when I was in high school and college, I loved this time of year. I made lists and mood boards and journaled and vowed to be a different, better, more beautiful, organized, and articulate person in the new year. it was a demented but sweet impulse—I was so full of hope and raw-eyed wonder about, well, everything. it would be impossible to be a full adult human and still feel that pure, unadulterated optimism about the world, which is both a little sad and a little necessary. only the lucky get a chance to grow up, but growing up requires a bit of cynicism. this is a very angsty way to say that in lieu of this month’s missed connection or a year-end gift guide, I present to you a scrapbook of sorts: the books you liked best, the books I liked best, everything I read this year that felt urgent enough to write down, and some strange things in-between. thank you so much for giving me space over the last year to make what’s most magical to me mean something.
you.
the book you liked the most: Cleopatra and Frankenstein, which three of you purchased from my bookshop (thank you!!!!).
the post you read the most: the one about Joan Didion, also the post I was the most nervous to publish.
the post you liked the most: the one about my ex-therapist.
me.
favorite novels: Intimacies by Katie Kitamura, Close to Home by Michael Magee, and Crudo by Olivia Laing were my three favorites. of course, it’s almost impossible choose. so often, I feel like the book I’ve just read is the book I love most, but these three felt literally absorbing, like I was pasted into another world and they also changed how I thought about writing and writers.
favorite non-fiction: I did not read a lot of nonfiction this year, not as much as I feel like I usually do, but my favorites were probably Real Estate by Deborah Levy and The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison.
most recommended: outside of mc, I think the book I recommended most in the first half of the year was probably Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by the incomparable Sidik Fofana. The Guest by Emma Cline was probably the one I talked about the most over the summer because that book was everywhere. I also seem to tell someone at least once a month to read We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry.
notably non-recommended: Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver…I barely breathed while reading this novel but I keep hearing people say that their mom hated it. It’s hard to recommend a book that everyone’s mom hates. I thought it was absolutely un-put-downable and the characters were so singular and human.
my favorite place i read a book this year: I read most of Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld in an enormous bed overlooking a big river which was lovely. other than that, my favorite thing in the world is waking up on Saturdays and reading in the corner of our bed wedged between two walls with all of our pillows propped up behind me. Davis calls it my nest and I have probably spilt a cumulative gallon of coffee on our sheets this year.
quickest read of the year: I read Foster by Claire Keegan on one sunny afternoon and was wrecked afterwards. I think it’s 90 pages. If you’re going to get anyone a book as a holiday present, this is a good one. it is precise and slim and gorgeous.
quotes from my notes: I was inspired by Ann Friedman to start a note in my notes app where I typed or pasted anything I read that felt important to me and I wanted to share a few here. as I was rereading this list, I realized that a lot of the things I wrote down and wanted to remember this year are from substack. It’s so easy and usually correct to feel frustrated by the necessary evil that is the internet but what a lovely space this has become for so many of us.
“I’m not trying to be aloof. My superpower is that I mind my own business… And I actually think that helps my productivity more than anything.” Hanif Abdurraqib
“It turns out that life feels like shit when I berate, bully, coerce, or shame myself into being “someone better” every day…If I don’t accept myself, I can’t take care of myself. If I can’t take care of myself, I am a walking unmet need. If I don’t meet myself, I can neither know nor give myself what I need, and neither can anyone else. It seems that all of this hullaballoo is not really about unmet needs or even partnership necessarily, but about an unmet me. And just maybe I wouldn’t feel so needy if I didn’t spend so much time making me wrong.” Anna Fusco
“Why were we doing this, again? Why was I spending money and time this way? Isaac loved it; he stayed on the balcony, a half circle of four or five others around him, an extra bottle at his ankles, and I could hear laughter, chatter, agreement, protest, ideas. Then he looked up and smiled as to confirm our pleasure and I thought, I’m not sure I like people.” Benefit, Siobhan Phillips
“That’s how you recognize love: you’ve never met it before.” Hilton Als
“Her student years are no longer an object of nostalgic desire. She sees them as a time of intellectual gentrification, of breaking with her origins. Her memory goes from romantic to critical.” The Years, Annie Ernaux
“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it. And I am not being frivolous now, either. Something very sinister happens to the people of a country when they begin to distrust their own reactions as deeply as they do here, and become as joyless as they have become here.” James Baldwin via Daisy Cashin
“What good are roots if you can’t take them with you?” Gertrude Stein
“It takes the pressure off to think about different mediums. Because then, you’re comparing yourself to more of an emotional, artistic benchmark, rather than comparing yourself within your medium, which can feel a little panicky or gross. It misses the point because you’re just trying to contribute to the health of culture by participating in it. Any time you do something creative, you become a kind of caretaker of the creative process at large.” Halle Butler
“But I don’t only read poetry for understanding, as if every poem is a one-to-one translation of an experience or feeling. Instead, I look for something like flight or uncertainty, some threshold in a phrase or a poem’s music…I read poems to become a better writer. I know of few other ways to feel both the presence and absence of God.” Stephanie Danler
some completely un-book-related high (and low) lights from the year:
- knitted 3/4s of a scarf
- taught my first writing class
- visited New Orleans & the Rappahanok & home & isla holbox
- my younger sibling moved to Brooklyn <3
- did not start or join a book club
- converted at least 3 people to the Popcorn Bowl lifestyle
- continued biting my fingernails
- adopted a new mantra that has changed the way I travel for the better called: it’s not a vacation if I can’t swim
- lost to Davis at one (1) game of scrabble
- received one (1) compliment from a french woman on the subway regarding my sandals
- started and quit ballet
- chopped my hair off
- hosted my first dinner party (ok it was 4 people but it counts to me and our tiny apartment)
- and spent so much time reading and thinking about reading and visiting bookstores and libraries and writing things down all thanks to you. 💙
up next: I read so many shiny new books this year which I loved. there are so many writers putting out extraordinary work—how lucky are we to have almost endless options? but there are several “Important” books I have not read that I think I should, and I also think trying to keep up with new books gave my reading a sense of urgency. I sped through books and when I got to the end, I often either felt sad that they were over so soon or I did not remember the majority of the characters names which can’t be good.
I’ve been thinking a lot this year about books as objects. what does it mean to put a piece of art through a funnel that turns it into an object of commerce? Stephanie Danler recently wrote, “Contemporary publishing is a marketplace, and I often want to read outside of its vernacular.” I feel like I’m missing out by not considering novels published long ago, or even six or seven years ago. I was born in 1995 and I think the only novel I’ve read that was published that year is High Fidelity, haha. anyway, this is just to say that I’m going to try to read Ulysses this summer and I also want to reread novels I read in school like Mrs. Dalloway and The Bell Jar. I haven’t read Ursula Le Guin much and I’d like to do that. if anyone has any books they love that weren’t published in the last year or so, or any advice on getting through a tome like Ulysses, I am alllll ears.
if you read this far, I could just hug you! happy, happy holidays. i can’t wait to see you in the new year.
and as always, you can shop any books mentioned in this newsletter here.