Verrier

The Dutch House, Ann Patchett®

This book was one of my most pleasurable reading experiences of 2020. I fear we don’t talk about pleasure enough with reading, but this book, which I read in before times, was such a lovely escape.

Life with Picasso, Françoise Gilot

Deep Work, Cal Newport®, L

What can I say? I love self-help and hate distraction.

Silk, Alessandro Baricco (DNF)

This is the only book I’ve read that Ann Goldstein translated that I didn’t love, or even finish.

Snow, Orhan Pamuk (DNF)

I got close to finishing this book, but never really enjoyed it. I feel a certain pride in quitting it. Life’s too short for brunch and bad books.

Topics of Conversation, Miranda Popkey

Perfect Tunes, Emily Gould

Kim JiYoung, Born 1982, Cho Nam-joo®

Anyone who is interested in the psychological effects of structural misogyny (everyone?) could get something out of this book.

Minor Feelings, Cathy Park Hong

Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

The Odyssey, Homer (Emily Wilson translation)®

Trail of Crumbs, Kim Sunee

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

Korea: The Impossible Country, Daniel Tudor

Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld®

This is pure escapism, in the best possible way.

Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier (DNF)

Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson

Johnson V. Johnson, Barbara Goldsmith (DNF)

The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante®

The Neapolitan quartet is a tough sale, and honestly, I found the first 100 pages hard to get through. But The Lying Life of Adults, along with Days of Abandonment, is a good gateway Ferrante book.

Korean Art from 1953: Collision, Innovation, Interaction, Yeon Shim Chung, Sunjung Kim, Kimberly Chung, Keith B. Wagner

The Ongoingness: The End of a Diary, Sarah Manguso

JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America's Newest Jews, Helen Kiyong Kim and Noah Samuel Leavitt

Eat a Peach, David Chang

A Heart So White, Javier Marias®

Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean Women Writers

A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio

Another Ann Goldstein translated gem, filled with surprising yet inevitable twists.

The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, Jay Rubin (editor)

Previously read: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2019

The story of 2019: I was pregnant and then had a baby. While I was pregnant, I sort of resented that my shape was a topic of conversation, that people asked how I was feeling instead of how I was. And then in the early weeks of my maternity leave, when my uterus was still swollen but not in a conversational way, I had nothing to say but This baby.

Naturally, the new baby was the high and low of the year. As for particular moments, my high was my mother’s first time being in remission from pancreatic cancer; my low was after a long, sleepless night with a newborn, Bryon left for work at 5 am and finished the milk for the coffee. When I called him crying, he offered to come back home with milk, and I shouted, “I want to keep fighting.”

In between all these feelings, I read a lot of books, many about raising a child, some about Korean adoption, which my novel in progress is about.

KEY:

L: Listened

DNF: Did not finish

®: Raronauer recommend

R: Reread

The Perfect Nanny, Leila Slimani

Fortune Smiles, Adam Johnson (L, DNF)

The Language of the Blood, Jane Jeong Trenka

At the Existentialist Café, Sarah Bakewell (L, DNF)

The Aerialists, Mark Mayer (®)

Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol (DNF)

The Ask, Sam Lipsyte (L, ®)

I listened to this book on a road trip with my mom and one of the characters has pancreatic cancer as a shorthand for “he’s going to die soon.” Even though I resented that bit, I enjoyed this book.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion (R)

I read this book to get in the mood for a Southern California vacation. When I was done and shelved it, I realized I had read a different edition a decade before. 

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe (®)

We the Animals, Justin Torres

Sources of the Korean Tradition, Patrick H. Lee (editor)

I read this for my novel and it reminded me of the joys of being a college sophomore.

The Art of Perspective, Christopher Castellani

The Unwinding of the Miracle, Julie Yip-Williams (®)

Whatever, everyone experiences cancer in their own way, and sometimes that way isn’t reading a book about a woman dying of cancer. Still, I found the grace and honesty of this memoir quite moving and helpful.

Bringing Up Bébé, Pamela Druckerman (L)

Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell

A guy in my writing group was so convinced I needed to read this book that he bought me a copy. I did enjoy the book quite a bit. Once I finished it, I found out my deceased grandmother loved it, and I liked that part even more.

