2021 Reading Year in Review
Dear Readers,
My blog has been kind enough to let me know that I didn’t get a hit on my blog – even from a bot – during the entirety of December. That’s fine. I’m obviously not in it for the fame. Now I am going to modestly recap a modest reading year, and see if next year might be better. On Jan. 3rd, today, with the sun shining, it does seem like 2022 might hold some promise. I read 12 books in 2021, of varying qualities, 9 of which I tried to review on the blog.
Sometimes though, I knew I was really pushing myself to do it, such as the blog for A Moor’s Tale, which I could have happily just enjoyed and let go, it really wasn’t part of some bigger story for me (although I of course tried to make out that it was) and I still dislike my blog about A. Pang’s book “Rest” so much (although it is probably my most “meticulous” review ever) that I might take it down. It just feels forced, as does the blog about reading Sherlock Holmes, now that I think of it. I would have rather that I had just mentioned somewhere that I had been enjoying these stories, and left it at that.
This year however, is the year. The year I finish my thesis (for realsies this time). And after that I expect to have fun fun fun (?) while job hunting, at least, there will be more time to read. Reading seems to be mostly now about trying to find good things. A long time ago I used to read whatever came into my hands, but now I am so, so aware of how short the time is, and I want to “read only the best books” as a professor once told me to. We-ell, I want to read some great things surely, and I have, in the last year, become much more aware of my propensities for biography, big fat history books, and the Greek and Roman Classics. I have thought A LOT regarding whether I just enjoy these things due to internalized misogyny, colonialism, or some kind of Westophilia, but no, I have decided, they are just what I enjoy.
However, as I probably always will have some “topic” percolating or “article” to be scratched away at from here on out (the tail end of otherwise cruddy 2021 did see the publication of my first article ever, thank you, thank you)…I do plan on spacing out the big tomes with some happy fun novels. I look forward to all of that!
A Material Analysis of My 2021 Reading Year:
Physical Books:
Feb – The Diary of A Country Parson 1752-1801 3/5
March – Jacob’s Room 4/5
April – Garlic and Sapphires (culinary journey through NY) 3/5
May – Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire 2/5
September – The Moor’s Tale 3/5 —actually quite proud of myself as I borrowed this book (and gave it back #sustainable)
August – How to Be a Victorian – 4/5
Kindle Ebook:
June – Rest (self-help) 3/5
July The Choice: Embrace the Possible (Holocaust memoir) 4/5
Audiobooks:
Jan – Walking With Destiny (Churchill Biography) 5/5
October- (3 quarters of) The Complete Sherlock Holmes 5/5
November – Convenience Store Woman 5/5
December – Einstein’s Dreams 4/5
A few quick remarks before I move on. One is that I think the year started out strong, and if I hadn’t been you know, struggling though my PhD it probably would have continued this way. But by April, I remember feeling pretty disillusioned about reading, and certainly about writing blogs. I was just so exhausted, I couldn’t think “what next” or muster much enthusiasm. And it shows. There were so, so many things I tried this year, that didn’t work. I tried this ok audiobook about Pliny the Younger in October, but I just didn’t have the bandwidth then, although I will finish it when I do, I didn’t know anything about either Pliny and I am totally hooked.
I didn’t like Rituals, another glossy self-help book, I tried the Tenant of Wildfell Hall but could NOT get onboard with it at all, the main lady was the definition of “not like other girls” and I actually cut off the audiobook in the middle of the scene of the main character’s quasi-love declarations “oh perhaps I could entertain a warm regard towards your person, my innermost blah blah and societal blah notwithstanding”—Yes, I gave up on romance-oriented Victorian literature forever this year. I also read the self-help (?) biography Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire by M. Guiliano and felt exactly nothing about it. I read a Holocaust memoir called “The Choice,” which was quite different, in terms of the fact that it was divided into two halves, the latter of which contained the story of how this traumatized woman actually suffered and worked to put her life back together after her experiences–I have read several Holocaust memoirs as I think it is important to do so, but this one was quite different, and it did impact me, although I don’t wish to write about it on the blog. It does remind me however, to someday read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
And I would say that I was quite annoyed with reading in the Summer/Fall, with the exception of “How to Be a Victorian” which I had a lovely time with. Otherwise, I just couldn’t find much that I liked, despite seeming to have so many options at my fingertips. Convenience Store Woman really saved my year on the level of enjoyment, without it flashing neon in November I would look back on 2021 as a pretty dull reading year. At the very end of the year I enjoyed the short audiobook “Einstein’s Dreams” by Alan Lightman, which is a collection of about 30 (?) different ways one could imagine “time” working. It was interesting and trippy.
Yes, reading-wise there were quite a few ups and downs, and stops and starts. I don’t know if this was a result of not planning my year at all—however, I don’t want to plan much for the foreseeable future because I don’t want to stress myself out unnecessarily. I did wonder, at certain times the past year, if 12 books really was too many books–kind of a thought that makes me sad, as I do think that humans OUGHT to have leisure time enough to read a book a month, this seems like a basic right— but also I am now really into letting a book settle inside me and change me, and that takes time. I want to give certain books space to breathe and live in me a bit, before moving on to the next.
I am toying with making it a rule to only write about 6 books next year (although I still “expect” to read 12), but not every book is worth writing that much about, because not every book impacts you that deeply, or is so enjoyable that one has to say something profound about it. I may then also feel more free to write ad hoc on this blog, about topics as they come up. I did write some quasi-essays last year but didn’t “publish” them on here. That may be the next step, we shall see.
I still like the idea of reading diaries in February, and I might let these weird propensities guide me, I need to reconnect with my Virginia Woolf project, and I think this year, when the thesis is done and I’m staring into a wilderness, I will try my first Nietzsche (I’ve heard that On Morals is easiest for a beginner). Other than that, by the time my thesis is done my blog will have achieved its third birthday (!!!!) and I am going to do a special post, trawling through the whole thing picking up dropped threads—books to follow up on, but more so–ideas to pursue. There are notions which I want to revisit sprinkled across this thing, and I will go back and gather any that still have luster.
Til then.