My (Lack of) 2022 Reading Plans
Last January I compiled a list of authors it’s practically a crime I haven’t read yet, with the idea that I might try to read some of them throughout the year. Which I did! Out of 13 authors I listed, I read 7. Of those, some I absolutely loved (Natalia Ginzburg, Roland Barthes, Mary Ruefle), some were good but didn’t speak to me in quite the way I’d hoped (Anne Carson, Fleur Jaggy), some I found a little disappointing, perhaps because I chose the wrong book to start with (Robert Walser, Rachel Cusk). It was fun to have the list handy because it helped me decide what to read when I was feeling a little at sea. It was not a reading plan, but just a list I might choose from if I felt like it, and it worked well.
I thought I’d compile another list for this year, again with the understanding that this is not a reading plan, but merely a list of possibilities. I used to create reading lists for the new year and make elaborate plans for everything I was going to accomplish. But my problem is that any plans I make I work very hard at fulfilling. My goals become burdens. I’ll stress about totally arbitrary, pointless plans and let them go only when I absolutely have to. So it’s better not to make plans or set goals at all. I need to be free!
That said, I am making one reading plan for 2022, which to read Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage novels with the group that Kim McNeil has organized. Yes, I’m being inconsistent here, because this is actually a big undertaking, one that involves reading four large volumes and devoting the whole year to it. I’m incapable of being completely free, it seems. But I will do my best not to stress about this.
Unlike my list from last year, this one isn’t focused solely on authors I haven’t read yet (although some of those authors are listed here), but instead is about books that have been on my mind as potentially meaningful. So here they are, the authors and books I might possibly read in 2022, but also might not:
Scholastique Mukasonga, Our Lady of the Nile (translated by Melanie Mouthner): Mukasonga was on last year’s list. She’s an important author in translation I need to read.
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and/or Regarding the Pain of Others: Sontag was also on last year’s list. Toward the end of last year I started feeling like the time was right for her books, and even though I didn’t get there, I’m still feeling ready. Really, I consider myself a serious nonfiction and essay reader, and I haven’t read a Sontag book? Gotta fix that.
More Annie Ernaux, particularly Exteriors and A Woman’s Story (both translated by Tanya Leslie), but really any and all of them. I’m a newish Ernaux fan after having read The Years and A Girl’s Story (both translated by Alison Strayer), particularly the latter. I loved the way she wrote about her life in that book.
More James Baldwin, particularly The Fire Next Time and, well, everything. I’ve read Notes of a Native Son and Giovanni’s Room, but I need to read more of his books, the nonfiction especially (again, if I consider myself a serious nonfiction reader, I need to read more Baldwin).
More Marguerite Duras, particularly The War, and also Practicalities. I have read The Lover (all three books translated by Barbara Bray), but nothing else by Duras. I’ll be honest and say that I tried to read the recent collection of her essays and wasn’t into it, but I think I will like some of her other books. Or at least I’d like to find out.
John Keene’s Counternarratives and Annotations. Both of these books have been sitting on my shelves for years, and I keep hearing about them and not quite getting to them. They both sound like my kind of weird, genre-bending book.
Renee Gladman’s Ravicka novels, Event Factory, The Ravickians, Ana Patova Crosses a Bridge, and Houses of Ravicka. As of a month or so ago, I own all these books, so I’m ready to go. I’m so curious about them. Having read Gladman’s nonfiction book Calamities, I know to expect some strangeness, but I’m not sure of what sort exactly.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy): I’ve read Duino Elegies, which was amazing, but haven’t gotten to this classic yet. I’m interested in reading more of his poetry as well.
Brian Dillon’s Suppose a Sentence: I’d love to reread Dillon’s book Essayism because it’s just so fabulous, but not before I get to Suppose a Sentence. Speaking of books about sentences, Renee Gladman has one, Plans for Sentences, and if you know of any others, please tell me!
Audre Lorde, particularly The Cancer Journals and Sister Outsider, which are books I have on my shelves: Audre Lorde appeared on my list last year, and is a priority for this year.
Hanne Orstavik’s Love and The Pastor, both translated by Martin Aitkin: people I trust love Orstavik, so it seems likely I will too. I’m always ready for some dark Scandinavian fiction.
Antal Szerb’s Journey by Moonlight, translated by Len Rix: I’m intrigued by Elisa Gabbert’s enthusiasm for this 1937 novel. Otherwise, I know nothing about it. But sometimes all it takes is the right recommender to get a person to pick a book up.
Yiyun Li’s Where Reasons End and other fiction: I loved Li’s essay collection Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life and would like to read it again as well as try some of her fiction. I know Where Reasons End is dark, and I’m prepared for that.
Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos: I’m going to pick this up when I’m in the mood for something experimental. From what I understand, this book is made up of dialogues in the form of prose poems. It came recommended by Akin Akinwumi, who is personally responsible for many of the books I want to read.
Dasa Drndic’s EEG, translated by Celia Hawkesworth: Drndic is a major writer in translation that I haven’t gotten to yet, and EEG is what’s on my shelves.