The Struggle for Soy, Megan Sound

Normal People, Sally Rooney (®)

Maybe I read this book after an emotional period in my life and finished it on a plane, but in any case, I cried, and I’m not a crier!

Cribsheet, Emily Oster (L)

Would recommend for anyone who wants to feel better about their parenting decisions because basically, there’s no data to back up anything.

Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster

Look Alive Out There, Sloane Crosley

Red Clocks, Leni Zumas

Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging, Eleana J. Kim

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari (L, ®)

I mean, yeah, believe the hype. This book gave me a deeper understanding of how people and societies function. Still, Harari has a pretty grim view of why sapiens have succeeded, and that view didn’t make me feel great about being a person.

Clyde Fans, Seth

Fleishman Is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner (®)

Working, Robert Caro

Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino (®)

Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon (L, DNF)

Happiness, as Such, Natalia Ginzburg

Coventry, Rachel Cusk

The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante (L, ®, R, DNF)

I had a vision of listening to the Neapolitan novels while breastfeeding. Instead, I watched a lot of Keeping Up with Kardashians. 

Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg

The Topeka School, Ben Lerner

I only read this book while pumping, so my opinion may be biased by having vacuums attached to my nippples, but this book didn't seem to have a point. And I like Ben Lerner! I would love someone who loved this book to explain why it's great to me because I didn't get it at all.

Make It Scream, Make It Burn, Leslie Jamison ®

Bryon and I have a romantic story involving Leslie Jamison: before our first date, he sent me 17 passages from The Empathy Exams and asked me to rank how true I thought each of these passages were from 1-10 and then write a short response. Even though I had read the Empathy Exams, I suggested we just go out instead. Cut to the chase, we got married and had a kid. And when Leslie Jamison came to Denver six days after I gave birth, I went to her class. She got some of the details wrong in her tweet, which was my defacto internet birth announcement.

Denver on book tour was a woman coming to my event five days after giving birth because she wanted to tell me that when they were first getting together her husband gave her a 14-question quiz based on EMPATHY EXAMS. Other highlights: Old friends. Good cornbread. These mountains. pic.twitter.com/68GmX3j0Tt

— Leslie Jamison (@lsjamison) October 6, 2019

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption, Scott Simon

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, Edited by Jhumpa Lahiri

Spring, Karl Ove Knausgaard

Previously read: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2018

2018 was the year I realized I should have fewer expectations. This was supposed to be the year I got a literary agent and also a year my mom didn’t get cancer, and neither of those things happened. My collection was too short and my mom has cancer. Good things did happen, though: I married my boyfriend on the winter solstice, I went on the best run of my life on the Oregon Coast, and started work on a podcast. But also, our government separated children from their parents and my mom has cancer.

In any case, I read, and thanks to my husband, listened to books, as well. Here’s my list:

In the Garden of North American Martyrs, Tobias Wolff

A Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

A Hand Reached Out to Guide Me, David Gates (DNF)

Never Mind, Edward St Aubyn

Bad News, Edward St Aubyn

Some Hope, Edward St Aubyn

Mother’s Milk, Edward St Aubyn

No Logo, Naomi Klein

The Wife, Meg Wolitzer*

This is Meg Wolitzer at her best: deliberate, smart, and compelling. I couldn’t fall asleep after reading this book.

The Vegetarian, Han Kang

Wabi-Sabi, Leonard Koren

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee*

If you would have asked me what was going on in my life while I was reading Pachinko, I would have said, I’m reading Pachinko. Centered around ethnic Koreans in post-World War II Japan, Pachinko opens up a whole world, and as an epic family saga, reminded me of the basic pleasure of reading.

Free Food for Millionaires, Min Jin Lee

You Think It, I’ll Say It, Curtis Sittenfeld (L)*

If you’ve read this book and want to discuss whether the narrator in Plausible Deniability is in love with his sister-in-law or really is that emotionally unavailable, hit me up.

