A Year in Review through the Lens of the Best Book I Read Each Month

January:

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

In January, while in Oregon watching misty rain, rain, and one day of sudden snow fall from the sky, I read this delightful book of essays about reading and books. I relate to many of the ideas such as how much one can learn about another by the books they keep on their shelves. Bookshelves are insightful. As are library book withdrawal lists. At one point, Fadiman says, “I have never been able to resist a book about books.” And I understand exactly what she means.

 

February:

The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass

February, in Oregon, while slowly beginning to build an online tutoring business and trying to keep my writing and writing skills in a prominent place in my life I read books on writing craft. As I go, I copy out bits that stand out to me. This is one paragraph I write in my notebook: “Nothing builds reader involvement more surely than a character whose moral struggle pervades the tale. When readers hope, beg, and plead with you to let a character turn towards the light, you have readers where you want them. A character who is good is good; a character whom we want to be good is even better” (page 49).

During this month, the friend I’m staying with and I watch the show Cobra Kai (COBRA KAI NEVER DIES!) – the continued story of The Karate Kid (definitely worth the watch if for nothing but the hilarious 80s references). One of the most interesting characters is Robby who follows a winding path that takes him from rebellion, to trust, to having his trust betrayed. He ends up at a crossroads of choice, and chooses the worst possible route. As I watch, I realize I like Robby so much because he has a moral struggle and I want him so badly to be good, just like Maass said. So very badly. The season ends before this development is resolved, but I can hope for Robby’s ultimate redemption and joy. I can hope.

 

March:

Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves by James Nestor

People do amazing things. One of those things is freediving. The Earth is an amazing place. One of those places is the ocean with all its mystery, terror, and beauty. Exploring the ocean depth by depth, Nestor takes me on an intriguing journey as he learns how to increase his lungs’ capacity and begins to freedive himself. As I read this book, I spend a lot of my time on the front porch of my friend’s house, catching occasional sunshine, watching hummingbird battles, and observing the Mystery Gardener’s mysterious ways, here in Oregon where I’ve established a daily rhythm of reading, writing, tutoring, and cooking. All the while, I dream of doing more amazing things myself. Though perhaps not freediving.  

 

April:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I’m always in search of a perfect book. This book is one of those. Relatively short, magical, heartbreaking, redeeming, lovely. Over the course of an afternoon, I follow Piranesi through the labyrinth of his House and watch as he comes into knowledge, acceptance, and peace. I add this book to the list of books I wish I’d written.  

 

[Here’s a nice article about Susanna Clarke and her work which includes a review of Piranesi: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/12/susanna-clarke-i-was-cut-off-from-the-world-bound-in-one-place-by-illness]

 

May:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I begin to attend an 8-week online writing workshop. Bird by Bird is one of the books the instructor recommends. I’ve read it before, long ago. But it still holds nuggets and is worth a reread. It’s part instructional, part encouragement, part the speaking of the writer’s soul. I find myself reflected in many of her words. For instance, “You wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your soul more than other pursuits” (page 170) and, “One can find in writing a perfect focus for life. It offers challenge and delight and agony and commitment. We see our work as a vocation, with the potential to be as rich and enlivening as the priesthood” (page 190). Oh yes, exactly.

 

June:

Battleborn: Stories by Claire Vaye Watkins

Bidding my friend (and the cats) many thanks for the company and the room, I’ve left Oregon and come to Colorado for the summer. I watch my friends’ dogs while they go away on vacation and divide my time between the house and the backyard. Nearing the end of the 8-week writing workshop, we’re assigned to read a short story called Man-O-War. It’s a vivid story with a setting in the desert that becomes in many ways as strong a character as the humans. I tell the instructor I enjoyed the story and she recommends I read the rest of Watkins’s stories in the book Man-O-War was taken from. So I do.

 

July:

Room by Emma Donaghue

I only read two books in July both by Emma Donaghue. My time is taken up with watching my friends’ kids, exploring Colorado, and prepping for an upcoming writers’ conference where I will pitch three separate novels to six different agents. Room is interesting in that it’s written from the point of view of five-year-old boy. If it weren’t, the horror of this story of kidnapping, imprisonment, and the beauty of a mother’s love might be too overwhelming.    