More Natalia Ginzburg: I own six books by Ginzburg and have read only one of them, The Little Virtues, but somehow I have known for a long time that I would love Ginzburg and so have been preparing. I loved The Little Virtues so much. I think my next Ginzburg will be Family Lexicon.
Ingeborg Bachman’s Malina, translated by Philip Boehm: another novel in translation I feel the need to catch up on. Plus I come across references to Bachman and Malina every so often in writers I love, which is a sign from the universe I need to pay attention to, obviously.
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: this is a nonfiction classic I’d like to know more about, and I plan on following this with Justin St. Germain’s book Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: Bookmarked. In Cold Blood is another one of those “You consider yourself a serious nonfiction reader?” books.
If you have books or authors you plan to read (or might possibly read) in 2022, I’d love to hear about it!
Publishing This Week
New small-press books out recently that I haven’t yet read and am adding to my TBR. All quotations below are from the publisher:
41-Love: A Memoir by Scarlett Thomas (Counterpoint): I’ve read a few Scarlett Thomas novels and liked them very much. “A darkly funny sports memoir about a mid-life crisis, exercise addiction, tennis, and how to grow up when you really, really don't want to.”
Bibliolepsy by Gina Apostol (Soho Press): “Gina Apostol's debut novel, available for the first time in the US, tells of a young woman caught between a lifelong desire to escape into books and a real-world revolution.”
Slow Fuse of the Possible: A Memoir of Poetry and Psychoanalysis (West Virginia University Press): I know nothing of this book except the title, which I love. “Slow Fuse of the Possible is a poet's narrative of a troubled psychoanalysis. It is also a commanding meditation on the powers of language, for good and for ill.”
Phenotypes by Paulo Scott, translated by Daniel Hahn (And Other Stories): “Paulo Scott here probes the old wounds of race in Brazil, and in particular the loss of a black identity independent from the history of slavery.”
New on the TBR
New books acquired:
Transgressive Circulation by Johannes Goransson (Noemi Press, 2018): I loved reading about translation last year, and so I’m on the hunt for other books on the subject (if you have any favorites, let me know): “Rather than argue against the denigration and abjection of translation--and most foreign texts--this book investigates those dark zones of expulsion as grounds for new possibilities, not just for translation but for literature as a whole.”
Say Translation is Art by Sawako Nakayasu (Ugly Ducking Presse, 2020): This is a 24-page pamphlet: “a treatise on literary translation that exceeds the bounds of conventional definitions of such, advocating for a wider embrace of translation as both action and as art.”
Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change by Anjali Enjeti (University of Georgia Press, 2021): These essays “tackle white feminism at a national feminist organization, the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the South, voter suppression, gun violence and the gun sense movement, the whitewashing of southern literature, the 1982 racialized killing of Vincent Chin, social media's role in political accountability, evangelical Christianity's marriage to extremism, and the rise of nationalism worldwide.”
Palmares by Gayl Jones (Beacon Press, 2021): “Palmares recounts the journey of Almeyda, a Black slave girl who comes of age on Portuguese plantations and escapes to a fugitive slave settlement called Palmares.”
Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang (Doubleday Books, 2021): “In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country." Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity.”
Current/Recent Reading
Panenka by Rónán Hession (Bluemoose, 2021): This was my last book of 2021, a perfect way to end the year. Like Hession’s first book Leonard and Hungry Paul, Panenka is a charming, cozy read that also has some depth and seriousness to it.
O Fallen Angel by Kate Zambreno (2010; Harper Perennial, 2017): My last unread Zambreno book! Here’s hoping we get another one before too long.
Be Recorder by Carmen Giménez Smith (Graywolf, 2019): My current poetry book.
The Cormac Report
Cormac and I did not continue reading reading a Zoey and Sassafras book together as I thought we might last week, but he did ask me to read the first Wings of Fire book, The Dragonet Prophecy, so we’ve been reading a chapter or two together every evening. Thinking I was reluctant to read this series, he described it as “very female and strong,” and — of course! — that pitch totally worked.
Cormac has been reading the graphic novel versions of this series with great enjoyment, but he’s finished all of them and has only the regular novels left (the same story, just told in different formats). He’s reluctant to pick up long, text-heavy books, so this is a perfect series to read together.
Cormac loves it that he knows the story already and I don’t, so he can fill in the details and tell me what’s coming up. He’s not at all concerned that I might not want spoilers, and the truth is that I don’t care. It’s kind of fun to have him tell me what happens to each of the characters in future books and describe how each suspenseful scene ends. I suppose it’s good for him to have areas where he really, truly is the expert.
Have a good week everyone!
I have a list I update from time to time that's "books I know I will love if I actually read them." For instance, I love Virginia Woolf, but I haven't read The Waves yet, so that's on the list. The last few years, I've tried to push myself towards this list and away from more arbitrary reading goals... to only mild success. I still haven't read The Waves yet.