The obligatory 'things I read this year' piece
Reading came back to me in a big way this year. Here are some of the things that left their mark.
It's been quite a year for our little family. Despite the difficulties, reading has come back to me in a big way. There are no doubt obvious reasons for this but let’s not go into those here. Instead, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve read that have left their mark.
As a kid I read hungrily. One of my favourite memories is of laying in bed, reading, my father pausing at my bedroom door to tell me I would need glasses if I continued to read in the low light. (He was right, I was given reading glasses for long-sightedness at the somewhat premature age of 19, whether it was the low light reading that caused it, I will never know). This year reading has given me the same kind of pleasures I remember from my childhood. I have gone to bed early, looking forward to my book. I’ve woken at 5am and opened The New Yorker app on my phone, hoping the light doesn’t wake Liz, and read.
I’m also someone who likes to share. When I read something I think my mother will like, I send her an email, or quote a bit in a text message to her. I send articles to my friends at UTS, K & J, hoping they will get the same spark in the brain that I did. I brought in books for my students this year and they actually read them and we talked about it. One of my jobs at home is to keep Liz supplied with a steady supply of novels (and very carefully selected non-fiction).
So instead of whipping up 1000 words on something (I’ll get back to that next year), I offer you a list of things that brought me joy, triggered thoughts and sometimes, roused anger. If you have something you’d like to add to the list feel free to pop it in the comments (just click through to the web version of this piece). I’d love to see what you’ve been reading.
I hope all have a restful break and that your New Year is filled with joy.
Georg x
Now, the books. Trigger warning: contains only non-fiction. If you are a fiction reader, my apologies, but I hope you can get something out of this.
Everybody and The Lonely City
Olivia Laing
I discovered Olivia Laing the old-fashioned way: browsing in my local bookshop. One of my current fascinations is the relationship between body and mind, having recently realised I have quite the tumultuous dance going on between the two. I picked up Everybody because, well, it’s about bodies. It’s about bodies and politics. It seemed perfect, and it was. The Lonely City was found in a bookshop in Brisbane. What do I love about these books? Laing takes a theme (bodies, loneliness) and explores it through the detailed stories of individuals. The writing rambles along, at first I wanted her to straighten up and just be a bit more ‘neat’ but then I slipped into her groove and was enveloped by her jangly style. Do I wish I wrote books like Olivia Laing? Definitely.
The Crane Wife
CJ Hauser
Hauser “went viral” with her essay “The Crane Wife” when it published in the Paris Review in 2019. This book includes that essay plus a whole lot of others. Basically they all ponder what it means to love. I don’t know whether it’s my attention span but essays figured highly for me this year (see below). The essays in The Crane Wife are honest and funny. Hauser has that clear, concise, cuts-through-bullshit-with-a-knife style that I admire, so I was always going to love this. I read it on Kindle in Honolulu and by the time we left I’d bought a hardcover to take home. Yes, I enjoyed it that much.
The Shape of Sound
Fiona Murphy
Over the past couple of years I’ve thought a lot of disability and how it relates to my day job: design. I read this because I wanted to get a better insight into disability, in this case Deafness. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got. Murphy tells the story of how she hid her disability for years and how she grew comfortable with it. Our society tends to think about disability as a deficit, this book blasts that notion out of the water. This story is not about disability as ‘inspiration’ (shudder) however, Murphy’s book examines the complex nature of disability, her relationship to it and the world. It’s ultimately about different ways of being in the world and in my mind, that can only be a good thing.
Approaching Eye Level
Vivian Gornick
I had not heard of Gornick before this year until, again, I was browsing in Gleebooks, taking my sweet time to select books on which to spend a birthday gift voucher. She’s an essayist who has also written a memoir that is apparently brilliant (it’s on my bedside table). This is a book of personal essays, reissued in 2020, every one of which I found perfect. She’s the kind of writer who makes me savour individual sentences and she is very NEW YORK. She’s also a late bloomer and as I approach a significant birthday, I find this very reassuring.
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
Again! A writer I discovered while browsing. I read her essays first but, to be cliched about it, if you’re going to read Ehrenreich, read this. Ehrenreich took several low-paid jobs in different US states (waitress, shop assistant) and attempted to live only on that wage. She moved towns so she was totally isolated and forced to rely on whatever she had. At one point she is sleeping in her car. It was written in the 80s but is still incredibly relevant. Oh, and she’s FUNNY.
Unfortunately, she passed away this year.
Being Mortal
Atul Gawande
Recommended by my friend K, Gawande writes about how the American health system deals with death and dying. He’s a doctor who has a piercing insight into how he and his patients fit into the ‘system’. It’s not a polemic, rather he gently tells stories, but with the reader left in no doubt as to how we are ill-suited to a health system that prioritises profit. Also: his New Yorker article on why doctors hate their computers is worth a read.
My book of the year was J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country (1980), but has now fierce competition from Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, a jewel of a book, with not a spare word used.