What I read last year
A photos-as-external-brain roundup
BIG NEWS: For the first time in a long time (a year?) I have some new non-Substack writing to share! This was a scorcher of a read for my return to The Washington Post. Big thanks to my editor Nora Krug for not giving up on me over the past year, which would’ve been easy to do.
Read the review here [gifted link].
SPECIAL REQUEST: This will be in the print edition on Monday (tomorrow). If you’re a print subscriber, pleasepleaseplease might I have your copy?! If so, comment or respond to this newsletter!
IN TODAY’S HONEY STAY SUPER: A brief and incomplete list of the books I read in 2023 plus the books I have on pre-order (so far) for 2024!
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a few years then you know I usually do a year-end reading roundup, complete with photos of everything I read, arranged by color (superficial dork) on my white painted bedroom floor (basic bitch). Well, I don’t own that floor anymore. I also no longer own the shelves where I used to put my books after I finished reading them, which was how I kept track. I moved and packed and unpacked books several times last year, and repeatedly forgot what I had even been reading most of the time.
In trying to think through how to do this update, I realized something pretty lovely. I actually did most of my reading last year while traveling (another realization that would’ve fit nicely with this newsletter). Which means I was also taking photos of some of the books I read. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but I do think of it as A Best Of since I didn’t take photos of books I didn’t like or finish.
I continued (and am continuing) my streak of reading books about sex, consent, polyamory, and the female body, as well as memoir along those lines.
Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katherine Angel
Rethinking Sex: A Provocation by Christine Emba
Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross
Brutalities: A Love Story by Margo Steines
I’m including this photo not for Cusk (although: love her, obvs) but because it’s from my trip to St. Croix when I was also reading books as a Vermont Book Award judge. These were my favorites (and ultimately finalists for Creative Nonfiction. Aurelia, Aurélia won):
Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin by Peter Orner
A unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. Orner's highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother's copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he's stopped short by a single word in the margin, "YES!"—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.
Aurelia, Aurélia: A Memoir by Kathryn Davis
Kathryn Davis’s hypnotic new book is a meditation on the way imagination shapes life, and how life, as it moves forward, shapes imagination. At its center is the death of her husband, Eric. The book unfolds as a study of their marriage, its deep joys and stinging frustrations; it is also a book about time, the inexorable events that determine beginnings and endings.
As excellent as you’ve heard: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
This book could replace every memoir, nonfiction cultural deep dive, op-ed, hot take, and satirical piece when it comes to examining and eviscerating modern American motherhood and parenting culture. The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
One of the best books I’ve ever read. The kind of book where I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t real, and someone had made it up right outta their own noggin. Novelists are amazing?! I mean, how. Outlawed by Anna North
The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy. I picked this up in Amsterdam and read it in Paris. I will always associate this incredible book with this particular moment above, the morning of my 55th birthday. This is the first book I’ve read by Deborah Levy and I will absolutely now be reading all of them.
How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life by Sheila Heti. I read this one when I was in Chicago and will now also read anything she writes. Wait, I just remembered I bought her other two books! BRB, must go unearth them immediately.
And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger. I wrote more about my experience with this book here. This is a book I read and loved in college then reread it for the first time in 25+ years on my trip to Amsterdam. It’s inspired me to read through other old books I have on my shelves, to see how I interpret them now.
WHAT I’VE PREORDERED
Two books I am very very very very excited about!
Ambition Monster: A Memoir by Jennifer Romolini
Written with self-deprecation and wit, Ambition Monster is a gutsy and powerful look at workaholism and the addictive nature of achievement, the lingering effect of childhood trauma, and the failures of our modern rat race. With its timely and resonant deconstructing of the American Dream, Ambition Monster is a singular excavation of selfhood, an essential interrogation about the way we work, and an inspiring and affirming call to always bet on yourself.
This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by
LenzStudies show that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who are tired, fed up, exhausted, and unhappy. In this exuberant and unapologetic book, Lenz makes an argument for the advantages of getting divorced, framing it as a practical and effective solution for women to take back the power they are owed. Lenz creates a kaleidoscopic and poignant portrait of American marriage today. She argues that the mechanisms of American power, justice, love, and gender equality remain deeply flawed, and that marriage, like any other cultural institution, is due for a reckoning.
Thank you for being a reader! Want more? You can find my books here. You can find more of my writing here. You can find me wasting time and begging for attention over on Instagrammmmmmmmm.
Thank you for some great new additions to my reading list! 💙