In June, on vacation, in a used bookstore. Towering paperbacks obstructing every corner. The owner insisted on showing me the novels he could not possibly part with. It was perhaps not the best sales strategy, but it certainly encouraged me to take his recommendations to heart. He was holding a copy of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton to his chest. He had just read it for the first time. “I am Ethan Frome!” he declared, beaming. He said that his wife agreed; he was totally Ethan Frome. Back at the Airbnb, I found a copy of Ethan Frome on a shelf—serendipity!—and read it in one sitting. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say: I really hope this lovely bookseller is okay! I really hope he is not Ethan Frome.
There were other bookseller recommendations too, ingenious finds that made the year infinitely odder and more spectacular: Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera from Green Apple Books on the Park, Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson from Skylight Books, and A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro (translated by Frances Riddle) from Interabang Books, to name a few.
I keep a tiny notebook on my nightstand where I try to record my years in reading. I used to have a spreadsheet, which felt depressing. I love my little notebook; it is the only place where books exist chronologically for me. Once a book has entered my consciousness, it’s part of an eternal literary present. The final book I recorded this November: The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, due out next year, an absolute tornado of a novel. More 2024 time travel: The deranged and deliriously great Worry by Alexandra Tanner. And Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg, a perfect novel about making art, making a life, and how to do those things at the same time, with other people.
In February, I finally got a pair of prescription reading glasses. I put my drugstore readers in a box and luxuriated in the suddenly visible words of Norman Rush’s Mating.
So many books for events, launches, panels, and conversations. A gorgeous meditation on love and family: A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysha Chang. A hilarious existential journey: The Men Can’t Be Saved by Ben Purkert. Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang, which knocked me off my feet with its clarity, heart, and experiments in form. One Woman Show by Christine Coulson is like a tray of elegant, playful pastries. The Guest Lecture by Martin Riker is one of the funniest and most adventurous books of the year: cerebral, sweet, and ruthless all at once.
I had the pleasure of rereading Hernan Diaz’s books in preparation for an event this fall. Have you ever had occasion to visit your old middle school, as an adult? Do you know the feeling of everything seeming so much smaller than you remember? This is the experience of rereading some books, awakening to the disappointment of their meager architecture. And yet, In the Distance and Trust somehow grow larger and more astounding with each successive visit.
For the classes I teach: Assembly by Natasha Brown, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Some of Them Will Carry Me by Giada Scodellaro were my favorites this year. For the classes I took: Mr. Palomar and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. (In my opinion, that bookseller was a Palomar, not a Frome!)
Fantastic audiobooks while addressing the mess of my apartment: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, and The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken. There is something so intimate about having a story keep you company while folding underwear.
The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman, back-to-back, and I would gladly spend several hundred more volumes with Selin. I read Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra (translated by Megan McDowell) on a porch, Love by Hanne Ørstavik (translated by Martin Aitken) on a patio, and Persuasion by Jane Austen on the beach. All three books filled me with longing. I had my first taste of Katherine Anne Porter, on my green couch, in May. I read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, in the summer, natch.
Two books by my former professors that are simply bursting with heart, inventiveness, and humor: No One Left to Come Looking for You by Sam Lipsyte, and Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park.
I read Hangman by Maya Binyam on a train, and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (translated by Ros Schwartz) on a plane. I did not read anything in an automobile, due to carsickness. I did not read anything on a sled, because…well, see: Ethan Frome.
This winter, when not sledding, I am looking forward to a slower month or two, some extra hours to linger with the books that require lingering. I might pick up The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander, which I have loved thumbing through over the years. I anticipate those unaccounted hours, with no deadlines and only digressions. To quote Katherine Anne Porter, wildly out of context: “Now there would be time for everything.”
More from A Year in Reading 2023
A Year in Reading Archives: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
