Allison Wall

Category: reading lists

Three Books for 2023

Happy almost-2024! As we get ready to begin a new year, I love reflecting on the old, specifically through stories I’ve encountered during (being built of stories as I am). Here are three books I read in 2023 I recommend–whatever year you read them.

I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

Originally written in French, this is a 1995 science-fiction novella by Belgian writer Jacqueline Harpman. Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held in a cage. They don’t know why. They don’t remember how they got there. They don’t know where they are. To tell you anything more about the plot would be a spoiler.

At its heart, I Who Have Never Known Men has a stunning, relentless commitment to exploring how humans deal with the disorienting fact of sentience, crucial existential questions, and autonomy–or lack thereof.

I picked up this book at about 10pm, started reading, and didn’t put it down until I finished. I stared at the wall, with only the heaviness of 2am silence for company. I think about it often. It might be the most perfect book I’ve read. It also destroyed me. If you’re struggling with dark thoughts or depression, maybe wait a bit on this one. It’s VERY potent writing. Then again, I Who Have Never Known Men does offer a kind of companionship; Harpman clearly was not afraid to look deeply into the darkness of life and understand it. I am surprised I have only just now encountered this book. It should be on far more reading lists!

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

This is a 2019 maximalist epic science fantasy novel, the first in a series. If the tagline “lesbian necromancers in space” doesn’t hook you immediately, take another look at that cover art. A woman in black with a bright red pixie swings a sword with a confident smirk on her face, which is painted black and white like a skeleton. She is wearing aviator sunglasses.

This is Gideon, a delightful, sarcastic, irreverent himbo lesbian, the perfect vehicle to explore an interplanetary world full of necromancer magic and ten thousand years of history. She is volun-told by her nemesis, the necromantic heir of the Ninth House, to act as her swordswoman and answer the Emperor’s invitation to partake in a trial to become his immortal servants, along with heads of all the other houses. The future of the dying Ninth house depends on winning. Problem is, nobody knows exactly what the trial is or what being immortal requires.

Muir puts a lot of faith in her readers to keep up and to be sharp in catching important details. There is also a degree of ick-factor, since we are dealing with necromancy, but it didn’t bother me and I’m fairly sensitive to that sort of thing.

This book feels like an instant classic, inherently re-readable because of the joy of Gideon’s personality and the complexity of the puzzle box plot.

Boy Parts, Eliza Clark

Boy Parts is a contemporary novel, published in the summer of 2020 (unfortunate timing) and seems to be increasing in popularity since then. Eliza Clark was named one of the 2023 Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists for the book.

The story of Boy Parts is carried by a truly unlikeable narrator, Irina, a washed-up, avant garde artist. She takes fetishistic photos of average-looking men she recruits off the street, intentionally crossing lines during photoshoots. When Irina receives an invitation to show at an exhibition, a race starts: against the deadline, against the pressure, and against Irina’s own destructive patterns.

Clark paints a fascinating picture of Irina, somehow revealing Irina’s own blind spots, in spite of the first-person point of view. (For writers: this book really is a masterclass in point of view!) You don’t read Boy Parts to root for Irina; you read it because you can’t stop watching her. She has intense narcissistic, sado-masochistic, self-sabotaging traits. She’s also wickedly funny.

Boy Parts is a trip deep into taboo territory. It builds to a fever pitch (and a reveal) I didn’t see coming. Fully recommend, though maybe not for the easily offended. Themes include gender roles/expectations and some (warranted) sniping at the pomposity of the art world.

—

What great books did you read in 2023? Any of these? I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or recs in the comments!

December 23, 2023

2023, book, book list, book recommendations, book review, books, fantasy, fiction, New Year, novel, reading, reading list
2020 in Books
This is the fourth consecutive year I’ve written a “year in books” blog post, and 2020 is the weirdest of them all. This year (ugh, this year) has been wild, devastating, excruciating, depressing, anxiety-inducing, heartbreaking…

We’ve all lost so much.