 

 

August:

Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War by Giles Whittell

I pitch my novels at the online conference, finish up my summer job, visit as many places in Colorado as I can manage, prep for leaving the state, and, ever interested in Cold War history, read about the events and people that led up to the exchange of spies that happened at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in 1962. As I read, I take a quick trip down memory lane to 2015 when my older sister and I met up with my Swedish friend in Berlin and went, among other places, to Checkpoint Charlie and what’s left of the Berlin Wall. Back in current time, the summer has sped by and I’m feeling reluctant to leave the mountains.

 

September:

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Suddenly, I’m in Texas, dog sitting for my aunt and uncle, worrying about my next thing, applying for the Peace Corps and a volunteer position for a winter stay at some trailhead at some National Park, working on a short story that comes one slow sentence at a time. As I always do, I stalk a few friends’ Goodreads book lists and recommendations and in doing so see one friend’s four-star review of Network Effect by Martha Wells. When I look it up, I see it’s the 5^th in a series. So I start at the beginning and am pulled completely, delightedly, and utterly into The Murderbot Diaries. I inhale the entire series and want to start them right over again when I’ve finished. If you haven’t read these books, you should. My recommendation is to read all the novellas first and save Network Effect for last (for after you’ve finished Fugitive Telemetry). It works better chronologically that way.  

 

October:

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

After I’ve completed my dog sitting gig and while I’m putting Next Plans into motion and waiting for something to catch, my parents graciously let me stay with them. Continuing with my online tutoring, I make myself read a handful of other books and finish the short story I’ve been pulling out of my imagination like deep-rooted teeth before I allow myself to settle into the complete joy of The Murderbot Diaries again. One of those other books is Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea. I’m not sure I like the book. It has a slow, slow start and I keep wondering how the author has gotten away with it (perhaps because she had a very successful book with The Night Circus). Maybe the book needs the slow build and I am just feeling impatient after the perfectly paced intensity of The Murderbot Diaries. Even so, even now, I can’t quite remember the point of the story, though I remember the honey sea and the stickiness of pages and the image of doors. Doors are powerful in books. So maybe it is a good book because it has left me still on the shore of that almost horrifying honey sea.

  

November:

A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life by Ayelet Waldman

This has been a rough year in many ways for me. I’ve struggled with a fairly deep depression, chronic pain, and a sense of hopelessness that while I know is not true still feels real. I’ve done a lot this year to get my body back to a healthy place, to adjust my thinking, my emotions, and my forward thinking. It’s slow going. I’m still a work in progress, but I am taking deliberate steps to be the person I want to be. While neither condoning nor condemning microdosing at this point in time, I do, however, want what Waldman wanted; to have more really good days than otherwise. It’s not an unreasonable desire. I trust I’ll get there again myself.  

At some point in November, I realize I’ve read 81 books so far this year. With the stabilizing need for a solid goal, I decide to read 100 before the year is out. I’ve got 50-something days to read 19 books. It’s not impossible, but it will be a push.

 

December:

Cold Moons by Magnús Sigurđsson (Translated from the Icelandic by Meg Matich)

While shopping for Christmas gifts at ½ Price Books, a little book of poetry catches my eyes. I’m on the search for some poetry for my older sister and I’m looking for a certain feel, a certain Rilke-esqueness. How many books do I reject for their cover or thickness? For their titles, their author, for the fact they’re on the top shelf and I can’t quite reach? This one stands out thinly on the shelf between others of greater thickness. This book I love for its littleness, the simplicity of the cover, that it was written by an Icelander, and that both the Icelandic and the translations are included. I’m drawn to cold places. I love languages. I love the minimalistic style of the poems. I skim through it and wonder if I’m going to buy this for myself or for my sister. At the house, I read the entire book savoring each poem as much as I can before wrapping it in Christmas paper and sending it off to my sister. The second poem reminds me of that honey sea from The Starless Sea (though there were no bears to enjoy the honey in that world).

 

Honey

Ursin’s Astronomy: Appendix

 

Imagine

the Earth

immersed

in honey.

 

Its rotation

trailing

honey strands.

 

As with

time

and space,

 

in Einstein’s

universe.

      

I meet my 100 book goal (and even make it to 102 by the writing of this post which includes a third read of All Systems Red by Martha Wells because, well, Murderbot).

