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.
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 “book goal” for the year.
“Book goal?” I thought. “Um. 100.”
I also have a habit of setting rash goals and then telling people about them.
January’s almost over now, and I’m nine books in. They are, in the order I finished them… “Raven Stole the Moon,” By Garth Stein; “The Painted Drum,” by Louise Erdrich; “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” by Elena Ferrante; “The Way Winter Comes,” by Sherry Simpson, “The Story of the Lost Child,” by Elena Ferrante; “Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen; “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” by Anthony Marra; “The Bone Clocks,” by David Mitchell; and “Blonde Indian,” by Juneau’s own Ernestine Hayes. “Pride and Prejudice,” and “The Bone Clocks” are repeats, but I counted them anyway, because… 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.
I’m a fiction person, and I tend to say that I read maybe one nonfiction book a year. But if there’s something this list is teaching me, it’s either that I read more nonfiction than I think, or I’m reading more nonfiction because of this list.
So it was a little surprising to me when, no offense to anyone else on the list — all of these books are good — if I had to pick one book, new to me, that really blew me away, it would be Sherry Simpson’s “The Way Winter Comes,” a collection of essays on the outdoors around Alaska, many developed from her columns in newspapers.
A lot of you have probably already read it; maybe you’ve read all of her books. Sherry Simpson did grow up in Juneau, after all. She’s one of Alaska’s best-known writers. A few of the essays in the book were even adapted from pieces she wrote for the Juneau Empire. I’ve met her, and even briefly talked to her, but somehow I’d never read this book. I put it down — the last line of the last essay is a doozy — and told my boyfriend, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I haven’t read this before.” So much of what she writes just strikes you as so inescapably true that by the time you’re done reading one of her essays, you don’t only know more about moose, or bears, or trapping, you know more about yourself and your fellow humans.
But enough. You guys probably already know that. You probably also know about Ernestine Hayes and “Blonde Indian,” the University of Alaska Southeast’s “One Campus, One Book” 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.
And then, in fiction, there’s 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’s ever written; a slew of them are waiting for me at Hearthside now. (As a side note, though Ferrante is widely regarded as Italy’s best living writer — and she refers to herself in the feminine, so people are pretty sure she’s a woman — no one knows who she is. She uses a pen name.)
Last, if you’ve ever talked to me about books, you know how much I love David Mitchell. He’s my favorite writer; everything he writes thrums with life. I first picked up “Ghostwritten” 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. “Cloud Atlas” was even better; it’s been my favorite book for years now. “The Bone Clocks” is also a great read. All three of them are part science-fictiony (though as a literary agent tells a writer-character in “The Bone Clocks,” “A book can’t be half fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant”) and are divided into sections with very different narrators, in different times, telling stories with a common thread.
But enough about January. It’s February now. Time to pick up Alice Munro’s “Dear Life.” Time to pick up John Vaillant’s “The Golden Spruce” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.”
I’ve still got at least 91 books to go, but that’s nothing to how many worthwhile ones are out there.
• Mary Catharine Martin is the staff writer for the Capital City Weekly, filling in this week for Randi Spray’s book column.
