30 Books

One of my goals for 2021 was to get back into reading. It's strange to me how reading used to be such a regular part of my life and an activity I defined my identity by back when. But mid-way through my twenties the punishing reading schedule of law school combined with the siren song of television stamped out any appetite I had for recreational reading. 

But in actuality, my mom had resolved to become "a reader" (although her delineation did puzzle me, since I have always considered my mom to be a reader) and in sharing her Audible password with me, she opened the door for many mini book discussions on my weekends home. Then, my sisters plus an honorary sister successfully launched a more formal book discussion group, which has successfully selected three titles in 2021. We are getting it done the way that works for us. 

For attribution purposes, many of these titles were recommended by the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club; this is not my own curation. 

It has been life-enriching to be consuming books again. Many selections have assisted me in considering certain topics anew. The Cold Millions, for example, read just before the George Floyd protests broke out, forced me to reexamine the role of direct action and peaceful protest. Codependent No More gifted me so much wisdom about why I struggle in certain ways in certain relationships. I listened to Americanah while I worked on a Nigerian asylum case and I listened to Sparks Like Stars while Kabbul fell to the Taliban.

I noticed when reviewing the ground I had covered this year was how each title evoked memories from when I had been reading that book. Even though the vast majority were consumed while driving, I remember those trips: stopping for Chick-fil-A in Virginia while listening to The Silver Chair; getting a speeding ticket in Roscoe while listening to The Other Black Girl; blushing through Beach Read on a flight back from Mexico; hunting for the Mercer Williams House in Savannah before starting Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Usually my memories feel very slippery to me, but sharing these books with other people (Peter, my mom, our book discussion group, our travel companions) has helped me hang onto not only the stories themselves, but also the slices of life that was happening while I encountered these stories. 

This is the full list of books I finished in 2021:

• Station Eleven by Emily Mandel
• Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• I'll Be Seeing You by Elizabeth Berg
• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
• The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wrap Gregorie
• The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
• The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
• The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
• The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
• Writers & Lovers by Lily King
• People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
• Dream Big by Bob Goff
• Americanah by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren
• Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi
• The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
• The River by Peter Heller
• Out of the Pocket by Kirk Herbstreit
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Good House by Ann Leary
• Beach Read by Emily Henry
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• It's Better to Be Feared by Seth Wickersham
• Evicted by Matthew Desmond
• Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
• The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lucas

This time last year

It was on that month-long trip around Europe last year where I first instituted that annoying habit of punctuating conversation with an exaggerated, "Story of my life!" And while this "witticism" presumably got way old way fast for everyone else, it came upon me when I first read these lines at the start of George Macdonald's novel Lilith: "Then first I knew what an awful thing it was to be awake in the universe: I was, and could not help it!" And how very like this I felt, a spectator to history in these places so traversed over hundreds of years. Story of my life.

And so Lilith proved to be a fantastic literary backdrop to a jaunt around Europe, the adventures of Mr. Vane as he abandons his library and enters a new, mysterious world. (With lots of cats.) A read-aloud put everyone else to sleep as we drove through foggy Luxembourg, but in the car rides and quiet times I was captivated by the hero's confusion and cowardice. I remember sitting at the top of the third floor stairs in the cute house near Roubaix, reading by the light in the sitting area, dead to the world around me and blinking back tears while I read of Lilith's plight. “'Yes,' he answered; 'and you will be dead, so long as you refuse to die.'” Chilled by the thought of the hand she could not open in surrender.

It grew a bit too tattered to give back to Michael, after nearly getting washed away at Praia Grande and living in my purse for four weeks. But it traveled with me, and gave me a piece of the trip that was not shared in common by anyone but was wholly my own. Standing at the foot of so many crosses in grand cathedrals, "Those are not the tears of repentance! Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.” And that blessed book gave me something to do on that very first day when a poor breakfast choice kept me confined to my room and retching for hours. (TMI?)

There were times on that trip I was bewildered beyond belief, made sick to my stomach over what I didn't understand and couldn't address. There is the amusement of fiddler crabs and squid-huntings, and there is the slow death of an innocent beetle. There is the charming and insolent graffiti, and there is the uncomfortable acceptance of clipped responses. Many happy moments are slightly colored with shades of begrudgment. And so it is not always pleasant to look through pictures and swap stories, because sometimes my memory chooses to recall the clouds and not the sun above them.

But when I think of Lilith, these are the memories untinged. Sitting on the wharf full of Nutella and crepe. “Annihilation itself is no death to evil." Happy music wailing as the Eiffel Tower sparkled at midnight. "Only good where evil was, is evil dead." The moon so small but so bright against the twinkling lights of Paris. "An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.” And choosing the good memories, to think the best, because "A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer." This time last year, I can hardly believe I sat right there. It seems a blessing to magnanimous to be real.

Sorry. No one really likes hearing about someone else's vacation. But read Lilith, 'kay?