Katie Reads A Lot

A blog about a lot of reading & a little writing.

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Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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I’m a sucker for scary stories. I love hearing them. I love watching them. I love reading them. (Though I should be careful to point out that I am not into the super-gore or ultra-violence thing. Just no.) Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House scratches that itch in every way. You may remember her from such tales as “The Lottery”—scarring middle school readers for life practically since its publication in 1948. What makes Jackson’s work stand out amongst the rest is the psychological artfulness with which she crafts her tales. In the same way that “The Lottery” is actually about the latent antisemitism of many sleepy American towns (her words), so too is The Haunting of Hill House about the paradoxical balance between resentment, grief, guilt and fear. Recently relieved of the suffocating role as her sick mother’s caretaker, Eleanor Vance longs to embrace the new-found independence she dreamed was waiting for her in the wake of her mother’s death, yet is shocked to find that she can’t quite leave her past behind and still find herself in the process—And the harder she fights to belong, the harder she feels set apart. This book ain’t for the faint of heart! Oh~ And the Netflix series ain’t bad either, though the characters have been changed considerably. I screamed my way through season 1 and recently discovered there is now a season 2 in the works… Journeys end in lover’s meeting!

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This book was very personal to me in a meta sort of way. For one, Jia Tolentino happens to be my same age. We also happen to have experienced the same sort of foundational upbringing, but processed it in very different ways. Hers involved reality TV and shrooms. Mine involved trying very, very hard to follow the rules. Both of us felt/feel disenchanted by it all. I couldn’t help but feel a cold sort of sick feeling when I realized that Tolentino would have been receiving her acceptance letter to U of M’s prestigious Helen Zell Writer’s program around the same time I would have been receiving my rejection letter from the same. In her words, she wrote a few short stories and got in. As if it were as simple as that. She’s now a staff writer at The New Yorker.

But aside from all that, Jia Tolentino’s debut personal essay collection, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion, which expands on many pieces from her time at Gawker, Jezebel and The New Yorker itself, is a formidable collection of hard truths about the internet, cancel culture and contemporary feminism. Indeed, what I envy most about her is her fearlessness. And I wonder, after reading this, if that is really the difference. While I still struggle to break a suffocating duality I have resented my whole life, Tolentino sloughed hers off and is out there writing about it—And taking the last word for herself in the process. In a culture that asks us to market every aspect of our individuality, Tolentino has inspired me to see the value in the unremarkable and the mundane. Sometimes it’s exactly that which makes a story worth being told.

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Re-read a favorite. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder is a philosophy textbook snuck into a story. I first read this book 10 years ago. It was a new experience reading it today. And I intend to experience it again and again, I love it so. This book is neither a classical work of literature nor a classic, by technical definition—though I do consider it a noteworthy member of western canon. It was written as a sort of accessible philosophy textbook for teenagers. In it, the reader is able to learn about the history of western philosophy and its concepts through the eyes of a young 14 year old girl named Sophie. As the story wears on, however, the story itself becomes an illustration of the very philosophical concepts that the book seeks to cover. It is very clever and so delightful in its cleverness. I think you would really enjoy it! :D Cheers from the tip of the rabbit’s hair!

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Oh haiii. Dis just in lolz: Satisfying my linguistic itch by reading Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch. Well-reported and based on decades of research, I found the overall effect to be fascinating and informative. A bit dry at times, but books are like wine in that way—And I love a good chardonnay. This is the first thing I’ve read in a long time that has been genuinely approving and encouraging of these trends, including lolspeak and emoji culture. Cynical or disparaging news articles about youth culture may get the clicks, but they also perpetuate misguided notions about how language works in general. Language is malleable and changing and doing just fine. And I, for one, am along for the ride… and teh kittehs an memez an new frenz. yaaaassss!!!!!!111one

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I’m going to level with you. I am not a poet or much of a poetry reader. I view poetry as dense little zip files of meaning and information. Except it’s up to you to unpack them. Poetry is dense and beautiful and I have nothing but respect for it. BUT. It is exhausting. Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism was definitely out of my comfort zone! I read this collection over multiple sittings over multiple days and never more than two to three poems at a time. Some of the poems made me feel inspired. Others stupid. I would be doing a disservice to the content if I didn’t mention that these poems were all written by female and female identifying persons around the globe in the wake of the 2016 election and subsequent political climate. I couldn’t help but feel proud and present as I read them, as though I were experiencing the new birth of a literary genre, one owned and operated by the women who are living it. Poems that especially moved/challenged me: “A Woman’s Place,” “The Children’s Chorus,” “Snow-Day,” “Heritage,” “In Support of Violence,” “To the Breasts When It’s Over—”

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I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness is a bold and beautiful memoir by Austin Channing Brown, exploring the divide between well-intentioned diversity and true inclusion and community. Her experience covers everything from growing up in a majority white neighborhood to attending a majority black school, making her way as the only woman of color in many classrooms and organizations, and her complicated history of being a woman of color in the Christian organizations she serves. What makes her book such an important read is the way she writes equally for a black and white audience—And the way she writes without regard for the feelings of either. Reading her work felt like sitting on a very large pinecone; I felt uncomfortable. At times my spirit wanted to push back against what I was reading even as my brain told me that I agreed with what she was saying. Thus, the very point she was trying to make was driven home in my conscience and my soul. I live in a world that was made for my whiteness. And I, along with many other white people, was raised to believe that most things in this world should be FOR me. We see this in the way that whiteness tries to control the black narrative—We say “all lives matter” because we can’t possibly resolve the intention and need behind a statement such as “black lives matter” in a culture that leaves men, women and children of color dying in the street. But Brown isn’t here for my revelatory bullshit. Because her story isn’t about my personal journey as a white person. Her story is her story. Simple as that. It is a call to listen. A call to action. A plea to let her words have the right to exist without insult, apology, justification or white guilt. It is her voice singing out in a chorus made for white voices. And that is enough. Although this is not a Christian book, Brown works in many Christian circles. I find it imperative that this book be read by The Church, particularly by those in positions of power. It’s time we sit on some pine cones and take action instead of speak platitudes.