Where I live, the library was closed–CLOSED–for a long period of time. So if I wanted to read something (and I always do) I had to turn to my own bookshelf. This was fine: I am comforted by books I’ve already read. There was a very crucial sense of stability there, too: in a world that had ceased to be predictable in any sense of the word, I knew how the plots of my favorite books would go. I knew what would happen next.

But my minimalist tendencies had kept the number of books I own relatively low. During those days when a trip to the library was an impossible luxury, I sorely regretted that decision to keep few books. I don’t have the resources to buy every book I want to read. So, for emotional, logistical, and financial reasons, I re-read a record number of books this year.

I have no regrets.

Apart from not having enough books.

Thanks, 2020, for showing me the importance of owning books, and giving me permission to invest in something so important to me.

As a general caveat, I am not totally sure this reading list is complete. I have the sneaking suspicion that there are books I read that I totally forgot about in the brain fog of global trauma. There are also several books toward the end of the list that are in progress, and will have to be finished in 2021. Something else I have gotten better at in 2020 is: knowing when to concede that I am at the end of my mental, physical, and emotional resources. I didn’t meet the reading goals I set at the beginning of the year. And that’s fine.

F = fiction, SFF = sci-fi/fantasy, YA = young adult, MG = children’s, NF = nonfiction, P = poetry

Italicized books are re-reads.
1. Salvation Day, Kali Wallace (SFF)
2. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami (F)
3. Severance, Ling Ma (SFF)
4. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
5. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1), Philip Pullman (SFF)
6. Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino (SFF)
7. City of Hate, Timothy S. Miller (F)
8. The Spinning Place, Chelsea Wagenaar (P)
9. Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (F)
10. Anthem, Ayn Rand (SFF)
11. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (SFF)
12. Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
13. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (SFF)
14. Exhalation, Ted Chiang (SFF)
15. Recursion, Blake Crouch (SFF)
16. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (SFF)
17. Alpha Bots, Ava Lock (SFF)
18. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami (F)
19. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodges Burnett (MG)
20. Refusal: Poems, Jenny Molberg (P)
21. Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate #1), Megan E. O’Keefe (SFF)
22. The Big Book of Exit Strategies, Jamaal May (P)
23. Hum, Jamaal May (P)
24. Mossflower, Brian Jacques (MG/SFF)
25. Pearls of Lutra, Brian Jacques (MG/SFF)
26. When Darkness Falls, A. E. Faulkner (SFF)
27. Circe, Madeline Miller (SFF)
28. The Queens of Innis Lear, Tessa Gratton (SFF)
29. Empire of Sand (The Books of Ambha #1), Tasha Suri (SFF)
30. Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel #1), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
31. Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales, Jón Árnason, May Hallmundsson, Hallberg Hallmundsson (SFF)
32. What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler (F)
33. Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Japan, edited by Virginia Haviland (SFF/MG)
34. Basho: The Complete Haiku (P)
35. The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo (SFF)
36. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (SFF)
37. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch off the East in Russian Fairy Tales, translated by Sibelan E.S. Forrester (SFF)
38. The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen Murdock (NF)
39. Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill (SFF/P)
40. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (SFF)
41. Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You, Jenara Nerenberg (NF)
42. The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, #2), Philip Pullman (SFF)
43. The Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel #2), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
44. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung (NF)
45. The Hod King (The Books of Babel #3), Josiah Bancroft (SFF)
46. The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel (F)
47. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (SFF)
48. Tales from the Perilous Realm, J. R. R. Tolkien (SFF/P)
Books in Progress:
1. A Room Called Earth, Madeleine Ryan (F)
2. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, Steve Silberman (NF)
3. The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life, John Daido Loori (NF)
As always, I have strong opinions about all of these titles, so feel free to drop me a comment about any of them. 🙂

Here’s to 2021, and all we hope to gain, and all the reading we’ll do.
December 31, 2020

2020, 2020 in books, book, book list, New Year, read, reading list
2019 in Books
Another year, another book list…

Best new author discovered: N. K. Jemisin. My mind was totally blown by her adult fantasy trilogy, which begins with The Fifth Season. I plan on reading much more of her in 2020.

