Another much belated post - the yearly summary of the prior year's reading. Why bother, I am asking myself? Because I like to see something accomplished? Sometimes I wonder if I read because I like to complete something when everything else seems unfinished.
At any rate, in 2020, I recorded reading 70 books, a few more than last year's 62. I counted quite a few children's chapter books - we've been more dedicated to our nightly reading of chapter books instead of picture books, so that boosted my numbers. This fall, my reading definitely slowed down as I was treading water while teaching and managing life. Thank goodness the teens took over most of the dinner prep this fall. And since they have decided they like their food better than my cooking, I pretty much have stepped back from cooking dinner more than once or twice every two weeks or so.
The lack of car trips may have reduced the reading I did this year, also. But I participated in a book club in which we read Book Riot's Read Harder Book List that expanded the kind of books I usually read. Everyone reads their own selections, and then we share recommendations. It's a very esoteric list - and the categories tend to focus on identity of the author or main character, which makes certain categories harder to fulfill, but I ended up reading some enjoyable selections for that list that I wouldn't normally pick up.
And thank goodness for the Little Free Libraries! Our library has been opened with reduced hours for some time, and they were doing online checkout with curbside pick up for weeks before they opened again, but we haven't spent much time there because the youngest now actually does some school work and in the afternoons we often head to the park or swimming and ballet lessons or walk the dog. But I like to browse shelves, not the online card catalog, so I shifted to picking more from the book boxes, which have proliferated and remained full during this pandemic. Every time I walk by, I have to pick in to see what is new - and I can pass three or four Little Libraries every walk. Thus I have a teetering stack of books waiting to be read - and need to get serious about putting some back in the box that I may never get around to reading.
But now in the interest of keeping track, this year I read:
Children's Books: 17 chapter books, some graphic novels, not including picture books
Favorite: Tough choice here. I was excited to read The Penderwicks at Last, which was thoroughly enjoyable. I think I liked the series better than my girls. And it was fun to read about wedding plans as our son's wedding is growing near, although planning anything has been difficult. I also really liked A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Parks, about a young boy fleeing his war torn village in Sudan. It's based on a true story. Both of these books I read to myself - I didn't read them aloud to the 6 year old, but they are thoughtful and well written stories for adults as well as young people.
Poetry: 3 collections
Favorite: Probably the Richard Wilber collection, although I did enjoy both Walker's and Snyder's collections. I also read a fair bit of poetry online while planning for class - I assign Camille Dungy, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, W. S. Merwin, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and PB Shelley, some haiku, and some selections from The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream. I mix up the contemporary poets sometimes, but the Transcendentals and Romantic poets and Shakespeare are always in the reading packet, although this term I picked some different poems.
Lit Journals: 3
Favorite: Again, too few to pick a favorite: Image, Sewanee Review, and I included the Best of Science and Nature Writing in this catalog. I subscribed to Orion this year again and signed up for a free issue of The Sun, but they don't exactly fit this category. The writing is usually excellent in Orion, but I won't renew this year - the apocalyptic essays sometimes go too far. I did sign up for Plough, though, after assigning several essays from their website this term. And I have enjoyed looking through Emergence online. It is a relatively new publication with an appealing layout.
Fiction: 21
Favorite: This is a tough one. I think I'd have to pick The Mothers by Brit Bennet or Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessamyn Ward, or Zora Neale Hurston's The Eyes Were Watching God. All black women writers, all very lyrical. Bennet's novel does read like a first novel, but her characters came alive, and her plot was engrossing. The sad thing is I borrowed this book, a signed copy, from a friend and I CAN"T FIND IT. I put it somewhere safe while cleaning up before Christmas, and now I'm afraid I turned it in at the library or a book box accidentally. It is NOWHERE.
Nonfiction: 16, not including spiritual books - in which case it is 27, more than fiction...
Favorite: I read a bit of Pico Iyer after he spoke at the Writers' Symposium by the Sea and I picked up several Robert Macfarlane books in interest of my nature writing class - then I didn't assign any of his essays. They just don't quite fit in my list, but I may revise that next term. I love his evocative style, but he is not a fast read. That said, my very favorite was hands' down, Brian Doyle's One Long River of Song. I also thoroughly enjoyed the letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder collected in Distant Neighbors. The book made me wish for a similarly minded penpal for myself.
Classics: 4? Their Eyes Were Watching God + children's books. A sad showing in this category. I need to remedy this next year.
Favorite: Since I already mentioned TEWWG, I'll nominate Charlotte's Web. Never get tired of reading it. But I did also love rereading A Secret Garden.
Rereads: 4 - the same four in the classics category - hence, classics. Charlotte's Web, A Secret Garden, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Magician's Nephew
Spiritual reading: 15.
Favorite: Perhaps I could include Belden Lane's Backpacking with the Saints, which I enjoyed, but had pretty high expectations for, which weren't quite met. My favorite book club pick was probably The Bells of Nagasaki By Takashi Nagai. I had read his biography, The Song of Nagasaki, but his autobiography was extremely moving. Saints and Villains, the novel about Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Denise Giardino, was another book club pick I really enjoyed. I was a bit disappointed in a couple of our book club choices, notably Christine Watkins' The Warning, which is a warning about a coming apocalypse based on visions of several people who say that everyone will receive their own vision of their lives and judgement in order to have a chance to repent. It's the kind of book that keeps you up at night out of fear, rather than because it is so good. I talked to our priest about it, and while he didn't come out right and say it was heretical, he did suggest that anything that relies on fear and predictions about the future should be set aside.
I should perhaps go in and put links to these titles, but in the interest of time - already it is two weeks after I started writing this! - I will hit publish. I am off to a slow start for 2021. After gorging on Liane Moriarity books with the young adults over Christmas break, and the having to dive in to class planning and Canvas course creation, - oh, and watching All Creatures Great and Small! LOVE it - I haven't had much time or energy to read into the wee hours. But one book that will make my list of favorites for next year is Dorothy Sayers's Busman's Holiday. Lord Peter and Harriet take off on a honeymoon to the small English village where Harriet was born and immediately get dragged into a murder mystery. Those dangerous small villages! Those dreamy small villages! A sad reminder that a trip to the English countryside was supposed to be in our future this spring because our third son was supposed to be studying in London this summer. Darn Covid!
That son just turned 21 but had been celebrating by drinking our wine since our trip to see grandma who told him he could round up...
I'll end with some goals for next year, although who knows if I'll look back. I'm planning to read a big fat classic for my Book Riot book club's category of a book you've been putting off - maybe Bleak House. We also pick my Catholic book club picks at the beginning of the year this time, so we'll be reading more spiritual classics, and fewer end times books. Right now we're reading a book on St. Joseph for the meeting next week - need to finish! I'm rereading Louise Perrotta's book I already owned and reading a novel God's Courageous Carpenter, that my mother in law gifted me. I just ordered The Squire and Sally Thomas's Motherland, now that it is in paperback. And I've got that stack of books to read from those book boxes...