The Birth of Korean Cool, Euny Hong

Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday *

After Philip Roth died, I couldn't read enough tributes; Asymmetry was the perfect grief read. Also, I didn’t realize I had a fantasy to be objectified by Philip Roth, but this book scratched that itch as well.

The State of Affairs, Esther Perel (L)*

Kudos, Rachel Cusk *

In this book, Rachel Cusk makes the story of someone else’s dog dying compelling. She can do anything.

Motherhood, Sheila Heti (L, DNF)

The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe

Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado (DNF)

Seeds from the East, Bertha Holt

The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson*

Calypso, David Sedaris*

I’ve never been so high-brow as to think David Sedaris is low-brow, or even mind if he’s mid-brow. Whatever reservations the intelligentsia may have about him, he tackles mortality, family, and the limits of loyalty with wit and honesty in this collection.

LaRose, Louise Erdrich (DNF)

The Folded Clock, Heidi Julavits*

Not much happens in this memoir, but Heidi Julavits is so charming that it doesn’t matter.

All Joy and No Fun, Jennifer Senior (L)

The Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso

To Save the Children of Korea, Arissa Oh

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, Alistair MacLeod

All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung

Sleepless Nights, Elizabeth Hardwick

The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson

Becoming, Michelle Obama (L)*

What you’ve heard is true: Becoming is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. Michelle Obama’s coming of age story as a smart, hardworking Southside girl who goes on to be First Lady is a necessary reminder of what’s great about this country.

Blue Nights, Joan Didion

The Savage Detective, Roberto Bolano (DNF)

I’m off of casual misogyny in literature. There’s just too much to read to spend 500 pages with a character who doesn’t see women as anything more than objects.

My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante (L, R)*

I’ve now read, listened to, and watched My Brilliant Friend, and in every form, it’s hard to get into, but ultimately brilliant.

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

No one tells you this because suicide isn’t a joke, but this book is funny.

L: Listened

R: Reread

*: Raronauer recommend

DNF: Did not finish

Previously read: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2017

A lot happened in 2017, but then a lot happens every year. Politically, the year was trash. Professionally, quite fruitful. Creatively, filled with some much needed validation. Personally, well, the personal narrative is private for now.

The analogy of my year came during a half-marathon I hadn’t trained for, when between miles 8 and 9, the crown of my back molar came off on an energy chew. I was lucky to notice it before I swallowed. I held onto the crown in my gloved hand for a mile without slowing down, and then gave it to Bryon, who met me at mile 10 to pace me for the rest of the race. Despite having decaying teeth (this was the year I spent $2000 at the dentist after reading an Onion article), I felt very grateful for my body and my ability to run 13.1 miles at will. I also felt grateful that I already had a teeth cleaning scheduled for later in the week and reattaching the crown wasn’t a problem.

What does that analogy mean? I don’t know, I guess in the face of a lot of bullshit, things mostly worked out for me this year.  

While I check my privilege, here’s the list of what I read this year:

Flash Fiction Forward, Robert Shapard, James Thomas (Editors)
On Michael Jackson, Margo Jefferson
City of Thieves, David Benioff*
The Coast of Chicago, Stuart Dybek
Postcards from the Edge, Carrie Fisher
The Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler*

Whether because of Trump anxiety, living with Bryon, or generally becoming an adult, 2017 was the year I became a more regular cook. I spent many Sundays watching reality TV and making pasta bake. This book taught me to keep the greens from beets and reminded me of the basic pleasure of cooking.

The Normal One, Jeanne Safer
The Handmaiden’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston

I lent this book to a male coworker with two teenage daughters, and he came back with, “Are women really this stupid about men?” Yes.  

The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy*
The Secret History, Donna Tartt ®*
Transit, Rachel Cusk*
Love and Other Obstacles, Aleksandar Hemon*
Do Not Become Alarmed, Maile Meloy*

I met Maile Meloy on Twitter, and then again in Santa Monica and Denver. She’s lovely, as a writer and a person. This book shows her versatility: you may know her as a soulful New Yorker short story writer, but she’s also a middle grade fiction writer, and a master of plot. I read this book in a weekend, and I recommend it to anyone looking to get lost in a fictional world.