I did better working in nonfiction books this year! Every one of them was worth reading, but Dr. Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person was personally revelatory, and overshadows them all for the ways it’s allowed me to think differently about myself and my life.

There are far more books on this year’s list that are re-reads. I never used to be able to stand reading the same book twice. I wanted always something new, a fresh story, an unknown vista, a strange cast of characters to observe. But these days, I’m feeling more drawn to books I know I have loved. Maybe it’s the preferable alternative to risking reading something insipid or lifeless. In several cases, I deliberately re-read to examine how the writer put the book together. Part of my going-to-bed routine involves reading, and I tend to do better at that time of the day with a story I already know, so it doesn’t take quite as much effort to follow (and so I don’t stay up until 2am to find out what happens next).

Bold books are recommendations/favorites I would read again. Italicized books are re-reads, and also recommendations (I only re-read books I really love).

(F = fiction, SFF = sci-fi/fantasy, YA = young adult/children’s, NF = nonfiction)
1. Someone Like Me, M. R. Carey (SFF)
2. The Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Elaine Aron (NF)
3. The Telling, Ursula K. Le Guin (SFF)
4. Warlight, Michael Ondaatje (F)
5. Italian Fairytales, Italo Calvino (SFF)
6. Spark Joy, Marie Kondo (NF)
7. Head Games, John Scalzi (SFF)
8. A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle (YA/SFF)
9. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L’Engle (YA/SFF)
10. Semiosis, Sue Burke (SFF)
11. The Passage, Justin Cronin (SFF)
12. The Water Cure, Sophie Mackintosh (SFF)
13. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (SFF)
14. Camino Island, John Grisham (F)
15. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (SFF)
16. Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino (SFF)
17. My Real Children, Jo Walton (SFF)
18. the empty mirror, Janwillem Van de Wetering (NF)
19. Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, Mary Pipher (NF)
20. Vigilance, Robert Jackson Bennett (SFF)
21. An Acceptable Time, Madeleine L’Engle (SFF)
22. The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin (SFF)
23. The Book of M, Peng Shepherd (SFF)
24. THIS, Michael Gungor (NF)
25. The Monks & Me: How 40 Days at Thich Nhat Hanh’s French Monastery Guided Me Home, Mary Paterson (NF)
26. Mem, Bethany C. Morrow (SFF)
27. The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien (SFF)
28. The Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin (SFF)
29. The Stone Sky, N. K. Jemisin (SFF)
30. The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien (SFF)
31. It Happened One Doomsday, Laurence MacNaughton (SFF)
32. The Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien (SFF)
33. Tooth & Claw, Jo Walton (SFF)
34. The Angelic Avengers, Isak Dinesen (F)
35. Steering the Craft: A 21st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, Ursula K. Le Guin (NF)
36. Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin (SFF)
37. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (SFF)
38. The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen Murdock (NF)
39. M Train, Patti Smith (NF)
40. Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu, trans. Sam Hamill (NF)
41. Colorless Tsukuru Tasaki & His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami (F)
42. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (YA)
43. Ghosts of You, Cathy Ulrich (F)
44. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (SFF)
45. The Bible: A Biography, Karen Armstrong (NF)
46. Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen, Gint Aras (NF)
47. Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
48. Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (YA/SFF)
49. The Martian, Andy Weir (SFF)
50. The Case for God, Karen Armstrong (NF)
51. Interference, Sue Burke (SFF)
52. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville (SFF)
53. The Way of Chuang Tzu, Thomas Merton (NF)
54. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake (SFF)
55. The Outside, Ada Hoffmann (SFF)
56. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood (SFF)
57. Children of Virtue and Vengeance, Tomi Adeyemi (YA/SFF)
♥
December 30, 2019
2018 in Books: Year-End Reflections, part 2
The more times you’ve gone around the sun on this crazy bio-spaceship of ours, the harder it gets to remember all those en-route events, especially since we’re not “going anywhere” technically; mostly in a big loop. No destination in sight.