 

Liminal Spaces

My mom and I go to the State Fair. I’m on an errand to get cotton candy for an out-of-town friend. While I have my own fond memories of the Fair from my childhood, this day I’m not there for me. And were it not for the want of doing this task, I wouldn’t have come at all. I’ve been stuck for a while now in a state of static world-weariness that I’m doing my best to dispel, but which sticks to my energy like a gluey residue. My mom is along for the ride and we’ve got a hike at a nearby out door space up next on our agenda and it calls to us more than the Fair.

 We zip our way past the food booths, fried anything, fried everything, warm scents, comforting scents of memory and fun, but I don’t seem to be able to tap into it for myself. What is wrong with me? I ask too often these days. Maybe a good question to know the answer to, but there are better, more compassionate ways to ask. I have a light headache, a heaviness in all my joints. Must be the incoming rain. Each step is a mile marker and I catalog them with grim satisfaction. I can’t force myself to have fun – I haven’t learned the trick yet – but I can take miserly joy in exercise. Look at what I’m doing for you, body. See how I suffer for good, to do what’s right.

 

We walk through the building with the horses – magnificent creatures who I appreciate with barely a fleeing thought. I don’t want to be jostled by this crowd. I don’t want to be close to anyone. I don’t want to stand pressing toward the front of a line to see. There are days like that.

 

Outside again, I keep an eye on the ticket booths and their lines, calculate how many tickets I’ll need for the cotton candy. After a bit more aimless wandering, we buy the tickets from a booth with only a short line. And we get enough for the cotton candy and a little extra in case we decide to do something fun for ourselves.

 

We walk through one of the craft buildings. I’ve got a precious memory from my childhood of a booth that made candles. A vat of heated wax. Colors. Candles formed into artistic shapes. Child me stood mesmerized and watched them being made. That day, my mom bought a candle and we had it for years, with its swirls, colors, and designs, never burning it, always admiring it. I’m not sure what happened to it. There’s nothing like that here today. But the memory lingers and I share it with my mom.

After a bit, we go into another large building that advertises having restrooms. It’s an indoor space filled with home repair things, home improvement options, cars. A door in its frame stands by itself off to our right at the end of one company’s area. My mom points to it and alludes to the magic of doors, of where we might end up if we decided to go through it. I retort something about trying it after a bathroom break and the moment is lost.

 

Until one morning, weeks later, when I close my eyes and see in that dark space the imprint of the image of a door. Liminal, I think. Liminal spaces. Ones that take us between worlds. Doors with all the magic that they have, the mystery of what lies on the other side.

 

And for a moment, with something not quite regret but maybe a cousin of it, I wish that on that Fair day with my mom I’d had the childlike quality of curiosity, adventure, and fun to at least have turned that door’s doorknob.

 

Not every day feels like a good day. Not every day needs to hold something other than the completion of the set-out-to-do task, and that’s okay. Sometimes I have to sit or walk or buy cotton candy with the pressure of my static stuckness as my companion.

 

It’s okay to walk through the State Fair with my mother by my side and think about having fun. Do you want a henna tattoo? Do you? Let’s go see the butterflies at the Discovery Gardens. Let’s walk by the Ferris Wheel and see how much it costs because I almost want to ride it. It would be something to see the world from that height. I’ve never done it. But there’s too long a line. Winding, curving, two hours long. There’s no thrill in waiting today. We have other places to go. Other more appealing things to do.  

 

Yet on other days, even if my internal stuckness is still sticky, I can remind myself that opening new doors can be, if anything, the chance to see life from a different point of view. A chance to have a bit of fun even if only for the moment it takes to step over a threshold. Even if that point of view is bordered by the painted rectangle of a stock-painted doorframe.

 

I can walk through a new door now even if it’s only in my imagination. Every day brings its own thing. And that’s okay.

 

 

 

Superpower

Story is a human superpower. It’s one of the most subconscious, conscious, and forceful ways that we make sense of our world and the things that happen to us and others. It’s one of the ways we relate to each other. It’s one of the ways we learn and teach. It’s a way used to remember and forget, to advance or stay stuck. Story drives people, cultures, nations, and our day-to-day behavior.  

 

I’m reminded of this during my morning meditation. Reminded that story is my jam (as the kids might say—though of what generation I’m not sure because I’m, as usual, way outside of the current hip loop and behind on relevant lingo). Reminded of what makes me reach for a new book, a previously read book, or for a pen. Reminded that what makes a good story a page turner or a show binge worthy is the oscillation from tension to resolution.