The Seven Good Years, Etgar Keret*
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth ®*

While I love Philip Roth, in the past, I had talked some shit about the glove passage of American Pastoral as proof that Roth was a writer before a master of story. This book features Roth’s lyrical beauty, but also has the kind of storytelling that rivals the best of sci-fi. (I don’t actually read sci-fi, but I imagine it has a lot of plot.)

The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy
Anything is Possible, Elizabeth Strout*
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri ®*
Single, Carefree, Mellow, Katherine Heiny
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Parker
Laughable Loves, Milan Kundera
How to Leave Hialeah, Jennine Capó Crucet
The Unsettlers, Mark Sundeen
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
Music for Wartime, Rebecca Makkai
The Twilight of the Superheroes, Deborah Eisenberg*
The Vanishing Velázquez, Laura Cumming

After seeing Ramiro Gomez talk about Las Meninas, I realized I needed to see the painting in person before I died. About two years later, I met my Mom in Madrid, and we spent a lot of time at the Prado staring at it. Of course life is short and history is long, but there’s something kind of amazing about standing in front of the same painting that Picasso, King Philip, and of course, Velázquez himself stood in front of. I read this book in Spain, and while it’s a bit of a deep dive, it fed my excitement about seeing Velázquez’s work in person.

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner ®*

Rereading this book in Denver was the first time I ever wished I had an e-reader; it would have been nice to read it while I was in Madrid. When I came back home to my copy, not only could I catch references to various streets in Madrid, but I also appreciated that Ben Lerner, for all his fussing about, does care about plot and character development.

Transactions in a Foreign Currency, Deborah Eisenberg
My Misspent Youth, Meghan Daum
Sam the Cat, Matthew Klam
Paris Stories, Mavis Gallant
Going to Meet the Man, James Baldwin
Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney*

Believe the hype, this is a good book. I read this book while going through a difficult time, and there was something so lovely about losing myself in a slim volume over the course of a weekend. Being a writer has made me understand fiction better but enjoy it less. A great book brings me back to my first love: reading. 

The Burning Girl, Claire Messud

* Raronuer recommended
® A Raronauer reread

Previously read:

2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Year in Read, 2016

I’ve been doing this list for more than 10 years now, and almost every year, I make some allusion to the political darkness that has permeated the year. But when I look back on my post from 2014, I can’t remember what act of terrorism my coy remarks were referring to. I’ll probably remember 2016 as the year that America elected a fascist for President, but just in case: Donald Trump became president this year, and I’ve never been more scared and consumed by politics in my life.

So that was the low of 2016. There were a lot of highs. I met a man I love; I bought an apartment with tall ceilings, great natural light, and a perfect writing room; my dog Rex has continued to be a puppy angel; everyone I love remains alive; friends are making new people for me to love; I’ve had innumerable moments riding my bike, running or hiking where I was completely aware of how lucky I am to be healthy; I met one of my literary heroes, Maile Meloy; I finally watched Transparent, I visited L.A., Minneapolis, New York, Austin, and Las Vegas. And of course I read a lot of books.

Here’s my 2016 list:

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

I like self-help in a there’s wisdom-in the obvious kind of way, but this book didn’t do it for me. 

At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcón
Quartet in Autumn, Barbara Pym
Lit, Mary Karr
In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

I love Jhumpa Lahiri, but I can only recommend this book to people who are equally obsessed. For everyone else, the excerpt of this book in the New Yorker is more than enough. 

Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff

Unrelated, Lauren Groff’s sister is an Olympic triathlete. And even more unrelated, Lindsey Buckingham’s brother was an Olympic swimmer.  

Gryphon, Charles Baxter

This was the best short story collection I read all year. Charles Baxter knows how to write a sentence, set a mood, and make you feel. 

Granta Best American Short Stories
About A Mountain, John D'Agata
A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Readable, engaging, but also terrible? I almost stopped reading this book with 20 pages to go. It’s suffer porn, and if that’s your thing, have at it.

Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld

Remember when reading was fun? Curtis Sittenfeld does. Her books always charm and delight me, and it’s too bad I’ve never seen a man read her books. This was also the year she got her first story in the New Yorker, after 20 years of trying, which speaks to the value of persistence and also, shame on The New Yorker for waiting so long. Few stories in the New Yorker have been better than an excerpt from Prep or American Wife.

Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
NW, Zadie Smith
My Struggle, Volume 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard
2011 Best American Fiction
The Girls, Emma Cline

The best and most honest take on the modern day female experience I’ve read in awhile. Recommended to anyone trying to understand women.

The News From Spain, Joan Wickersham
Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner
The Lay of the Land, Richard Ford
Open City, Teju Cole

For anyone in the market for a smart novel—not showy smart, but a novel sincerely contemplating big ideas—Open City is for you.

A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin
Swing Time, Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith is just the best. Her prose are engaging, thought provoking, and elegant, and she knows how to tell a story. It might not be a “perfect” novel, but it’s the most ambitious and enjoyable novel I’ve read in years.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers
I Am Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout

Recommended to all writers and to anyone who finds this slim volume at a used bookstore.

Taking Care, Joy Williams
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

Previously read: 

2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Not Bored

In my last apartment in New York, I lived with Joanie, a kosher vegan public school librarian. She was stubborn and self-actualized to the point that she didn’t engage much with reality. For instance, she once went to France and Germany during Passover, which to me seemed like not an ideal destination for a person not eating leavened bread or any animal products. She was also always running late. Each school day was a panic of breakfast, showering, gathering lunch, and doing all the things that it takes to start the day.

Our other roommate once asked Joanie, “Why don’t you just wake up earlier?” To which she replied, “I just need to do everything faster.”

I feel a bit like Joanie lately. I wake up early enough for two pour over coffees, but the rest of my life feels frantic. I have what? No kids and a mostly 9-to-5 job. But also, I try to write 12 hours a week, I like being active, I just bought a condo, I have friends, I’m in a relationship, I try to read some of the New Yorker and Sunday New York Times every week, as well as finish at least two books a month, there’s a dog, and this quarterly speaker series I run. Ok, I guess there’s a lot going on.

When I think of what I’d like to accomplish in the next three months in my free time—finish a short story, wallpaper a bathroom, begin co-habitating with Bryon gracefully, look for grants for my speaker series, read A Manual for Cleaning Woman, Swing Time, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and finish the fall Paris Review, and of course, walk my dog, go grocery shopping, maintain friendships, and exercise regularly—I realize I need to wake up earlier. That is, in this analogy, give up some stuff. I’m not sure what. I just keep hoping I can do everything faster, which is an insane and useless strategy.

Ok, so that’s me right now. Too busy, but too stubborn and self-actualized to do anything about it.

From a birthday card I never sent

I hope your birthday is good, filled with ice cream cake and joy. In other projected birthday fantasy news: I hope your day includes unseasonably warm weather, good mail, a new bike in your foyer, and warm wishes from strangers checking your ID. 

Some Goals for 2016

• To be less regimented
• To choose life over sleep
• To travel on a plane with someone
• To visit Vancouver, Chicago, and Cincinnati
• To dance more 
• To take people at their best intentions
• To see my cousin-niece and nephew 
• To be healthy
• To cook a real meal once a week
• To buy a knife sharpener
• To buy a drying rack
• To go to Target
• To give Rex more baths 
• To be more generous 
• To be better at accepting compliments
• To appreciate every full moon 
• To be patient
• To be in the moment 
• To be proud of myself 
  

Year in Read, 2015

The Empathy Exams*, Leslie Jamison
Are You Really Listening?, Mary E. Siegel and Paul J. Donoghue
The Ultimate Good Luck, Richard Ford
Moby-Dick®, Herman Melville
Reasons to Live, Amy Hempel
Stories of Frank O’Connor, Frank O’Connor
Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked, James Lasdun
Splash State*, Todd Colby

When your former running store manager publishes a book of poetry, you use a Bodyglide insert as a bookmark.

Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson
Suddenly, A Knock on the Door*, Etgar Keret
There’s Something I Want You To Do*, Charles Baxter

In an interview on Bookworm, Baxter says that wanting someone to do something else is the basic premise of every story. He has a point. 

The Secret History*, Donna Tartt

If our paths crossed in late March, and you asked what was going on with me, I would have answered that I was reading The Secret History. I spent most of my birthday blissed out reading it. It’s very rare and very special to be in the middle of a novel that creates such a feeling of immersion.  

The Anatomy of Story, John Truby

Not wrong. 

Attached, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
Sweet Talk®*, Stephanie Vaughn

This is Vaughn’s only book, but nearly every story in this collection is a heart breaker. Check out Dog Heaven and Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog on the New Yorker fiction podcast. 

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Mindful Writer, Dinty W. Moore
Stoner, John Williams
The Rules of Attraction, Bret Easton Ellis
One of Us, Asne Seierstad
Wildlife, Richard Ford
Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan
Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari

Honestly, I had to stop reading this because it was stressing me out.

This Won’t Take But a Minute*, Honey, Steve Almond
The Goldfinch*, Donna Tartt
The Story of the Lost Child*, Elena Ferrante

Ferrante fever is real. I left social engagements early to read; I had two dreams about this book while I was reading it. A 1600 page series is a commitment, sure, but if you’re curious about female friendship or Italy, it’s worth reading. Previously.  

Slaughterhouse90210*, Maris Kreizman

Previously. 

New American Stories, Ben Marcus (Editor)
American Pastoral®, Philip Roth
The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante
Tiny Beautiful Things*, Cheryl Strayed

* Raronuer recommended
® A Raronauer reread

Previously read: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

A Verb Vacation

The last time I was away was Thanksgiving, but the last time I felt really away, when I was using foreign currency and didn’t have a cellphone, was in 2011.

That was the year between my New York life and my Denver one. That summer, I spent a week in the Adirondacks, another one in Bulgaria, hopped through Istanbul and Berlin, and then spent three weeks driving across the country. My time in Germany was brief, maybe four days. But I’ve probably thought about that trip for more hours than I was actually on it. Berlin is a great city for a lot of reasons, but what I loved about being there was feeling very aware of the verbs—reading, writing, and running—that made me happy, and making time to do them all.

For the past four years, I’ve integrated all those verbs into my life. Even without the subway, I still manage to read a lot. I’ve woken up at 6:03 every day to write. After this blog post, I’ll go on a four-mile run in the park near my house. But after four years of such good habits, I’m starting to worry that I’ve duped myself. It’s not that being so verb-responsible hasn’t made me content. But always worrying about when I’m going to write or run, or choosing to read over spending time with people—it’s closed me off from some experiences. I have a feeling there’s more to life than doing the things I’m supposed to be doing.

A friend is meeting me in Seoul, and while I’m packing the addresses of three dozen friends to write postcards to, many books, and running shoes, I’m hoping not to get anything productive done. I’m hoping I’ll be present in Korea, instead of worrying about getting my reading, writing or running in.

No one needs a vacation, least of all me, who just went to New York last month. But I’m looking forward to taking a break from my verbs, if not myself, for a week.

About Those 1000 Words

Before the Autumnal Equinox, I decided I would write 1000 words every day until the Winter Solstice.

I’ve done ok on the challenge. But pretty soon into the fall, I rewrote the rules: dealing with 1000 words a day counted. Some days, I just erased 1000 words. But almost every day since September 22, I’ve done 1000 words worth of work, which is something.

Since before the fall, I’ve been thinking about Cory Gilstrap, a puppet maker I met for Making the Mountain. When I visited his studio, he demonstrated some basic puppet motions, and I asked him how he learned to make puppets come to life. Through his bare hand, he said, “I did this every night before I fell asleep when I was a kid. Didn’t you do that too?”

I didn’t. But Cory’s question got to me. I think most people who end up doing something they love have that relationship with their medium. That is, it doesn’t just feel vital. It feels natural. Almost any artist can claim that their medium is the fastest path to truth: a writer could argue that organized words are the most logical way to express an idea, but so could a photographer about images. For the first time in a while, I started to think about why I’m creating people and scenarios to express a truth.