What I’m saying is, it’s hard to remember stuff. The older you get, the worse this particular glitch becomes.

One of the ways I remember my life is by recording the books I read. These books serve as landmarks of thoughts and events; book choice is often tied to what’s going on around me. For example, Ursula K. LeGuin passed away early in 2018, and so I read a lot of her work. A family health emergency in the summer meant I couldn’t handle a lot of new thoughts, and so I re-read books I loved in childhood to relax. There are also quite a few non-fiction books on Zen Buddhism toward the end of the list, as I’ve started exploring meditation and Zen thinking.

Also, I read a lot. The books all kinda blur together. I do this so when people inevitably ask for a book recommendation, or ask what I’ve been reading, I actually can tell them.

And…this was one of my most popular blog posts from last year, so I’m reprising it. 🙂

So, here’s my reading list from 2018.

Bold books are recommendations/favorites I would read again. Italicized books are re-reads, and also recommendations (as I only re-read books I really love).

(NF = nonfiction, SFF = sci-fi/fantasy, YA = young adult, F = fiction)
1. The Kite Runner, Hosseini (F)
2. The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton (NF)
3. Gormenghast, Peake (SFF)
4. In Other Worlds, Atwood (NF)
5. Mr. Fox, Oyeyemi (SFF)
6. Sailing the Sea of Story, LeGuin (NF)
7. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel, Clarke (SFF)
8. Winter (The Lunar Chronicles), Meyer (YA, SFF)
9. Contemplative Prayer, Merton (NF)
10. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination, LeGuin (NF)
11. The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock (NF)
12. The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle), LeGuin (SFF)
13. The Farthest Shore (The Earthsea Cycle), LeGuin (SFF)
14. Borderline (The Arcadia Project), Baker (SFF)
15. City of Stairs (The Divine Cities), Bennett (SFF)
16. City of Blades (The Divine Cities), Bennett (SFF)
17. City of Miracles (The Divine Cities), Bennett (SFF)
18. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Yu (SFF)
19. Goodbye Things, Sasaki (NF)
20. The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion (NF)
21. Spaceman of Bohemia, Kalfar (SFF)
22. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, Basho (NF)
23. Out of Africa, Dinesen (F)
24. Help, Thanks, Wow, Lamott (NF)
25. Gather the Daughters, Melamed (F)
26. American War, Akkad (SFF)
27. If on a winter’s night a traveler, Calvino (F)
28. The Secret Garden, Burnett (YA, F)
29. A Little Princess, Burnett (YA, F)
30. The Best of All Possible Worlds, Lord (SFF)
31. Phantom Pains (The Arcadia Project), Baker (SFF)
32. Ninth City Burning, Black (SFF)
33. The Way of Zen, Watts (NF)
34. Updraft (Bone Universe), Wilde (SFF)
35. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Koningsburg (YA)
36. Cloudbound (Bone Universe), Wilde (SFF)
37. Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot (NF)
38. The Man in the High Castle, Dick (SFF)
39. Alias Grace, Atwood (F)
40. Shadows on the Grass, Dinesen (F)
41. Horizon (Bone Universe), Wilde (SFF)
42. Imperfect Birds, Lamott (F)
43. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis (YA, SFF)
44. Station Eleven, Mandel (SFF)
45. This Census-Taker, Mieville (SFF)
46. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini (F)
47. The Lola Quartet, Mandel (F)
48. Veniss Underground, VanderMeer (SFF) THIS BOOK, WHILE WELL-WRITTEN, WAS VERY GORY AND DISTURBING. PURSUE ONLY WITH DISCRETION. IT FREAKED ME OUT AND I ONLY SKIMMED THE ENDING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED.
49. Children of Blood and Bone, Adeyemi (SFF)
50. Tree of Smoke, Johnson (F) I only got halfway through this one. I found it slow-paced and difficult to follow.
51. You are Here, Thich Nhat Hanh (NF)
52. Mr Palomer, Calvino (F)
53. Finding the Still Point, Loori (NF)
54. Paradise in Plain Sight: Lessons from a Zen Garden, Miller (NF)
55. The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, Oates (F)
56. The Girl with All the Gifts, Carey (SFF) One of the best first chapters I’ve ever read!
57. The Power, Alderman (SFF)
Started in 2018 but still in progress:
1. Wonderbook, VanderMeer (NF)
2. Italian Folktales, Calvino (SFF)
BEST FICTION OF THE YEAR: Hands down, Tomi Adeyemi’s brilliant fantasy novel, Children of Blood and Bone. The world needs more books like this, and I’m on the edge of my seat, credit card ready, to buy the next in the series when it comes out.

