this new year’s eve, i demonstrated trust in myself by beginning donna tartt’s the goldfinch. the book had been squirreled away since early in 2020, when a neighbour had left it in a free pile by the mailboxes in my apartment building. the goldfinch is 770 pages, and because my attention span is located closer to the “goldfish” side of the scale, i tend to avoid books that run this long. also, i find myself hesitant toward widely lauded books. i feel a pressure to like them and this pressure often spoils into a contrarian wish to prove why they’re undeserving of all of that praise. it’s a real gas!
as of right now, i’m enjoying the goldfinch, or at least enjoying the pride i feel by actually sticking by it. at just shy of halfway through, i don’t feel equipped to place any firm judgments on the material itself.
today’s request is from a reader who’s also looking to feel bookish in 2021…
ooh, elena, don’t i know the feeling! i spent 2020 in and out of a mental fog that made it hard to focus on reading. here are some books that have pulled me out of similar fogs:
wayne koestenbaum’s figure it out — i really, really, really love koestenbaum’s essays. whether he’s writing about scents, a pair of new glasses, or masculinity, his sentences gleam, making me feel embarrassed by my desire to underline every sentence. his wit and impressive, yet not stuffy-feeling, vocabulary pull you far from any of the academic associations you may have with the genre. i think that the broad range of topics covered in the book will help to quash your short attention span.
oyinkan braithwaite’s my sister, the serial killer — my sister, the serial killer is a slim novella that “i couldn’t put down.” that phrase feels so cliche, but when a book really does pull you in with such conviction, it feels almost mystical. i don’t want to give away more than the title already does, so just trust me on this! i think it’s the perfect gateway to reading more regularly.
tamara shopsin’s arbitrary stupid goal — illustrator and writer tamara shopsin’s father has owned a west village diner, called shopsin’s, since she was 1971. the book is, loosely, the story of her upbringing alongside the restaurant, and more broadly, her father’s belief that we all need an “arbitrary stupid goal” in order to enjoy our lives. it’s hard to be bored by a book that is so lively and warm.
zany idea: why not click on the image above and send me a recommendation request?