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.