BEST SERIES: The Divine Cities Trilogy, by Robert Jackson Benett. The first novel is City of Stairs. Each is a gem, the world is fascinating, and I’m actively seeking more books by this writer.

BEST NON-FICTION: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, by Matsuo Basho. This is a collection of essay and haiku from the master poet himself, recording his travels in Japan. Sparse, gorgeous, inspirational.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen, aka Karen Blixen. Absolutely beautiful prose. More a collection of fictionalized memories than a connected novel, but such a lovely collage.

If you’ve got a book I should check out in 2019, post below! I’d love to hear what you read. I’m always on the hunt for a good book…

♥
December 29, 2018

2018, book, book list, books, New Year, reading, reading list
2017 in Books
Ya’ll have seen that Weight Watchers commercial, right?

*clears throat*

*activates Oprah voice*

I. Love. Books.

I inhale them the same way I do bags of potato chips: whole, and in as few sittings as possible. If I get ahold of a really great book, and it’s 400+ pages, there’s a good chance I’ll get eye strain before I finish.

Dangers of the vocation.

In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King wrote, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” In order to write well, to develop skill, taste, and writerly abilities, to fill the creative well, writers need, desperately, to read.

I also love book lists, pitting myself against the MOST IMPORTANT NOVELS OF THE 20TH CENTURY, or the BEST KIDS BOOKS OF ALL TIME, and seeing if I can identify FIFTY BOOK COVERS EVEN ENGLISH MAJORS DON’T RECOGNIZE.

I also love book recommendations.

So I thought I’d post a list of the books I read in 2017, as a (moderately) unique way to “define” and reflect on another 365-day twirl around the sun. These are in the order I read them. Italicized books are re-reads. Bold books are recommendations/favorites I would read again.

(NF = nonfiction, SFF = sci-fi/fantasy, YA = young adult, F = fiction)
1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (NF)
2. A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (SFF)
3. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (YA)
4. The Habit of Being, Flannery O’Connor (NF)
5. Trigger Warning, Neil Gaiman (SFF)
6. The Gift of Being Yourself, David G. Benner (NF)
7. Mr. Palomer, Italo Calvino (F)
8. The City at World’s End, Edmond Hamilton (SFF)
9. Iron Council, China Mieville (SFF)
10. When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro (F)
11. The Eye of the Heron, Ursula K. LeGuin (SFF)
12. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (SFF)
13. Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (SFF)
14. Grace (Eventually), Anne Lamott (NF)
15. Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (SFF)
16. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (F)
17. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (F)
18. Hero of a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell (NF)
19. Authority, Jeff VanderMeer (SFF)
20. Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer (SFF)
21. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link (SFF)
22. Kindred, Octavia Butler (SFF)
23. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (F)
24. Cinder, Marissa Meyer (SFF YA)
25. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (F)
26. The Sandman, vol. 1, Neil Gaiman (SFF)
27. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery (F)
28. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi (F)
29. Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott (NF)
30. Anne of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery (F)
31. Night, Elie Wiesel (NF)
32. After the Locusts, Denise Ackerman (NF)
33. One of Ours, Willa Cather (F)
34. rash, Pete Hautman (SFF YA)
35. Borne, Jeff VanderMeer (SFF)
36. More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own, Joshua Becker (NF)
37. Strange Library, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
38. IQ84, Haruki Murakami (SFF)
39. Basho: The Complete Haiku (NF)
40. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick (SFF)
41. Mr. Pye, Mervyn Peake (SFF)
42. Journeys of SImplicity, Philip Harnden (NF)
43. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake (SFF)
44. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis (SFF)
45. Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich (NF)
46. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (F)
47. Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust (F)
48. Entering the Silence, Thomas Merton (NF)
49. Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees (SFF)
50. Thrill Me, Benjamin Percy (NF)
51. Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty (SFF)
52. Scarlet, Marissa Meyer (SFF YA)
53. Cress, Marissa Meyer (SFF YA)
54. Sea of Rust, C. Robert Cargill (SFF)
55. Fairest, Marissa Meyer (SFF YA)
Not sure I can top the sheer number of books in 2018…

