Are we what we read?
A look at a year of reading and what it says about us
Before we begin…
It’s that time again. Think about the books you’ve read in 2024. Imagine them all around you, covers closed, titles on top. What do they tell you about the year you’ve just lived? What do they say about your state of mind, stage of life, your desires? If it’s easier, imagine a friend coming upon you, surrounded by these books, looking at each one and then at you. What would they say the books reflected about you? Would they be surprised?
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Looking Back At What We Read
It’s time for our annual look back at the books we’ve read and what they say, if anything, about us. Here is a link to the list of the 34 books I actually read: Betsy’s Reads 2024. The first thing that strikes me is the number of books I’ve read, far lower than the 52+ I’ve averaged since I started keeping track.
At first I was unsettled by the steep drop in the number of books, as if it were something to be embarrassed about. Then I realized that I usually arrive at the end of the year with the sense that although I have read a lot and read well, there are so many more books I wanted to read but didn’t get to. This year: not so much. In 2024, I read exactly what I could and I read what I needed to read.
Looking over this year’s list, I can trace the route I took from the days when I could barely read anything in the wake of my brother’s death to, once again, finding the medicine or distraction I needed in the pages of a book. I can also see how I was using novels to help me think and process what is happening in our society.
Here are some of the ways I found myself grouping the books on this year’s list:
Taking home back home. When I look at the list, I notice novels that kept me feeling close to northern New Hampshire, the place that was home to me and was home to my brother until he died. David Hartshorn’s two novels, The Life That Follows, and More Than Half-Way There were set in the town he grew up in and the one where I went to school. His mother taught me English in junior high school. The stories were about love and grief and life going on and every page showed me a place that was familiar. I read Courtney Vashaw’s children’s book Mama, What Color is Your Love?, a moving and joyful story for children by an author who also grew up in one town away from me. Then, oddly, there was the book I discovered at my dad’s wife’s house: Stark Decency: German Prisoners of War in a New England Village, an account of the time when the tiny town of Stark, not far from the Canadian border, was the site of a WWII prison camp.
Processing grief, but also escaping it. Ruth Ozeki’s novel, the Book of Form and Emptiness cemented her as one of my favorite authors. Tears came and went quietly as I read although I could never be certain whether they were a response Ozeki’s prose, the grief and small joys of her main characters, or the many spell-binding offerings embedded in the text that got me thinking about things and our relationship to them.
The past reveals the present. A number of my books were set in the 1800s or the early-to-mid 1900s. One, Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, is a time-travel novel but there were also these historical novels: The Flower Sisters (Michelle Collins Anderson), A Coin in Nine Hands (Marguerite Yourcenar), Table for Two (Amor Towles) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith), News of the World (Paulette Jiles) and everything by Charles Dickens although a Tale of Two Cities is, itself, a look back to the late 1700s at the time of the French Revolution. Poverty, class, social upheaval, the advance of technology with its potential to disrupt, the ruthlessness of human beings, the resilience and unexpected grace of human beings – these are at the heart of each of these novels. Each of them has offered me a way to think about what is happening in my own time. Oddly, there is something reassuring about the reminder that we’ve always been who we are and there have never been any certainties about how it is all going to go. A recent read in the historical fiction category: Dispossessed (Désirée Zamorano).
The fatter the better. Perhaps one reason for reading fewer books is that I read fatter ones. And I loved it. After questioning the whole long vs short question, I am now in the camp of those who understand that the book itself is what matters, not the heft of it. When a good novel is also a long one, it’s heaven – it forces me to sip, to chew, to digest as I go and not to gulp down a book like a snack. The pace matched my mood and my needs. My favorites of the year in the “fat” category: Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens) and The Book of Form and Emptiness (Ruth Ozeki). My favorite nonfiction book also happened to be pretty hefty: An Immense World (Ed Yong).
It’s never too late to start. In the second half of the year, I discovered Charles Dickens which goes to show it is never too late to start, right? As a student, I’d read bits and pieces of Dickens but never really read his work closely. I read David Copperfield before finally diving into Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. Even though I lingered in Appalachia for a bit longer with Bobi Conn’s memoir In the Shadow of the Valley, I returned immediately to Victorian England and the language and art of Dickens. Except for a few novels here and there, I’ve pretty much remained in the England of Dickens’ time since late July. I’ll let you know when I emerge.
I write more when I read less. I was able this summer to move my manuscript closer to a submittable form. There were so many times when I reached for the book I’ve not yet finished instead of one by another writer who has long since moved on to other projects. I need to read when I write but I also, I’ve been reminded, need to write first and read second. At least if I want to finish a book of my own.
Spark Reads 2024: The Books That Will Stay With Us
Last week I asked you to share your top 3-5 books of the year. Here’s a roundup of the books you shared. If you missed last week’s newsletter, it’s not too late. Share your favorites from 2024 in the comments below!
You’ll find a list of all those named so far here in the Spark Reads 2024 list at bookshop.org.
A quick word about our lists and bookshop.org
Whenever possible, I link book titles to bookshop.org in order to add what little support I can to independent bookstores. I continue to use my personal page to occasionally organize lists of books that have been mentioned over the years by Spark readers, but I have long ago stopped linking to books on these lists because I don’t want to earn a commission or sell books. If you see a book link to bookshop.org in any issue of my newsletter, it will be a general link or, if I’ve been shopping recently, will send a percentage of sales to my local independent bookstore, La Playa Books. If you have a local bookstore you would like to support, you can search it out on the bookshop.org site and support it directly.
And now, this…
I was struggling to grasp even a shred of holiday spirit when a few friends asked me to go along with them to the December concert of The San Diego Gay' Men’s Chorus last Sunday. It was big, loud, lovely, and took a big-band-jazz spin on all the usual holiday songs. I took pictures but they don’t begin to capture the magic of being surrounded by all that fun and all that joy. There was one moment when they did their own spin on the version of “Silent Night” as performed by the Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Amazingly, I’d never heard it before. I really need to get out more…
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Happy holidays and see you next year
I end this year in a very different place I imagined when I started out last January. I am humbled by it - enough to realize that it is enough to have arrived here. To read and to keep writing – these are the constants that will help me launch into the next year with all its uncertainties. I’m looking forward to staying connected with you and to sharing thoughts, books, ideas, a laugh or two – or three or four. Whatever the future brings, it’s coming. Here’s hoping we all find exactly what we need to help navigate it together.
I will be using the weeks between now and the new year to reflect and recharge. I’m looking forward to seeing where things go next year. Spark will return to your inbox on January 11, 2024.
Until then,be well. Please let me know how you are and what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in a future issue of Spark, let us know! Use the comment button below or just hit reply to this email and send your message directly.
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Ciao for now!
Gratefully yours,
Betsy
P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…from our house to yours
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”:
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
I can’t wait to see what you send!
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I didn't read many books in 2024, even though I am always reading at least one. And, according to Goodreads, I didn't even like them that well. But I read a large variety of books, and most importantly, I learned something from every one. I am looking forward to 2025.
I so love Ruth Ozeki's work, yes. You might enjoy Eowyn Ivey's, too...
Wishing you a wonderful holiday time!