Another year of reading comes to an end

I can't get enough of Kate Briggs. Plus, a recent re-read and a January class.

Dec 11, 2024

The holiday season has me feeling reflective and proud of this past year and all that I did, or even more importantly, didn’t do. I tend to romanticize the past, but especially so during the holidays. This year was a tremendous year full of so much personal growth. I did not go into this year intending on “doing the work” and I don’t feel like I actually did much self-work. Not in the sense of the work I did in my twenties, when I was two decades deep into therapy, addicted to achievement, constantly unpacking who I was (and why), devouring self-help texts, and casting never-ending spells for a life I thought I wanted. This year I made huge change by stopping bad habits without unpacking what they said about me. I practiced being in awe and spent more time with friends. I moved my body more, spent more time outside, and read a ton.

I plan to write a newsletter in January with a recap of my 2024 reading, but, I have some observations about recent reads and re-reads I just have to share.

Recently I re-read Makenna Goodman’s novella The Shame. I have not stopped thinking about this book since my first read. The plot is incredible (I don’t even want to summarize it because I think it’s a book you should go into blind— don’t think, just read), the prose even better. Goodman does a great job of showing the beauty and isolation (and sometimes cruelty) of rural living.

An excerpt from *The Shame* by Makenna Goodman

Another excerpt from *The Shame* by Makenna Goodman

It’s violent but life on the farm sometimes is like that. On the farm you see the life-death-life cycle play out in a never-ending loop. Sometimes the hens get carried off by a fox, hawk, or an owl. Other times the rooster attacks you and you fall in the mud and you take matters into your own hands. While I haven’t killed a rooster, I’d be lying if I haven’t thought of it when a walk down to the garden turns into a run for my life with 30 lbs of beets or the ash bucket. At present, our mean old rooster and I have a mutual respect. I avoid making eye contact. He runs at me but stops a foot or so short.

My relationship to The Shame makes me think of this passage from Kate Briggs’ book-length essay on the art of translation This Little Art. Start at the beginning.

An excerpt from *This Little Art* by Kate Briggs

This reminds me of so many books I read this year. I’m eager to sit down and go through the list and highlight some of my favorites (the list will be long—this was a great reading year in terms of five-star reads). So many of the books I read this year began to bleed into one another. They began to morph and shape the meaning of all the other books I read. While reading The Shame, I underlined this line: “I try not to yell at guests.” Next to it, in the margin, I wrote “Feels very May Sarton” referencing this passage from Journal of A Solitude:

An excerpt from *Journal of A Solitude* by May Sarton

What you like to read is deeply personal. So is how you read. So is your relationship to reading. I used to be a person who feared I wouldn’t understand references and as a result, I avoided certain books. I never grew up reading the classics. My elementary school was small and run by a church. There were at times, seven kids in my grade. We read mostly religious texts and war stories. My favorite books were The Pilgrim’s Progress and Flag of Our Fathers. Outside of school, I read Boxcar Children and Sweet Valley High. My public school education was not much better. My high school was adequate but not great. In 9th grade, I borrowed my friend Justin’s copy of The Bell Jar and couldn’t get out of bed for days. In 11th and 12th grade I took dual enrollment courses at the community college which I have very little memory of (not odd, I have poor memory). During undergrad, my only English class was a sci-fi focused course called Prophets of Doom and Gloom with a professor called Dr. Diamond who often fell asleep at his desk while we watched Bladerunner. I remember loving Oryx and Crake. I’ve always felt I’ve had some catching up to do. I put myself in a box as a reader, sometimes afraid to break out. But when I did break out, I devour books with a ferocity that made me realize that addiction runs deep with a thin fissure between harm and joy.

A goal I have for 2025 is to read a book in Spanish, again, something I did in Spanish class in high school and college. Perhaps I will try to get my hands on Guadalupe Nettel’s La hija única (Stillborn) in Spanish to read before rereading the English translation by Rosalind Harvey (definitely on the top books of 2024 list).

I also plan to read Middlemarch with my best pal Elise. She and I have both tried and walked away from George Elliot but we are committed to completing Middlemarch together. I thought of Elise when I read this passage from This Little Art. I’ve also felt this way with so many of you when I find out you read a book I mentioned here (or I read a book you recommended). I can’t wait to hold your hand some more in the future.

There are so few weeks left in the year and the stack on the floor of my bedroom continues to grow, thanks largely to a book sale at a nearby library which was unexpectedly fruitful. Here’s a photo of the current TBR stack. I’m not sure what I’ll pick up next. Any strong feelings?

Sunday, January 12th at 7pm ET, I will be leading a two hour class on mindless writing.

This is not to be confused with mindful writing. We aren’t going to think intentionally about what we will write in this class. We are going to be turning our brains off and finding ways to become, as Annie Dillard puts it “transparent and hollow, a channel for the work”.

This is going to be time to be playful. To be observant without overthinking. I am hoping this class becomes a blank canvas of possibility for my writing practice this next year. Perhaps that interests you too.

I am exploring if Sunday is a better night for more people to join. I am thinking this could be good way to postpone those Sunday Scaries together.

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