The other thing about this challenge is that it’s happening during fourth quarter, which is the time of year my job gets stressful. I also took a workshop during this period. On my tissue box on my desk I’ve written “Busy and stressed or bored and depressed.”

Because I knew I was creating a hectic fall, I made a conscious choice to read less for the past few months. On mornings where I had to be at work early, I came home to write instead of read. 

Of course, I made time for the Jhumpa Lahiri essay that came out last month about learning Italian. There’s nothing I can say about the essay beyond recommending it. Jhumpa Lahiri translates words into feelings better than anyone I know. She’s the author who made me want to be a writer. And reading the essay, I just felt delight. That delight feels so separate from the work I’m doing right now. Figuring out if there needs to be two sisters in a story isn’t really fun at all. 

What I realized this fall is that I like reading a lot. That’s the thing I did every night before bed when I was a kid. It’s the thing that feels most natural to me. I’ve really missed it.

In less than two weeks, I’ll be in Korea for Christmas. I’m not bringing a computer. I just want to read books and be present. Let’s be real, I’ll write postcards too, but only because postcards are the best.

This is How the Internet Economy Can Work

For the past six years, checking Slaughterhouse90210 has been part of my morning routine. If you haven’t heard of the blog, and aren’t good at neolexic portmanteaus, Slaughterhouse90210 takes a screen shot from a TV show and places it with a quote from literature. The screengrab and the quote each underscore the other, and together they prove how literature and TV explore universal truths of the human experience. It doesn’t hurt that Maris Kreizman, the blog’s author, has great taste (to me, anyway). There’s something kind of wonderful about seeing my favorite shows paired with my favorite writers (90210/Lorrie Moore, Friday Night Lights/Haruki Murakami).

When news came out that this blog was going to become a book, I was very excited. Not just for the writer, who clearly puts so much thought into making loving and insightful pairings, but for myself. Over the years, this blog has given me so much joy, and I wasn’t able to support Kreizman’s effort in any way beyond liking her posts. A hardcover version of the blog was a way to actually back all the work Kreizman has done.

Her book, which is excellent, wouldn’t exist without the internet, and much of Kreizman’s her work is available for free there. Still, what’s free compared with compensated? In the same way people are asking where their food comes from, I hope we can start asking where our content comes from. When someone makes something great, we need to pay for it.

Onto Fall

Fall is my dad’s favorite season. It’s not my least favorite, but as a prelude to winter, I’m suspect of changing leaves. Maybe this is because I don’t ski, but winter is the worst. The sun is barely out and leaving the house is a strategic decision vis-à-vis layers.  The fresh fruit game is weak and the national holidays aren’t as well recognized.  

Still, every season has it’s time, and trying to stay in summer is a fool’s errand. Fact: fall is going to happen and summer is going to end. Time only moves in one direction, and soon enough people will be saying “I can’t believe it’s June” the way they’ve been saying “I can’t believe it’s September.”

Regardless of my feelings of the changing seasons—or maybe because of them—I’ve decided to take on fall in full force. I got a haircut. I changed my bike to fixed gear. I’ve burned a sage bundle in my apartment to welcome the new season. (This, after all, is my fifth fall in the Rocky Mountain West.)

Most significantly, I’ve decided to do a 1000 word challenge. From the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice, I’m going to write 1000 words a day. They don’t have to be good words, but they have to be new ones. For the past good while, I’ve been editing. And while it can feel very satisfying to change where “I said” appears in a passage of dialog, that obsession is different than creating new material.

We’ll see how it goes. My main feeling right now, having not written 1000 words today but only signing a contract with myself and tumblr about doing it, is that time is going to move forward either way, so I better make the most of it.

I’m writing a short story that features a guy I see in the park who has a dog. Most of the feedback has been like, “Yo, can you put some conflict up in this piece?”–as if conflict were as easy to add as red pepper flakes on a slice of pizza. Every time I see this guy, the part of me that loves to be awkward wants to tell him about the story and maybe ask for a lock of his beard. The part of me that has more social decency just wants to make small talk to find out if he has any drama in his life. 

