The Leaning Stack of Books: January 2019

It is the real first day of my new year. By that I mean that school starts again for the kids, and it’s no longer OK to spend the entire day on the couch watching the piles of holiday debris grow and tilt on every surface. Of course, like every day in my life, the world has thrown a wrench into my well laid plans to Get My Sh*t Together (2019 resolution, already withering on the vine). One kid woke up with a fever, and our next door neighbors have decided that this is the day to clean out their vents. A big truck pulled up in their driveway, which is mere feet from the side of our house, and the suction process has commenced its ear shattering song. As I write this, it is 7:30 a.m., and I am already reneging on many of the commitments I made to myself (Hello, Internet and your many seductions).

But this is a book blog, not a whine blog (or a wine blog…if I started one, could I sip while I type?). I have decided, as part of the project to eliminate some of my many piles, to make 2019 The Year of the Backlist. And with that decision, I have chosen for the second time to join Roof Beam Reader in the TBR Challenge.

Here’s the premise: I pick 12 books (and two alternates) that were published before 2018 and that are languishing on my shelves (or leaning in a random stack in the closet, or gathering dust on my nightstand). I vow to read twelve of them over the course of the year, thereby reducing the clutter of things undone. This project is good for me because I have two reading habits that conflict: 1)I love to buy books; and 2) I check out hundreds of books from the library. The library books tend to win my attention because of those pesky due dates and even peskier fines. And what happens is the growth of the aforementioned piles and the general hauntings of unread pages.

I have to admit that I tried this challenge four (!) years ago and failed. Or, I suppose, I could reframe the experience and say that I was able to read five books from my incredible leaning stack, leaving just nine to clatter around my house. I am putting a few of those original TBR copies back on this list this year.

I have attempted to make a list that incorporates all the of things I like to include in my reading life – authors from different backgrounds, a mix of genres and topics, and a healthy assortment of challenging and “easy” reads.

It’s time to get started! Here’s the list:

1) The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison: I got to page 111 of this book of essays before getting distracted. I was loving it and always said I’d need to go back to the beginning and try again. The first one describes the author’s experience being a medical actor, a practice patient for medical students developing their empathy skills. The receipt I was using as a bookmark says that I bought it new at Powells Bookstore in Portland, OR in May, 2017.

2) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I have always wanted to read this book, and yet I always pass it over for other things. I know that several of you have read this and loved it. I admit to shying away from it because both the terrorist and the opera elements of the description been off-putting. It was on my 2015 TBR list, and I’ve had it on my shelf for at least a decade. I fear that I borrowed it from someone and never returned it. Sorry.

3) Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I love this author, and I enjoyed Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, and Dear Ijawele,or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (here is my blog post). One of my kids read this novel for school, and this is his copy. I don’t know where it came from, but it includes a 2016 receipt from The Cheesecake Factory (Pumpkin Cheesecake and Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch). Was he reading it while eating?

4) Arcadia by Lauren Groff (alternate): I like Lauren Groff (though here's my conflicted review of Fates and Furies), but I’m not really interested in communes, which is the setting for this novel. I remember hesitating when I bought it at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas in 2016. You know how it is when you really want a new book, but nothing really calls out to you? It was one of those days. I’d rather read Florida by this author – that one is also on my nightstand – but it was published in 2018 and doesn’t qualify for the challenge.

5) The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin: This one came highly recommended from a friend, and it’s by a Pacific Northwest author. From the price tag, it looks like I bought it used at Powells Bookstore in 2016. Historical fiction is not my go-to genre, which is probably why it has sat unread for so long.

6) The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma: I bought this one new at Bookends and Beginnings in Evanston, IL in 2016, after it was highly promoted on the Book Riot Podcast. And then the New York Times called the author, “the heir to Chinua Achebe.” Nonetheless, the violence promised by the description has put me off. I am hopeful to get over my hesitance and try it.

7) Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: This is another one that friends have recommended, and I really enjoyed the author’s Sourdough last year. I bought this copy used at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA. I don’t usually gravitate to fantasy-ish books, but I hope to be charmed. A magic bookstore? OK, I’ll bite.

8) Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok: I bought this Advanced Reader copy at the Friends of Seattle Public Library book sale for fifty cents more than five years ago. I know you're not supposed to buy unpublished copies, so my apologies to the literary world. I’m a sucker for an immigration story, so I’m not sure why this one has languished on the shelves for so long.

9) Commonwealth by Ann Patchett: Another Patchett! I started this one in 2016 just as we were starting our house remodel. I read 75 pages and set it aside. I seem to remember that this was the time when I went four months without reading, because I was too overwhelmed by picking out paint colors and hinges and baseboard styles. I got this copy for Christmas, and Santa found me a British paperback edition before the American version came out.

10) The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell (alternate): I also got this one for Christmas in 2016 and it was set aside for the house remodel extravaganza. The description says that the author goes around the world visiting bookstores. What’s not to love about that!? I have this down as an alternate, but now that I’m looking at it, I might read it first.

11) H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald: I bought this copy from the remainder table at Third Place Books, Ravenna in Seattle. Everyone I know said it was fantastic nonfiction about grief, but I haven’t picked it up because I’ve been worried about ending up miserable. I want to read great things, but I don't want to propel myself into a sobbing heap. What a readerly dilemma!

12) Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides: I got this one as a gift, and the gifter knows how much I enjoy this author. I looooved Middlesex (and, fun fact: Eugenides went to my high school, albeit several years ahead of me). This is a collection of short stories, and I am notoriously bad at getting through short stories.

13) The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson: I know that this book the best thing since sliced bread, and I love sliced bread. I promised to read it when I participated in Nonfiction November years ago, and it was also on my previous TBR challenge list. I received this copy in hardcover for Christmas, maybe in 2010. I don’t know why I am intimidated by this book, but it is time to overcome whatever it is that is in my way.

14) We Were Eight Years in Power: A Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates: One of the essays in this collection, Donald Trump is the First White President, knocked me down when I read it in The Atlantic in October, 2017. And I have written before how Between the World and Me changed me forever. I bought my copy of We Were Eight Years... at Powells when it first came out, and it has been staring at me from my nightstand ever since.

My plan is to update you along the way as I successfully navigate my way through this list. I'll be keeping track of my progress on this entry, adding completion dates and links to reviews:

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Arcadia by Lauren Groff
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok -- READ 1/19
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

And if you’re interested in joining me, you can find the “rules” at Roof Beam Reader. Or you can just read your own backlist in your own way, but please let me know how it’s going. I hope you play along!

Onward!

I did not read as much as usual last year. To be honest, I struggled with my phone and all of its lures: your adorable kids on Facebook; dogs in costume on Instagram; the endless rabbit hole of Twitter; and Snapchat? I still don’t understand its appeal, but I am certainly not going to pass up an opportunity to decorate a photo of myself. I find that those things pull me and pull me, and a whole pile of my reading time was lost in those mindless ventures.

The question is, of course, whether I want to continue reading this way, or if I should make myself become more intentional and focused. I have always said that reading should not be a grim task, full of rules and requirements. But the internet is my candy corn, straight sugar to the brain. I always feel gross after I consume it.

This is not to say that I didn't read some fabulous things over the last twelve months. I don’t have an easy-to-rank list of favorite books from 2018, so this will not be a straightforward Top 5. Instead, I will follow the lead of one of my favorite reading rituals (on the internet! Ack!): A Year in Reading from The Millions. In that feature, authors talk about their reading adventures over the course of the year. Many of them bring their most pretentious reader selves to the task, leaving me to wonder, “What did you read in the bathtub? Certainly not the snooty stuff you list here.” But each entry brings the possibility that I will find a new title or author or perspective.

When I look back at my own list, I am most struck by the nonfiction. Educated by Tara Westover was fantastic, in part because of its novel-like accessibility, but also because of the questions it raises about the American mythology around pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. Westover grew up isolated in a very religious family, enduring restriction and abuse. What made it possible for this kid to transcend her difficult circumstances, finding her way to an intellectual life? Was it something about the kid or the circumstances? Two other books I read also grappled with schooling. The Class: A Life-Changing Teacher, His World-Changing Kids, and the Most Inventive Classroom in America by Heather Won Tesoriero and Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve Ewing ask us to consider how and when and for whom formal education is a pathway to power. Those two books were particularly interesting to read back-to-back, with Ewing’s discussion of structural racism in Chicago suggesting all the unspoken variables that might have led affluent Greenwich High School’s acclaimed science research program to become so special. (In other words, was it just a “life-changing teacher?”) And finally, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond asks us to consider the way that our housing polices might further exploit an existing economic divide. The narrative style of his reporting makes this a particularly compelling read, especially if you are looking for a gut punch. Maybe that should be a new genre category: The Gut Punch.

I did manage to recover from the gut punching with some great comedy this year. The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher was probably the book I enjoyed the most this year. I’m a sucker for academic satire, and this one hit all the right notes for me. I’m not sure if you need to be part of the academic world to enjoy it, but if you are or ever were, this short novel reveals every absurdity. I also loved – and was surprised by – Sourdough by Robin Sloan. I wouldn’t ordinarily gravitate toward a book about magic bread, but this comedy-skewering-foodie-culture/dystopia-in-which-disruptive-technology-runs-amok was a true treat.

And finally, my reading comfort comes from family dramas, and 2018 offered no shortage of those. The most compelling was probably Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue. The novel follows two families on the eve of the 2008 financial collapse. One is an immigrant family awaiting asylum and the other is an affluent family whose husband/father works for Lehman Brothers. The story explores the idea of the “American Dream” and asks whether it’s attainable (and at what cost). A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza also scratched my family drama itch. In some ways it’s a middle class drama about parental expectations. In other ways, it’s a specifically cultural story about being Indian and Muslim in America. And finally, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee came to me as a surprise. I’m not usually attracted to sprawling historical fiction, but this account of a Korean woman in Japan over the course of the twentieth century was unusually captivating. Plus, it pushed me to think about the economic forces and racist systems that impact an individual’s autonomy, both in this historical context and generally.

I’ve already finished my first book of the new year (Our Towns: a 100,000 Mile Journey Into the Heart of America by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows). And I’ve started my second (Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver). I’d love to hear from you all about what you enjoyed in 2018 and what books you’re looking forward to in 2019. Also, how do you stay off your phone? Can you resist the cute animals in costume?