Keep it simple.
That's what I tell myself, but when I see a brand-new, unvarnished, pristine new year, something in me wants to get downright ornate with my resolutions. Read all the classics! Read your own shelves! Let your inner book snob take over! Don't read anything written before 1790! Don't read anything originally written in English!
I can never keep a whole list of resolutions, so maybe if I tell myself to read whimsically, I'll suddenly have a perverse need for structure.
Here are a few resolutions I'm pretty sure I can keep:
1. Read 62 books in 2023
2. Use the library.
3. Show the hometown bookstore lots of love.
4. Stay in the book group.
5. Continue posting to my beloved book blog, My Blob.
6. Oh, hell...read whimsically.
Regarding the above photo: This was the first draft of my 2023 resolutions. I thought I'd save it here, just to see...
Total # of Books Read in 2022: 71
Fiction: 29
Nonfiction: 42
Audiobooks: 16
Graphic Novels: 1
Male Authors: 25
Female Authors: 46
19th Century Books: 1
20th Century Books: 8
21st Century Books: 62
Who Was...? Books: 17
Authors From Other Countries:
10 (Canada, Spain, England, Germany, Australia, and South Africa)
Longest Book:
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark 1,118 pages
Shortest Book:
Who Was Chloe Kim? by Stefanie Loh 49 pages
You Go Back, Jack, Do It Again (Rereads):
The Thorn Birds, The Book Thief, Daisy Jones and The Six, The Good Earth, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Library Books: 52
Bybeeary Books: 14
Borrowed: 5
DNF:
Midnight on the Orient Express, Resistance Women, and Demon Copperhead
DNF & Good Riddance:
Kings Row by Henry Bellamann. Rusty prose. Labored psychological stylings. I fled.
Give Me Back My Time:
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama by Bob Odenkirk and Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Eyeroll:
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Utterly Delicious:
Taste by Stanley Tucci, Home Baked by Alia Volz and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Pop Culture Thrills Galore:
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy by Mark Rozzo
Jaw Hit The Floor Repeatedly:
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Better Late Than Never:
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt But really, I ask you: who but who sleeps on a book for almost THREE g0##@%& decades???
Yes, I Cried Buckets:
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, Half Empty by David Rakoff and Red Comet by Heather Clark
Yes, I Was Pissed Off Enough To Jump Into The Book:
French Braid by Anne Tyler, Never Let Her Go by Ann Rule and Red Comet by Heather Clark
Road Trip Yes Please:
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (Savannah, Georgia)
Reading Hangover:
Red Comet by Heather Clark and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Claustrophobic Flare-up:
The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff
Upraised Middle Finger:
Who Was Ponce de Leon? All those conquistadors, yuck.
Seriously Good Seriously Serious Fiction:
The Leavers by Lisa Ko ,The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and True Biz by Sara Novic
I Was Meta Cool When Meta Wasn't Cool:
A View From The Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor
Favorite True Crime Reads:
The Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell and The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
Badass:
Constance Kopp from The Kopp Sisters series, Meridy Volz from Home Baked, and Marie de France (?) from The Matrix
Favorite Pet:
Desmond the cat from French Braid
Strangest Narrator:
Death from The Book Thief
Bridge Books (started in 2022 but won't finish until 2023):
Poison by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Sons by Pearl S. Buck, The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford, and Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography by Gail Levin
I'm starting to see splinters, so I think I've broken down 2022's reading about as far as it will go. Now, it's time to make some book resolutions for 2023.
I can't believe I read so much nonfiction this year. As they used to say in the old cigarette commercials, it was the taste that satisfied. I even flirted with the idea of having an all-nonfiction year in 2023, but not sure if I can live completely without fiction. Anyway, here's the list. Favorites are highlighted in green.
January
Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci.
Who Were the Navajo Code Talkers? - James Buckley, Jr.
Who Is Queen Elizabeth II? - Megan Stine.
What Was The Plague? - Roberta Edwards.
The Fran Leibowitz Reader - Fran Leibowitz.
February
Murder Book: A Graphic Memoir of a True Crime Obsession - Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell.
Who Were Stanley and Livingstone? - Jim Gigliotti.
Chasing the Last Laugh - Richard Zacks.
Garbo - Robert Gottlieb.
March
And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule.
Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco - Alia Volz.
Born With Teeth - Kate Mulgrew.
What Were the Salem Witch Trials? - Joan Holub.
Half-Empty - David Rakoff.
April
Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner.
Who Was Charles Schultz? -Joan Holub.
What Was The Harlem Renaissance? - Sherri L. Smith
May
Films of Endearment - Michael Koresky.
The Taking of Jemima Boone - Matthew Pearl.
What Is Juneteenth? - Kirsti Jewel.
June
My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business - Dick Van Dyke.
Who Is Jimmy Carter? - David Stabler.
Who Was Johnny Cash? - Jim Gigliotti.
Happy-Go-Lucky - David Sedaris.
Who Is Chloe Kim? - Stefanie Loh.
July
What Are Castles and Knights? - Sarah Fabiny.
