This was an interesting reading year for me. I read less than I have in the past couple of years, probably in part due to the easing of pandemic limitations and the return of busyness that came with it. But I also seemed to hit the distracted malaise this year that many described having earlier … Continue reading 2022 Reading List
reading life
Sandcastles
“What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse New … Continue reading Sandcastles
2021 Reading List – The Final
Organizing my favorite books of the year is always a challenging task. How to sort through so many remarkable books, particularly when preferences are so subjective? How to make some sort of sense or cohesion out of such a disparate array of texts? Ultimately, the books that made the final cut are the ones that … Continue reading 2021 Reading List – The Final
How Shall We Live?
I've always had a deep faith in books. As with many readers, libraries felt like church to me, bookstores like monasteries. Opening a new book feels like a ritual, as does closing it when finished. I'm sure this worship led me to seek a scholar's life, and not only a scholar but a scholar of … Continue reading How Shall We Live?
Reading During Difficult Times
In the last couple weeks I have found myself pinned between the return to work and busyness after the relative quiet of the holiday season and a national crisis. I hit a point last week staring at a stack of partially-read books feeling the existential anxiety of not having enough time to read all the … Continue reading Reading During Difficult Times
2020 Reading List – The Final
In one of the two holiday movies I watch without fail, It's a Wonderful Life, lead character George Bailey is a man who has always resented his meagre, small town life until he gets a chance to see what said town would have been like if he'd never been born. George discovers that he actually … Continue reading 2020 Reading List – The Final
The Wheelhouse Project – New Addition! – Tantalizing Taste Books
I know I promised some hot Jane Austen content. I planned for this focus because I'm currently working my way through a history of five female abstract impressionist painters that, while mesmerizing, is a 700-page beast of a book. But last weekend I took a break from the behemoth because a slim, YA fantasy needed … Continue reading The Wheelhouse Project – New Addition! – Tantalizing Taste Books
Hanging on By the Fingernails, or the Comfort of Known Books
Friends, how are you doing? For me, this has been a rough and weary couple of weeks with the looming election and the ongoing state of the nation and the world. Which has made it hard to read. I keep picking up books, peeking at them or starting a bit, and then setting them aside. … Continue reading Hanging on By the Fingernails, or the Comfort of Known Books
On the Re-Reading Life and Vivian Gornick’s ‘Unfinished Business’
Looking over my reading list this past year I saw stellar book after stellar book. Bam, bam, bam, nearly all excellent reads. And then I got to the past few weeks and realized that things lately have been merely fine—good but not great, decent but not deepening. And then I picked up Vivian Gornick's Unfinished … Continue reading On the Re-Reading Life and Vivian Gornick’s ‘Unfinished Business’
Read Books by Black Authors
I am foregoing a normal post this week because the events of the past two weeks mean that now is not the time for me to fill the air with anecdotes from my reading life. Last night I was talking with my partner about the limits of truly understanding what it means to live as … Continue reading Read Books by Black Authors
Dogs, Coffee, & Books 