This morning, for the first time since I started the story, I saw him outside of the park. He and his dog were on the corner of my street. It seemed that they had walked east for a cup of coffee. Maybe he’s writing a short story about a Dazbog barista, because I know there’s better coffee on his side of Cheesman. Or he could have a nascent Cheesman East romance going on. I have no idea what he was doing this morning. I know this guy so vaguely that I’m not sure I would recognize him without his dog.

Charm Offensive

Charm is like a Magic Eye word for me. I know what it means, but my understanding of it is always changing. Officially, and as a noun, charm is the power or quality of giving delight or arousing admiration. But in my head, charm also has an unctuous quality. Salesmen are charming. As a verb, charm is to control or achieve as if by magic. I imagine charming people as vacuous and good looking, without a worry about their phone’s battery life. Under that definition, a charming person wouldn’t charm me.

Of course, I have been charmed by people, and the more charming people I meet, the more I realize that charm, or good charm anyway, doesn’t feel like a noun. It feels like a nascent connection, a small joke that is the start of a larger friendship. The most charming people, to me anyway, listen well and make good eye contact. They aren’t big personalities. They are sincere, almost earnest. They wouldn’t describe themselves as charming, and I doubt they mean to be.

But even with that kind of charming person, there’s a salesman feeling. It comes later, when the small jokes stay small. The really charming ones can get away with it, though. The feeling of potential around them is so great it’s almost better than something real.

Year in Read, 2014

2014 was filled with real tragedies, nationally and internationally. All the while, we went on as individuals, going to the supermarket and through mountain passes, worrying about being late and uncertain what to do when we arrive early. When they make the period piece set in 2014, I wonder how they’ll represent all the mundane that happened amidst all the chaos. In any case, amidst all the chaos and mundane, I did a lot of reading. And here’s what I read over the past year:

My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

Maybe I’ll remember 2014 as the year I read Neapolitan Trilogy. To be real, I had a lot of trouble with the first 100 pages, but once I got into this series, the next 1000 pages flew by. I’ve never been one for fantasy or multi-part epic, but after reading Ferrante, I can see the appeal. By the time I started the second book, The Story of a Name, I felt like I was living two lives—my own and Ferrante’s.

Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman

Quack This Way, David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner

My dad followed a link from an American Bar Association email to an interview with DFW about arguing persuasively. He subsequently bought me this book and I enjoyed it.

Maus, Art Spiegelman (reread)

Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg 

I love self-help. I believe in the wisdom of the obvious. From Lean In, I’ve come to think about my writing as a child of sorts, and I’ve fought for mornings to write as if I were trying to make some little league game.

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

If Edith Wharton were alive today, we wouldn’t be friends, but I would definitely stalk her on Facebook.

Bark, Lorrie Moore

I mean Lorrie Moore!

Canada, Richard Ford

I mean Richard Ford!

The Humor Code, Peter McGraw & Joel Warner.

The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante

S/Z, Roland Barthes

I don’t think I should even list this book. I totally gave up on it because it wasn’t assigned by a professor and I am weak.

Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman

Two years later, I really liked this book. It was a very smart take on the way we live and love now. Related recommended reading: Sasha Weiss’s take on the Page Turner blog.  

Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs, Caroline Knapp

Men Without Women, Richard Ford

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, Lawrence Wright

I can only hope that Scientology has some dirt on Beck, otherwise this interview is bananas.  

Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami

The Plague, Albert Camus

Those Who Stay and Those Who Leave, Elena Ferrante

Outlines, Rachel Cusk

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham

One of Ours, Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing

I’m writing a short story about the Oklahoma City Bombing, so I read this book. It hasn’t made my short story better yet.

Best American Short Shorts, 2014, Jennifer Egan (editor)

A controversial list.

The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor, Peter Taylor

The Group, Mary McCarthy

Every Day is for the Thief, Teju Cole

10:04, Ben Lerner

I want more people I know to read this book so we can talk about it. That’s not the same as an endorsement. It’s more of a pre-endorsement of a conversation.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast

Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin

Previously read: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006