The Witches - Stacy Schiff.
Who Was E.B. White? - Gail Herman.
What Is The AIDS Crisis? - Nico Medina.
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela.
Who Was Ponce de Leon? - Pam Pollack.
August
Who Was Nelson Mandela? - Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso.
The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale.
September
Dust Bowl Girls - Lydia Reeder
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy - Mark Rozzo.
October
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama - Bob Odenkirk.
I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy.
November
Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe? - Sarah Fabiny.
Three Martini Afternoons at The Ritz - Gail Crowther.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt.
December
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath - Heather Clark.
Who Was Steve Irwin? - Dina Anastasio.
My Very Favorites, My WOW Reads:
Taste, Home Baked, Crying in H Mart, Everybody Thought We Were Crazy, I'm Glad My Mom Died, Three Martini Afternoons at The Ritz, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Red Comet.
This post was originally meant to be all about how I rocked Nonfiction November, and I did, but of course I must mention how, on the last day of the month, COVID-19 kicked me in the ass with its hobnailed boots. And my little (!) Spawn, too!!! So now we're in quarantine. This is difficult to write, so I'd better move along. Brain fog is real, and my fingers are not obediently flying to the proper keys.
1. Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe? - Sarah Fabiny. Nonfiction. My favorite part was when Georgia went down to Mexico to meet up with her good friend Frida Kahlo.
2. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck. Novel. Audiobook. Loved the narration. I can't think of his name, but he played the assistant principal on Boston Public.
3. Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz - Gail Crowther. Nonfiction. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Boston, 1958. Where's my time machine?
4. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt. Nonfiction. Audiobook. I'm mad at myself for sidestepping this brilliant book for -oh god- three decades! Novels are so jealous they cry because this book has got so many juicy characters, terrific atmosphere, a murder mystery and magic. Like so many people who have read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I have added visiting Savannah to my bucket list. Give it a go, if you haven't already. The audiobook version is superb.
Looks like only four books, but not really. I got 150 pages into Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and was absorbed, but had to turn it back into the library before finishing. There's a waiting list.
I'm slowly and enjoyably working my way through Heather Clark's excellent biography Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Esquire just put out a list of 50 of the best biographies of all time. Red Comet is on it, and that's damn right.
I need to stop writing now. See you for December and the year-end wrap-up.
For some reason, I've lost a lot of socks lately. And they all belong to my Disney Princess collection. Of course I only lose one out of a pair, so on any given day, you can find me wearing Jasmine on one foot and Mulan on the other. Or Ariel. Somehow, I've been able to hold on to both Belles. Must be part of my bookworm powers at work, because I also still have both Fuck Off I'm Reading socks.
Speaking of reading, I finished five in October, and I didn't tell anyone to do...that. File under restraint.
1. Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama - Bob Odenkirk. Memoir. Better Call Saul is my new favorite show, so I was eager to read this book. The library has it, but it was checked out, so I got a wild hair and bought it, knowing that it was going to be spectacular. Um...kinda jumped the gun on that one. It's not spectacular. It's not even good. It's like Mr. Odenkirk was mumbling in his sleep and someone sat by his bed and transcribed. At various points in the book, he says himself that it's not very good, and whether or not he was being self-deprecating, he's right.
2. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak. Novel. I read this for book group. Audiobooked it, and it was wonderful. Actually, this was my second reading, but it was so many years ago -- that first year or so that I was in Korea.
3. I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy. Memoir. At first, I didn't want to read this book because of the title, but everyone kept saying how good it was. And they were right! McCurdy is a great writer and she certainly had enough material to work with. I can't count how many times my jaw dropped. This is one of the best memoirs I've ever read.
4. Daisy Jones and The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid. Novel. I read this back in 2020 (I think) and really liked it. Then Sarah, the coordinator of the book group mentioned that the library had it in audiobook form, and it was one of the best she'd ever listened to. Mental note to myself: When Sarah speaks... All of the voice actors were on point, and Jennifer Beals as Daisy Jones was incredible. Now, thanks to this book, I've got a Fleetwood Mac thing going on.
5. Little Man, What Now? - Hans Fallada. Novel. This German novel was published in 1932, shortly before Hitler came into power. The economy in Germany is dismal, but Johannes (Sonny) gets his girlfriend Emma (Lammchen) pregnant, so they take a deep breath and plunge into matrimony. Sonny struggles with horrible and petty bosses, sketchy housing and infuriating red tape from government agencies. The Nazis are in evidence, but part of the background noise. This part of the book is well-done. There are also several colorful characters Sonny and Lammchen meet along the way, and Fallada gets sidetracked by them the way Richard Llewellyn got sidetracked away from Ernie Mott and his Ma in None But the Lonely Heart. Still, a pretty good read. I felt invested in the two main characters and their challenges, and wish that Fallada had written a sequel so we could see if Sonny and Lammchen's fortunes improved or not. My copy is a British English translation; I'd have preferred American English, but that's a minor quibble.
Right now, I'm heavily into Nonfiction November, and already eager to blog about that!
