To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement.
— Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Odd numbered years have tended to be not great for me. I say this for two reasons:
My own desire to give some order to the randomness of things
The fact that in the last half-decade, I have been turned down for a promotion at work twice, and both times it happened on an odd-numbered year
Whether or not my thoughts on numerology are something anyone should put stock in, the fact is that at the end of December 2023, I hadn’t felt so ready for a year to end since December of 2019.1 Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps because one sort of depression leads to another, 2023 also turned out to be “eh,” reading-wise. I read books I liked and books I didn’t. That much can be true in any given year, but for whatever reason in 2023, I didn’t connect with many of them. I finished 18 in total but somehow didn’t feel like I had much to show for it when the year ended.
Each time a book underwhelmed, I would pick up the next one thinking, “Surely, this is the one that will turn things around.” The higher the stakes, of course, the more bitter the disappointment. And so it went, on and off for months. I wondered if my choices were too much of the same thing or if I was swinging too wildly in different directions. I wondered whether I needed to make more time to read—or to read less. I wondered, too, if maybe it wasn’t the books or reading at all. If it was just me. Had I somehow, in my constant need of rescue from the stresses of my life, sapped this thing that had always brought me joy of that very power?
So, yeah, it was a hard year. The kind of hard that even books couldn’t quite take me away from. Reading is a balm, sure, but some wounds needs more than that. If a balm is all you have (to belabor this terrible metaphor), I suppose it’s natural (if somewhat illogical) to become frustrated with it when it doesn’t work.
The turn of the calendar wasn’t necessarily going to solve the things beyond my control that were challenging me. Nevertheless, as the new year approached, I set my sights on 2024 as a fresh start, at least as far as the things I could control. To that end, I committed to two changes in my reading routine:
Listening to audio books instead of music on my commute to work and during my daily walks with my dog
Reading one magazine article on Apple News at the end of the day (instead of doom scrolling on Instagram2)
I have listened to audio books in fits and starts over the years3 , never consistently. I suppose for the same reasons that e-books don’t always do it for me, audio books didn’t have the safety of the object itself, its pages, holding on to the corner of one for dear life and turning it with relish. But I wanted to do something different this year and simply committing to read more didn’t seem like enough. So, when January finally came, I opened up Libby and put a dozen holds on my account and pressed play. I haven’t really stopped since. I have come to appreciate, even look forward to, what a narrator will bring to a story. My active listening skills shave sharpened. I have even walked an extra block (or sat in the parking garage a few more minutes) time and again for the chance to start that next chapter.
Keep in mind that I have also been reading physical books.4 If you add in my deep dive back into The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s and all the fancy glossies I used to buy in college to feel smart, I have been positively inundating myself in words. Wouldn’t you know it, reader, the balm is back to working its usual wonders.
I don’t think volume was what I was missing last year. More than anything, I was craving the feeling of being moved. And I have been (more on this in a minute), but what I’ve come to understand is that it really is enough just to try. It helps merely to push yourself in a direction. Any direction. It is enough to take a step and then another. The books I read last year were something, even if it all felt like nothing at the time. How empowering it is to realize that not everything has to be, well, everything. But that everything is something. Here are two ways of looking at this:
To quote a sticker that I was given recently and that I will be quoting for life: Forward is a pace.
To paraphrase the idea that I started this post with: To just be is something of a miracle.
Let’s let that be enough.
Book Bites
What I am reading right now: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
What you need to know about the book: It takes place during the 2020 pandemic.
What you need to know about me: I would read a phonebook, if it were written by Ann Pattchet. She’s my favorite living writer.
What I am listening to right now: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, narrated by the author.
What you need to know about the audio book: It jumps back and forth between a teenage girl in Japan and a woman approaching middle-age on the western Canadian coast.
What you need to know about me: I understand why audio books are read by actors, but I especially enjoy ones read by the author, and this one is no exception.
What My Kids Are Reading Right Now
The Keeper of the Lost Cities - My 12-year-old devoured this series in a matter of weeks and is experiencing, for the first time in her life, the inspiration and frustration that comes from waiting for the publication of a much-anticipated next volume. Couldn’t be happier for her.
