January 9, 2023

Holiday Reads

Our holiday break started a day before it was supposed to, as a blizzard raged outside and cancelled school and I curled up with THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS, by William Maxwell, a novel set against the Spanish Flu Pandemic and made me wonder why the word “unprecedented” was used at all in March 2020, because it really wasn’t.

And I read and I read, books I’ve been picking up here and there over the last year and finally time away from work (and social media) gave me time to delve into them. Some new books, others authors I love whose backlists I still get to delight my way through (Sue Miller! Toni Morrison! Natalia Ginzburg!). Barbara Trapido, whose work I’m falling in love with. I read HAPPENING, by Annie Ernaux, 2022 Nobel Prize Winner. OMG, SONG OF SOLOMON! GIOVANNI’S ROOM! Connie Willis’s time travel epic (and I have its conclusion still before me).

What a satisfying stack this is, a stack that’s inspired me to read (even) more off the beaten track in 2023, to pursue my own curious avenues.

Also now my “to be read” shelf is as spare and orderly as it will be for at least another year, and so before the deluge of new releases begins, I want to take a moment and appreciate that.