Lately, I'm interested not just in good books but the finding.
Libraries are closed, friends are far, and buying books can be an expensive habit. Often the best books are by chance, not the ones languishing on my long books-to-read list but the novel abandoned at the airport bar, the poetry tossed aside in the hospital lobby, or the memoir discovered down the block in the little free library with the squeaky hinges and odd assortment.
Like love, good books arrive when you've given up. Across a crowded world, a good book finds you.
Here are some of my recent keepers:
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabbie Rivera
How found: Mailed to me by a friend with a note that said, I wish I could send you a library.
This is my favorite book of the year (so far). In fact, I liked it so much I had to force myself to stop racing through and instead slow down and savor. Smart writing, strong characters, and a fantastic "voice" of growing, yearning, and learning. Set in Portland, the Rose City is a character itself. Love this passage, referring to Powell's Books:
“It looked like the Salvation Army of bookstores, and who doesn’t
love a little dig through salvation?”
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh
How found: From the Little Free Library down the street, during a week without internet service when I had run out of books, both digital and print. (Thank you, neighbor!).
This is a beautifully spare memoir written with a powerful level of poetic detachment that provides space to breathe and hold.
"What're we doing?
"We're arguing?"
"We're paying attention," Joe said.
Whenever he spoke, his words were sets of clothes that we tried on for ourselves. Sometimes they fit, and other times they were old and baggy."
Things I Do At Pennsylvania Rest Stops by Ashly Kim
How found: Ordered from Rinky Dink Press, a micro-press offering palm-sized books, after watching their zoom poetry readings that felt more like backyard barbecues than stiff online lectures.
ask strangers where i am and consider
how i got there in the first place.
auto-pilot down the weekend turnpike.
eighty-miles-per-hour-almost-ghost
with the navigation turned off.
— Ashly Kim
See Also:
The Golden Age of Diners by Tara Roeder
Roto: A Mex-Tape by Oscar Mancinas
Dialogues with Rising Tides by Kelli Russell Agodon
How found: Purchased at my local bookstore, a place in which I had not lingered (because of pandemic) for over a year.
Agodon's fourth book is my new favorite. Always a strong writer, this poetry collection sounds the alarm, piercing daily life and gathering us together in the ache.
Magpies Recognize Themselves In The Mirror
The evening sounds like a murder
of magpies and we're replacing our cabinet knobs
because we can't change the world but we can
change our hardware. America breaks my heart
some days and some days it breaks itself in two.
I watched a women having a breakdown
in the mall today, and when the security guard
tried to help her, what I felt was all of us
peeking from her purse as she threw it
across the floor into Forever 21. And yes,
the walls felt like another way to hold us
and when she finally stopped crying
I heard her say to the fluorescent lighting
Some days the sky is too bright. And like that
we were her flock in our black coats
and white sweaters, some of us reaching
our wings to her and some of us flying away.
— Kelli Russell Agodon
Your Turn: What are your favorites lately? How do books find you?
If you like this blog, subscribe here to get it delivered directly to your email. If you like this blog post, please share on your social network of choice or forward to a friend.
The world turns on words, please read & write.