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What can I say about this book? I want to share my extreme satisfaction with Half of a Yellow Sun while also giving it the reverence that I feel it deserves (lest my gushing give the wrong impression of the content). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is easily one of my new favorite authors. I plan to read everything she has written. First: The Writing. Adichie writes with an effortless quality that I envy with a scarlet passion. By effortless I mean that it is clean, tight and not labored. This is a work of high literary merit and yet it does not overly announce itself as such—Adichie seamlessly honors the Igbo dialect of her characters while making the material easily accessible for all readers. Second: The Narrative. This story cracked open portions of my heart and I am left feeling ragged and raw. Set in Southeastern Nigeria in the mid to late 1960’s, Adichie covers the Republic of Biafra’s struggle (and eventual failure) to establish itself as an independent nation from Nigeria through the eyes of five different characters. This fictional yet historically based novel opened my eyes to my extreme ignorance, privilege and racism (yep!) toward the very real lives being lived outside my country’s borders. I grew to love these characters—LOVE THEM. And still feel very connected and affectionate toward them even now that the book is shut. Adichie artfully and sensitively covers the ugliness of war—from the lives of the innocent civilians it destroys to the wickedness of a world that would turn a blind eye to human suffering in the name of politics and oil. Yet Adichie does this with a light hand and a warm heart. Seriously. I am in awe. I am humbled. I am awake. (Or at least, I’m waking up.)

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I came for the cultural phenomenon. I stayed for the writing. Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls is a punch in the face to the mid-century’s rosy Hollywood morality trope. It isn’t hard to see why her work is often hailed as a façade of fiction. In addition to having run her own successful career on television and stage, Susann writes about the ugly side of fame—addiction, narcissism, isolation, adultery—with brazen wit and veracity. I felt myself emotionally along for the ride, at times being moved with compassion and other times disgust by her characters, whom I grew to love even as I watched them self-destruct. Because they are real. Susann’s work didn’t become a pop cultural staple simply for its being provocative. It is also deeply honest, compassionate, well-written and still relevant as ever. Not only that, her character arcs deliver and her plot-lines check out. All in all, a satisfying read that can double both as a literary piece of merit and a juicy haul to the beach.

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A difficult read, but one that is no less important... and worth breaking my all-female authors streak for. David Small’s Stitches is a bold retelling of a loveless childhood in a family haunted by secrets, shame and quiet animosity. When David is just 16 years old, he wakes up from a seemingly innocuous surgery to find that half his throat is now missing and he is no longer able to speak. (A physical manifestation of a lifelong reality.) As young David further discovers the grim reality of what actually happened in that operating room and the circumstances that led him there, both the reader and young David are left fighting to pick up the pieces and find a voice.

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Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park is young adult fiction at its finest, unapologetically crafting realistic high school characters in a realistic high school setting. From dialogue to desire, Rowell writes with a fierce understanding of young hearts, young love and vulnerable circumstances. Adorable but not cutesy. Sentimental but not heavy-handed. This was a book I needed when I myself was 15. I’m so glad to see it has a strong fan base online and a film in the works. I for sure will be buying a ticket!

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Graphic novel time! I loved this book so much, at one point I slammed it down and yelled, “I wish I was best friends with her!!” Lucy Knisley’s Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos is part memoir, part reporting on the history of obstetrics and childbirth. It was fascinating and emotional. I cried no less than three times—But all happy tears. Knisley leads her readers on a journey through her own experience with pregnancy and early motherhood, from contraception, struggling to conceive and the eventual physical and emotional stressors of gestation. This is not just a book for mothers. And this is not just a book for women. (After all, men wrote the books on maternal health for hundreds of years, would it be too much to read them too?) I love this book. Forever and ever.

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Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece inspired me to do what other film adaptations of Little Women perhaps could not: Actually pick up the source material and read. Alcott writes as a woman clearly ahead of her time, crafting sympathetic characters who will continue to speak to many generations to come. Not only that, but I’ve quickly fallen in love with many of the intricate details and story lines that a film simply cannot cover and, after reading this, feel motivated to not give up hope on my own castle in the air (chapter 13), regardless of what age or society may try and tell me.

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An eye-opening read on the true neurochemical properties of addiction. Biggest takeaway: You don’t drink coffee because you’re tired; you’re tired because you drink coffee. But seriously. Judith Grisel’s Never Enough is an essential addition to any book lover’s nonfiction stack, not only because she is able to speak both from research and experience, but because she is able to present a sound argument for holding everyone accountable for their actions while simultaneously outpouring a wealth of compassion on them—Something that I, for one, still struggle to put into practice. No matter who you are and where you come from, your life has probably been affected by addiction. This book is for you.

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Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Ezra Pound

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With prose that reads like poetry and vignettes that build upon the greater whole, Flights by Olga Togarczuk was truly a joy to read, ripe with passages to be savored and images to trace over in one’s mind again and again and again. Flights is a lesson in beauty and disgust, motion and imagination. Fun fact: The original Polish title alludes to runaways, a sect of Old Ritualists, who believe that to staying in constant motion is a trick to avoiding evil.

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Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Harper Lee