Everything by Roald Dahl - This newly minted 9-year-old flipped the switch on chapter books in the last year and in the process discovered Roald Dahl (I think with some prodding from her literacy teacher). Like her sister, she enjoys a hyper-fixation and has been making her way through Dahl’s titles since the school year started. Couldn’t be happier for her, too.
Book Reviews and Recommendations
I somehow got through a dozen books in the first quarter of the year. Here is handful of ideas/inspiration from that list to take into the spring and summer.
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks - This collection of essays on love was insightful, thought-provoking and so well written, packed with colorful anecdotes, stories and examples as well as careful research. I highly recommend it for anyone willing to evaluate how they think about relationships—those with our partners, with our families, with our communities and most importantly with ourselves. Some chapters didn't move me quite as well as others. Specifically, those in which Hooks ruminates on spirituality, but that's more about me and my own relationship to the divine than about Hooks, who is as open and vulnerable and resonant as any writer could hope to be about a subject.
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung - In a word: unputdownable. As soon as you start this memoir by a Korean woman adopted and raised by white parents, you will not want to—perhaps, will not be able to—put it down. This is not your usual page turner, but Chung is a great storyteller. This is a deeply emotional story from beginning to end, but also one obviously crafted by a careful, critical observer. I don't have an adoption story, and although I know something of being a minority in a small community, I don't know know what it is to be the only person who looks like you not just in the town you grew up in, but in the family that brought you up. Nevertheless, as a daughter, sister and mother, I found this to be a moving, relatable story.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker - A beautiful story from beginning to end, told in the only way it could be: in the voices of the women who loved it. There are many classics that don’t live up to the weight of their legacy once you finally sit down to read them. Not so with this one. Moving, emotional, funny, hard—all of the things Oprah promises and more. (Side note: This was the first book I finished this year, and wow, was it affirming to read a classic I’d been hearing about my whole life and absolutely understand why everyone loves it so much. This started the 2024 reading journey on the perfect foot.)
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - Making my way through this book, I sometimes wondered whether Bryson considered “500 Years of Bored Aristocrats” as a potential title. So much of this entertaining and informative recap of scientific study across most of human history focuses on the work of eccentric European men who had the right amount of time, money and in some key cases the necessary lack of ethics to pursue an understanding of the mysteries of the world. At times, I wished that Bryson's research had gone a bit further afield from Western history and perspectives. He does acknowledge, when it bears acknowledging, that the scientific academy was built by brilliant men whose discoveries sometimes caused a great deal of harm to the planet and its inhabitants, humans and otherwise. He also notes, when the occasional woman scientist of past centuries is mentioned, the significant barriers that their male peers put in front of them.
Bryson, as further evidenced by this effort, is an excellent synthesizer of complicated information. It was a hoot to read certain sections in light of more recent discoveries and events. Namely, the fate of Pluto as a non-planet and the pandemic that pre-2020 epidemiologists knew was possible. It's fair to say that my quibbles are really just a desire to read an altogether different kind of book. Despite that, I come back to Bryson because I love great writing, and he always manages that.
How bad was 2019? Even with the global pandemic and everything that came along with that, 2020 was better.
Not going to lie. Sometimes, I do both.
I’ve tried podcasts, too, but those never keep my attention for long.
My reading around is off the charts.
Loved this, Alex - hope 2024 is a good year of reading, and of life! Audiobooks changed my reading landscape dramatically, and I've perhaps tipped too far towards relying on them. One of my reading goals right now is to restore the balance of consuming with my eyes versus my ears. That said, if you are reading a printed form of Tom Lake and enjoy it even in the slightest, give the audio a listen - Meryl Streep is divine. (Ann Patchett is also my favorite living author - she has provided me so much insight and comfort over the years, and especially in recent months.)
Yes, and Tom Hanks reads Dutch House, and now knowing the friendship Hanks and Patchett (and Hanks' assistant) struck up, that one hits me hard. They're all so lovely.