03 January 2019

34/365

books loved in twenty eighteen (sure to be revisited again and again):

sing, unburied, sing (jesmyn ward) (the way she puts words together makes me want to lie down on the floor and cry like a baby)

the shell collector (anthony doerr) (an extraordinary book filled with extraordinary short stories that had me underlining words and sentences and entire passages right and left)

half of a yellow sun (chimamanda ngozi adichie) (I fall deep into her stories, her characters, deep, deep)

catalog of unabashed gratitude (ross gay) (if I could wear his poems like perfume, I would)

there there (tommy orange) (polyphonic and beautiful and so incredibly important)

diane arbus: in the beginning (diane arbus, jeff rosenheim) (I saw this exhibit back in the summer of 2016-- it left me speechless and I wanted the exhibit book for all the reasons you want an exhibit book after you've just experienced an exhibit that leaves you speechless. but really, I wanted the book for one photograph and one photograph only. I couldn't afford it, I can never afford the exhibit books. that's just the way it is. I've never forgotten that photograph, though. and then I was recently gifted this book by my better half and when I opened it up, there it was-- that photograph-- and it still moves me just as much as it ever did. but what I love more than anything, maybe even more than that one photograph, if I'm honest, are the lists. diane arbus made lists. messes of words scribbled in pencil. and they live on the pages of this book and I can't stop looking at them, I cannot)

4 comments:

  1. OHHHHHHH. I have not been here in awhile and
    was just soooooo excited to see that you are posting again...
    I have always loved your posts! Yay!
    This just made me incredibly happy.
    :)

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    1. thank you! thank you so much! this project had been swirling around my head for a while and it's crazy but I'm doing it anyway. (it's nice to be back here) xo

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  2. Makes me SO HAPPY when I hear that someone read and loved There There. That was my favorite of 2018. It also makes me happy when people blog about books they've loved. ;-)

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    1. definitely one of my favorites of the year-- great new voice! (and, me too-- I love love love reading what books people read and love!)

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