Why do I read so much?
Blame it on sporadic freelance work. Maybe it’s the treatment and detox free time. Put it on an obsession with book collecting. Also, marrying a former librarian helps.
Whatever the case, I’ve clocked 36 books so far in 2023. Most have been engaging, some arduous, many inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.
I won’t give you exhaustive Goodreads synopses to slog through - your time is precious. So here are 5 books that really resonated with me, and I hope they will for you too.
Zen. Jazz. Mental heath. Anti-consumerism. Loss. And at the heart of it all, a brilliant boy named Benny who hears inanimate objects talk to him. Also…the book you hold is a character itself! This made me hear and feel a book like no other in a long time.
A book about trees? Yes. Just blindly climb these literary branches and see the world from an inspired panorama. Fables are interwoven like tree roots and you’ll never look at a trunk the same. Absorb every word in this epic forest of a novel.
A woman’s prison story that puts all other Netflix pap to shame. No stock characters, no cliches. Just good, page-turning storytelling. I still think of protagonist Romy Hall like a sister.
From the author of Empire of Pain, who cracked open the Sackler family, this collection of Keefe’s essays read like true crime candy. Tales you’d never imagine.
A popular mainstay in big book stores, this is well worth the read. Who doesn’t love a road trip story? In the 1950s!? It’s like In Cold Blood without the blood. On the Road without the drugs. It’s an automobile odyssey. It’s a story of life’s crossroads on a forgotten highway.
Please add some of your fave books so far in 2023 in the comment section. Me like reading stuff…and would love to hear from you.
I always have a number of books on the go, but then there are ones that just grab your attention and won’t let go until you finish them.
My library for the most part consists of many books I have not read, which is how i like it. There is also the limiting factor of space, as my wife demands that books have to go if new ones come in.
The two books that come to mind as most engaging were Impact- Women writing after concussion , which I checked out if the library and read cover to cover. Kinnie Starr wrote one of the essays, and it is a good one. There are many authors, but their personal stories really resonated for me. I have know quite a few women, all women, who have suffered and still suffer the lingering effects of a concussion years after the impact. You can’t go wrong with this one.
Second, and it was a couple years ago, was what Jonathan Lethem described as the perfect pandemic novel. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. Amazon describes it as “a novel that is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control.”
It is brilliant writing at its best.
Other books of note are the autobiography by Rickie Lee Jones, Lucinda Williams new book,
Also the short stories of Joy Williams. If you haven’t read her, do so.
If you are looking for another book to read.....Song fo the Sparrow by Tara MacLean is a fantastic book. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61345447