But I’m ready to try.

Happy New Year.

♥
December 30, 2017

2017, book, book list, creative writing, fiction, New Year, reading, reading list
3 Books to Inspire Your Writing Life

The writing life is often an isolated one. Writing groups are few and far between. The internet alleviates this somewhat, but is an imperfect replacement for real fellowship.

All of us live with and through books. That’s part of the reason we got into this writing business in the first place. So why not look for companionship, encouragement, and strategy in the voices of experienced writers on the page?

I often find myself dragging to my writing time, staring grumpily at the work in progress (garbage, of course), and generally having a horrible attitude. I need encouragement to keep going. Reassurance that the daily writing grind is worth more than the sum of its word count.

Don’t get me wrong. Writing is work. But when it starts to feel like work day after day, when makes you miserable, and you start wondering whether not writing would make you less miserable, you need some inspiration. A chiropractic realignment of your writing life. Energy flowing along your meridians. You get the idea.

Here are three books I’ve found encouraging in my own writing life. Some (if not most) of what I blog about here comes from books like these.

1. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott

Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don’t drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor’s yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.

Lamott gives her hilarious, honest take on the writing life. She confronts the anxiety, psychosis, and stress of writing head on. Yes, it’s hard. Really hard. And she admits that, using her own experiences as a backdrop. She argues we need to be kind to ourselves. Lamott gives her readers permission to write “shitty first drafts,” tackle short assignments, and imagine your inner critical voices as mice shut up in jars. It’s invigorating. And funny. Anne Lamott can be scathingly critical, self-deprecating, hilarious, uplifting, and right all in one sentence, and she almost always is.

2. Art & Fear, David Balyes, Ted Orlando

You make good work by (among other things) making lots of work that isn’t very good, and gradually weeding out the parts that aren’t good, the parts that aren’t yours. It’s called feedback, and it’s the most direct route to learning about your own vision. It’s also called doing your work. After all, someone has to do your work, and you’re the closest person around.

I’ve referenced this book in another post, but it’s worth the double mention. This little book is geared toward artists of all disciplines, not just writers (though as the authors are writers, writing does come up). Bayles and Orland define art as a verb, not an object. The text reads like a thesis against quitting art, the action. It systematically addresses and debunks the main reasons artists quit, most of them to do with fear. At the same time, the text provides encouragement not to do the most dangerous thing of all: quit doing art.

3. The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.

This is an undisputed classic, the king of books on the writing life. If you’re only going to read one book from this list, read with this one. Dillard writes with poise and grace, perfectly encapsulating situations the solitary writer imagines she alone experiences. Writing is taming a lion, the inchworm’s struggle to find the next blade of grass, hammering through a rock canyon. Dillard balances the necessity of writing, the nobility of it, and the struggle in this slim book. I read this one every year, or sooner, if I need to.

There are many other books that could fit in this list, some of which I haven’t read yet (Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, for example) but these are the ones I have on my shelf that I have and will read over and over.

I hope you pick up one of these books, engage with the writer who wrote it, and find encouragement to keep doing what you love. Even if it doesn’t feel like love sometimes.

♥

July 1, 2017

books, books about writing, creative writing, inspiration, writing, writing life