This was not a good reading year to begin with, and then it went seriously downhill after the October 7th massacre in Israel. I had no ability to focus and stay grounded. In December, particularly on our Hannukah trip to Yelapa, Mexico, I was finally able to take comfort in reading again. It helps enormously if I turn my phone off and don't have it anywhere near me when I read — far too many distractions. On good days, I am hyper aware of reading as therapy, as breath, as pause.
I'm not big on New Year resolutions, but am committing to spending far more time doing serious reading in 2024 than I did this year.
Aviv, Rachel. Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
Barry, Sebastian. Old God's Time
Bolin, Alice. Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
Carr, David. The Night of the Gun
Cobain, Kurt. The Last Interview
Crace, Jim. Being Dead
Crews, Harry. A Childhood: The Biography of a Place
Cullhéd, Elin. Euphoria
de Beauvoir, Simone. A Very Easy Death
Dederer, Claire. Monsters
Dederer, Claire. Love and Trouble
Duras, Marguerite. The Lover
Everett, Percival. The Trees
Goldberg, Danny. Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain
Harding, Paul. This Other Eden
Harding, Paul. Enon
Hemingway, Ernest. Across the River and Into the Trees
Hornby, Nick. About a Boy
Kang, Han. The Vegetarian
Keefe, Patrick Radden. Empire of Pain
Keegan, Claire. Foster
Lehane, Dennis. Small Mercies
Lerner, Ben. The Topeka School
Malcolm, Janet. Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory
McBride, James. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
McEwan, Ian. The Comfort of Strangers
Moore, Lorrie. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Nunez, Sigrid. The Friend
O'Farrell, Maggie. Hamnet
Oz, Amos. My Michael
Smith, Clint. How the Word Is Passed
Thomas, Joseph Earl. Sink
Verghese, Abraham. The Covenant of Water
Wellons, Jay. All That Moves Us
Whitehead, Colson. Harlem Shuffle
Williamson, Elizabeth. Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle For Truth