The Year in Review: books edition

 This year I read 64 books. That works out to more than one a week, which is more than 99% of the population, according to an Instagram post, but which is less than I read in previous years. Each year, my reading list keeps shrinking, especially considering that I never really counted picture books, of which I used to read a lot.  Last year's tally (without picture books, of which I read very few) was 66.  \

I've probably forgotten to list a few here (I have added four as I compose this post), and I didn't include some graphic novels and some "How To" teaching books, but I also did read less, in between teaching and traveling and browsing social media - the bane. I'd like to blame social media for all of societies' ills. I read an article the other day about an increase in gastro-intestinal cancers. The author mentioned food-born toxins and microplastics in water sources, but my conspiratorial self wonders if somehow electrons from our phones are corrupting people's innards. Any excuse to encourage less phone use!

But now a review. Of the 64 books: 

• 35 were novels
• 8 were read alouds - Which makes me think I missed some because we ready nearly every night, usually no more than a chapter, but I think we read about a book a month. I'll  have to look back at that. 
• 16 were children's chapter books
• 9 of those 60 were books of essays
• Maybe 3 or 4 of those could be considered spiritual books. This is a real hole in my reading. Time to remedy. I started some books I never finished in this category, but it is still indicative of my rootlessness this year. . 
• 5 books of poetry
• 1 Collection of short stories, multiple collections of essays
• 8 were rereads, mostly the read alouds
• 3 were local authors
• 14 were by BIPOC authors - sometimes the same author: Camille Dungy, Ross Gay, John Lewis...
• 15 were nonfiction. 

Of the 35 books of fiction.

• Few count as classics - mostly children's books: Where the Red Fern Grows and The Hobbit. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Dragons of Blueland, The Cricket in Times Square (Lovely!), The Bobbsey Twins. This is another poverty in my reading. The only upside is I read more poetry.
• I didn't read the big classic - Bleak House or otherwise - that I meant to read. Forward that goal. 

My favorites:  

My favorite nonfiction book was easily Children and Other Wild Animals by Brian Doyle, which I read to include in a paper. That paper was about focusing on joy to combat climate anxiety for the Christianity and Literature conference at Baylor. I also read Camille Dungy and Ross Gay for that paper, both of who I also immensely enjoyed. Writing that paper was one of the highlights of my year - I was finally happy with the way an academic paper turned out. 

My favorite novel of the year was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. As I was writing this, I realized I forgot to put it on the list this summer. It's a retelling of David Copperfield set in rural Appalachia and chronicles Demon's fall into opiods. The characters, like those of Dickens, were memorable, and the plot gripping.  I would have loved to talk about it with book club. 

I wanted to like Cloud Cuckooland by Anthony Doerr more, but it just didn't grab me. The space ship plot line was farfetched to me. I hear or read praises of it and think maybe I just wasn't in the right mindframe to read it and should revisit it, but I don't see that happening soon.  

On the other hand, I was surprised by how much I liked Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I'm not usually attracted to video game story lines, but the character development grabbed me here.  Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing was another novel I really enjoyed - one that has received a lot of press deservedly. Similarly, I got lucky and read Jessamyn Ward's Let Us Descend through the library's "Lucky Day" shelf for new releases. It started slowly, but once I got into the cadence of her writing, I was swept away in it. There seems to be a trend for reimagined slave narratives, but this one was powerful.

A few of the novels I read were new authors - Penny Pescadusa is a children's chapter book by my neighbor. It was a fun read, and I hope it gets wider distribution. I had mixed feelings about Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty, a recent Notre Dame grad from South Bend, It's a bit dark, but it kept me turning pages - maybe because it was set in familiar territory. It's about an adolescent girl from a pecunious background who falls in love with her male teacher, but his initial flirtation with her turns to ambivalence, and she falls apart as a consequence. The characters were not especially likable but were memorable. 

I could and probably should review more of what I read - I used to post more frequently about reading. I miss that habit.  Over the weekend, I picked up and read the first 50 pages or so of some middle grade books to try to find a book for our next read aloud. I thought about Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but a number of students have already read it.  The Outsiders is often read in middle school, but I wanted something a little more upbeat. I got drawn into My Side of the Mountain and A Long Way fom Chicago but I'm not sure they'd have wide appeal. The Westing Game and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankwiler are both on my short list, but don't have as much depth. I had never read The Phantom Tollbooth, and I didn't realize how allegorical it was. It might be too farfetched for wide appeal. If you have suggestions, pass them on! Something around 175-250 pages. Not too hard, not too easy. 

Goals for next year: 

I will  continue to try to substitute reading for phone time - a real killer of reading time, if not a source of cancer.

Read a long classic - Dickens or Trollope or Tolstoy... I say it, but I need to start now, and instead I'm getting drawn into Remarkably Bright Creatures but Shelby van Pelt for book club. It's narrated by an octopus and has received rave reviews. I'll let you know...

Out of time. I need to pack for our trip. And decide what books to bring along...