the books I could read over and over
I am devouring books—lifelines to what has been, to what could be. With coffee in the morning and with a drink at night, books shape my day. I feel particularly victorious when a book is so good that I instinctively reach for it rather than the tiny glowing screen (just me?). Like Nikaela confessed, it feels silly to say that books have saved my life, but they’ve certainly made this life easier to inhabit. Here are a few I’ve particularly enjoyed lately.
Just Kids by Patti Smith
It’s astounding to read about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in the sixties and seventies. Smith couldn’t afford to attend art school and decided that surrounding herself with other artists was the next best thing. She arrived in New York in the summer of 1967 with nothing but a desire to be an artist, sleeping in parks and pilfering leftover food until she found a job and floppy-haired boy genius Robert Mapplethorpe. "I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist,” Smith writes, “though I hungered to be one.” The intense passion Smith and Mapplethorpe cultivated for their art is utterly inspiring, and spurred in me an eagerness to privatize my own art practice. After all, like anything else, art only becomes a failure when you stop trying.
Sue Miller
Sue Miller’s work is a recent discovery after reading her excellent book Monogamy. Now I can’t stop. After Monogamy, I’ve plowed through The Arsonist, For Love, and While I Was Gone, and am giddy that more of Miller’s exquisite books await me still. I so admire her pragmatic way of melding together the minutiae of everyday life—the idle conversation, the tidying up after a party, the lazy stream of passive thoughts—with the big life-changing stuff—complicated relationships, mid-life crises, sudden death. Because isn’t that the way life works? Even in the midst of utmost calamity, there are still dishes to be washed and the dogs to be fed. We are lucky to have such a talented soul in our midst.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah is a sweeping bildungsroman that follows a Nigerian woman’s education and immigration journey to the US and, eventually, back to Nigeria. Adichie addresses head on the struggles of learning to navigate a foreign country—difficult for anyone, and even more difficult for an African woman plunged into multi-tiered, confusing American society. I found so intriguing Adichie’s perspectives on race, and the stark differences between straight-laced, regimented American culture and loose, relaxed Nigerian culture. Though the book is long, it becomes a companionship that I, for one, was sorry to see end.
Olive Kitteridge and Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
I was maybe the last person on earth to finally read Elizabeth Strout’s work, but what a treat awaited me all these years. Olive Kitteridge, like much of Strout’s work, consists of several short stories that are connected by their setting in the small town of Crosby, Maine. At the core of each story, in some way, is Olive Kitteridge—a complex, formidable, tough woman who is not entirely likable. But that’s what makes the book so compelling—who among us is perfect? In lovely, matter-of-fact prose, Strout vividly describes the beautiful New England coastline and the bizarre happenings that occur there. Strout’s work is a nuanced, honest, relatable commentary on the extraordinary juxtapositions of people and their strange lives.
Honorable mentions
Writers and Lovers by Lily King — State of Wonder by Ann Patchett — Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens — Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar — Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb