On Books and Reading

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A visit to the library with my daughter.

If ever I had a first true love, it was books. Rooms filled with books have made me giddy with anticipation and delight, and stilled me to reverent silence. My early childhood home was a three-room apartment, but as I recall, it housed a grand library that rivaled the one Patience and Fortitude guard. The bookshelves were at capacity with classics from world cultures and canon. Books of Eastern and Western philosophy, politics and labor, illustrated fairy tale and poetry collections, world cookbooks, giant art books on heavy glossy paper, novels and sci-fi, Africana and Americana, religious tomes from varying faiths, periodicals of humor, fashion and music, dictionaries and atlases - all at home. Everything else could be found at the local public library. My younger brother and I wielded our library cards like trust fund babies with AmEx black cards. And while it is perhaps true that I am guilty of exaggerating the extent of my parents' book collection, how I remember it, is how it felt to me at that time. And ever since then, never have I lived somewhere that books were not throughout. 

My younger brother and I wielded our library cards like trust fund babies with AmEx black cards.

When I was a child reading came second only to playing outside. It remained my preferred pastime through young adulthood. Even with the advent of social media, and my considerable appetite for television and film, reading was my primary retreat and source of entertainment. And all of my past professional work, in one way or another, centered books, writing, and reading. 

Things shifted once I became a parent. It’s not that I gave up reading for pleasure so much as the time I could allot to it was limited. Soon the majority of books I read were about pregnancy and parenting. My bedside table was piled high with books like “Spiritual Midwifery” by Ina Mae Gaskins and “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Farber. Then the books I read were primarily the ones I read to my children. (Often the same books over and over and over again. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I read “Planes” by Byron Barton or “Everywhere Babies” by Susan Meyers.) It was in early parenthood that I gained an appreciation for short stories, essays and contemporary creative nonfiction like this brilliant piece by Kaushika Suresh. I no longer consistently had (or made) the time for lengthy novels. I still read novels but they were fewer in number and great stretches of time yawned between the end of one book and the start of another.

But I am finding my way back to that first love, mindfully reconnecting with reading for pleasure and inquiry. I’ve resolved to begin my days reading and writing, usually a full chapter once I wake, followed by another 20 or so minutes of free writing on paper. (This means waking earlier and going to bed earlier but it’s worth it.) Then and only then do I get out of bed and attend to the things that need my full attention like my children - and my phone. 

Nowadays my bedside table once again betrays the stage of life I’m in. Not a single novel is in my line of sight when I open my eyes in the morning. Instead it is “The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward” by Daniel Pink, “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin or pretty much anything Brené Brown is peddling for which I reach. I’ve got some fiction I’m looking forward to reading as well, including “There, There” by Tommy Orange, “Fiona and Jane” by Jean Chen Ho and just based on the title alone “I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness” by Claire Vaye Watkins. But otherwise it’s all self-reflection and self-improvement because after all, memento mori.

That said, please allow me to share a tiny (and I mean tiny) selection of favorite books from varying stages of my life as a reader.

Childhood 

Two of my favorite books from my girlhood feature protagonists named Francie. Both about the same age as I when I first read them - elevenish - and both from New York. One Black. The other white. The first may be more familiar. Even if you’ve never read it, chances are you’ve heard of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith. It details Mary Frances “Francie” Nolan’s life in early 1900s Williamsburg, BK. My identity as a born and raised Brooklyn native informs so many of my sensibilities that it was inevitable I would select it. In fact, Smith wrote a 1943 essay in the NYT entitled “Why Brooklyn Is That Way; A chronicler of the borough explains its deep-rooted tribal customs and traditions” that is one of the most accurate reads on the borough and its people I’ve ever read.

The other Francie is Francie Coffin in Louise Meriwether’s “Daddy was a Number Runner.” Set during the Depression in Harlem, NY, DWANR is a coming of age story that remains one of the few books I’ve read more than once as a child but never as an adult. I’ll be sure to remedy that soon.

Young Adulthood

Two writers whose work I discovered and loved (still do) in my early adulthood are Octavia E. Butler and Edith Wharton. Honestly for the purpose of today’s post, I chose these two writers in part because I love how incongruous their names look side by side. Octavia Butler’s work moved me from the moment I read “Parable of the Sower” in the early ‘90s. POTS is about a young woman named Lauren Olamina, an empath in a dystopian version of the United States plagued by sociopolitical and climate crises, that seems increasingly plausible with every passing year. Her essays and short stories, including the writing advice she gives in “Blood Child, and Other Stories” cemented my status as a forever fan of Butler and all of her work.

I first became curious about Edith Wharton when I learned that her wealthy New York family was in fact the Joneses that folks reference in the saying ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ Turns out she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. My intrigue lead me to “The Age of Innocence” and upon completing it, I immediately sought out and read a handful of her other titles including “Ethan Frome” and “The House of Mirth.” Once I find a writer I like, I tend to read as much of their collected work as possible. Wharton was no exception.

Early Motherhood 

Time constraints meant gravitating to shorter work than I’d normally seek out. An example is “Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.” I’d first picked this book up when I was a freelancer in the early 2000s. At the time I wrote: “While we are familiar with Zora the novelist, essayist, playwright and anthropologist, A Life in Letters introduces us to Zora the filmmaker; Zora the Barnard College undergrad and Columbia University student; Zora the two-time Guggenheim fellow; Zora the thrice-married wife; and Zora the political pundit.” A book of letters meant I could read a few pages at a time and learn more through the content of her letters than in any one book she’d written.

It was also during this time of adjusting to life as a mother of four and trying to hold on to my identity as a writer that I fell in love with Shirley Jackson’s work. The gothic horror writer is perhaps best known for her short story, “The Lottery,” but it was her dual collections of short stories “Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons” based on her life - as a writer and mother of four - that moved me from appreciation to enthusiasm 💁🏾‍♀️. I am always seeking examples of writer mamas to prove to myself that one can be both. Jackson is an inspiration. Other works written by mothers (of four!) include “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” by Jean Kerr and “The View From Breast Pocket Mountain” by Karen Anton.

Needless to say, the books and writers I love are many. And as I will truly never tire of this topic, let’s make it a conversation instead.

Tell Me

What are two of your favorite books? Reading anything good these days? Let’s talk about it in the comments. 📚