Read any good books lately?
I’m always reading something, and get nervous when my reading stack runs low. And though I read every day, I’m not often moved. I’m occupied, engaged, and sometimes engrossed, but it takes a lot to move me. The most wonderful reading experience is when I don’t want to do anything that will take me off the page. The writing is so good, the characters so real, the feelings so vivid that I want to binge on the pleasure but also don’t want the story to end. It’s a rare book that can deliver this delightful mix.
In 2021, these books moved me:
What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz
The memories of their parents were like that, sometimes filled with fury, sometimes love, sometimes sorrow. Unforgivable things mixing with dumbfounding things and tender things, the same event in equal parts hilarious and enraging. There was no one way to think of their childhoods.
Set in 1972, this suspenseful literary mystery is a masterfully woven tale of family, siblings, secrets and hope. Stellar writing both comforts and transports.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.
In this profound portrait of family, culture, and belonging a story of beautifully aching characters is built. This is Ng’s debut novel, published a few years before Little Fires Everywhere, the bestselling novel that was turned into a television series.
She’d thought she was memorable. How clear it was that she was not. It wasn’t a quality you possessed, she thought now. It was a quality other people endowed you with.
In this deep and heart-full novel about the complexities of love, marriage, and grief, Sue Miller is master of the details of daily life.
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh
Neither happiness nor sadness are ever done with us. They are always passing by.
A powerful and aching love story of mother and daughter, told in letters. A beautifully written memoir rendered with a poetic detachment that provides space to hold the pain.
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane
Others get to midlife, look around — sort of the way you might reexamine your living room when you need a new sofa — and say, What do I have here? What is this room I’ve made? Halfway through life, I wasn’t sure what I’d made.
Don’t let this cutesy cover fool you. What seems a lightweight tale is a wonderfully quiet and charming novel of friendship and self-examination.
The Second O of Sorrow by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Why Bother
Because right now, there is someone
out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words.
This poetry collection gathers together a striking blend of short powerful poems and lyrical prose pieces from a poet described as “a blue-collar, Rust Belt romantic to his generous, enthusiastic core.”
Your Turn: Read any good books lately? What books moved you?
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The world turns on words, please read & write.