 

I’m on day five of a twelve-day course on Insight Timer called Release Stress Through Sound & Frequency with Sonic Yogi. The lesson is titled “The Structure of the Story.” And while I’m seated in a comfortable position and focused on my breath, I’m also listening hard to see if what Sonic Yogi says about story matches what I’ve learned and what I know. Listening to see if I can add something new to the story I’ve made in my head about story.

 

At one point he says, “The basics of tension and resolution lead to an ongoing narrative.” This isn’t new to me, but it’s well said, spot on, and true for real life and fiction.

 

One of the main questions asked when writing or reviewing a story is: What’s at stake?

 

What is the character’s deepest desire? What is preventing them from achieving it? What will happen if they never get what they want? What will happen if they do?

 

If the stakes aren’t high enough, a reader will be compelled to say, So what? And then often go find something that engages them more fully because its stakes are dire.

 

Effective and engaging stories are those that drive the tension to a fever pitch – either slowly or with soul-crushing speed – and then resolve it. That resolution can be negative for the character or positive.

 

After I’ve finished the meditation, I continue to mull over the idea of harmony and disharmony, of tension and resolution. I think about stories with dire stakes.

 

Every apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic story addresses dire stakes.

 

A few days ago, I attended Ploughshares Fund’s annual nuclear policy forum online which featured talks, Q&A sessions, and panels with people such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President and COO of Nuclear Threat Initiative Joan Rohlfing, Principal Deputy National Security Advisor John Finer, and Senior Advisor for Global Zero and member of the board at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Jon Wolfsthal.

 

Many of the discussions revolved around phrases and subjects like, “nuclear weapons as a way to meet deterrent capabilities,” the “importance of arms negotiations,” the New Start Treaty, and the two issues of Sole Purpose (ie., nuclear weapons as deterrents only) and No First Use (which is a policy in which, as ucsusa.org explains, “the United States would commit to never being the first nation to use nuclear weapons in any conflict, a change from its current policy”).

 

All these things sounded well and good (Mostly. Well, okay, not really, I’m a fan of total disarmament) until Joan Rohlfing said, “Outdated thinking is holding us back from change.” With that statement the story of how we look at nuclear disarmament suddenly had a new potential ending. I felt a shift in my own thinking and hope for a new way forward. With those words I felt as if I was breathing the first whiffs of fresh air after being in a toxic environment for as long as I could remember. The narrative we’ve told ourselves for the last seventy years suddenly had a new outcome and the lead-in to positive change. A change that would hopefully drive us forward to complete and worldwide nuclear disarmament. Cleary and while acknowledging the complexities involved with nuclear matters, Rohlfing went on to say there are “more sensible approaches to these issues.” The idea of a more sensible approach reminded me of a line of dialogue that comes up in so many stories and which drives me crazy. “I had no choice.” Maybe the line is good for effect. It shows how the character has been pushed into a corner. It shows the rising tension. But it’s not true. There are always other choices. Sure, they may be ones that aren’t appealing or that may end in death or disaster, but there is always choice.

 

Our outdated nuclear thought model says that the only way to keep the world from ending in a radioactive mushroom cloud is to have the biggest nuclear stick.

 

But what if there was another way?

 

What if we moved away from fear, especially the fear of loss of control?

Tension to resolution. Disharmony to harmony.

 

As she concluded her thoughts, Rohlfing emphasized the importance of hope, saying that when it comes to global conflicts, no matter how dire, we should be able to “fail safe and not fail catastrophic.” She said it’s possible to have “a vision of a positive future,” and that we should update our thinking to go after that.

 

What a message.  

 

Even if characters, real and fictional, face dire circumstances in order to grow and advance the story, we and they can still create tension and have resolution without having a world-destroying button as our only deterrent to conflict and war.

 

As another of the panelists said, “Nuclear weapons are things that harm in large and tragic ways.” So why not embrace a vision of a more positive future?

 

We have the power of story – that’s our superpower – and we can form a narrative that takes us to a much better ending. Whether that is in real life or fiction. As another panelist said, “Arms races are costly in resources and in risks.” We can do better than what we’ve done up to now. We can change the direction of our ongoing narrative. We can imagine a different scenario because we are all master storytellers. 

 

 

*Pictures taken in 2018 at Oslo's Nobel Peace Center's 2017 Exhibition titled Ban the Bomb