I read a lot, and the way I forget the names of things suggests a real need to do some crossword puzzles. So this year I decided to write down each book I read, along with my thoughts about it.<\/p>\n
When I opened up my never-used Goodreads (a book-focused social media) account to log the first book, the site prompted me to set a \u201cbook goal\u201d for the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBook goal?\u201d I thought. \u201cUm. 100.\u201d<\/p>\n
I also have a habit of setting rash goals and then telling people about them.<\/p>\n
January\u2019s almost over now, and I\u2019m nine books in. They are, in the order I finished them\u2026 \u201cRaven Stole the Moon,\u201d By Garth Stein; \u201cThe Painted Drum,\u201d by Louise Erdrich; \u201cThose Who Leave and Those Who Stay,\u201d by Elena Ferrante; \u201cThe Way Winter Comes,\u201d by Sherry Simpson, \u201cThe Story of the Lost Child,\u201d by Elena Ferrante; \u201cPride and Prejudice,\u201d by Jane Austen; \u201cA Constellation of Vital Phenomena,\u201d by Anthony Marra; \u201cThe Bone Clocks,\u201d by David Mitchell; and \u201cBlonde Indian,\u201d by Juneau\u2019s own Ernestine Hayes. \u201cPride and Prejudice,\u201d and \u201cThe Bone Clocks\u201d are repeats, but I counted them anyway, because\u2026 well, because I like re-reading books, and why would I count it against my goal? You get something out of books the second, fourth, and tenth times you read them, too.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a fiction person, and I tend to say that I read maybe one nonfiction book a year. But if there\u2019s something this list is teaching me, it\u2019s either that I read more nonfiction than I think, or I\u2019m reading more nonfiction because of this list.<\/p>\n
So it was a little surprising to me when, no offense to anyone else on the list \u2014 all of these books are good \u2014 if I had to pick one book, new to me, that really blew me away, it would be Sherry Simpson\u2019s \u201cThe Way Winter Comes,\u201d a collection of essays on the outdoors around Alaska, many developed from her columns in newspapers.<\/p>\n
A lot of you have probably already read it; maybe you\u2019ve read all of her books. Sherry Simpson did grow up in Juneau, after all. She\u2019s one of Alaska\u2019s best-known writers. A few of the essays in the book were even adapted from pieces she wrote for the Juneau Empire. I\u2019ve met her, and even briefly talked to her, but somehow I\u2019d never read this book. I put it down \u2014 the last line of the last essay is a doozy \u2014 and told my boyfriend, \u201cOh my God. I can\u2019t believe I haven\u2019t read this before.\u201d So much of what she writes just strikes you as so inescapably true that by the time you\u2019re done reading one of her essays, you don\u2019t only know more about moose, or bears, or trapping, you know more about yourself and your fellow humans.<\/p>\n
But enough. You guys probably already know that. You probably also know about Ernestine Hayes and \u201cBlonde Indian,\u201d the University of Alaska Southeast\u2019s \u201cOne Campus, One Book\u201d choice for the year, a fascinating blend of memoir, traditional Tlingit stories and fiction. Both books have lots for Southeast residents to recognize and resonate with.<\/p>\n
And then, in fiction, there\u2019s Elena Ferrante, writing her Neapolitan Chronicles, a riveting four-part series (I read the first two in December and the final two this month). The books follow an intense friendship between two women who grew up in Naples, Italy, and who ended up with very different lives. I loved these books so much that I ordered everything else she\u2019s ever written; a slew of them are waiting for me at Hearthside now. (As a side note, though Ferrante is widely regarded as Italy\u2019s best living writer \u2014 and she refers to herself in the feminine, so people are pretty sure she\u2019s a woman \u2014 no one knows who she is. She uses a pen name.)<\/p>\n
Last, if you\u2019ve ever talked to me about books, you know how much I love David Mitchell. He\u2019s my favorite writer; everything he writes thrums with life. I first picked up \u201cGhostwritten\u201d in the tiny English-language section of a bookstore in Japan. I had no idea what to expect, but as soon as I finished it I wanted to start it again. \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d was even better; it\u2019s been my favorite book for years now. \u201cThe Bone Clocks\u201d is also a great read. All three of them are part science-fictiony (though as a literary agent tells a writer-character in \u201cThe Bone Clocks,\u201d \u201cA book can\u2019t be half fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant\u201d) and are divided into sections with very different narrators, in different times, telling stories with a common thread.<\/p>\n
But enough about January. It\u2019s February now. Time to pick up Alice Munro\u2019s \u201cDear Life.\u201d Time to pick up John Vaillant\u2019s \u201cThe Golden Spruce\u201d and Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 \u201cBetween the World and Me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve still got at least 91 books to go, but that\u2019s nothing to how many worthwhile ones are out there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mary Catharine Martin is the staff writer for the Capital City Weekly, filling in this week for Randi Spray\u2019s book column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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