maura-roo

[maura-roo]

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

I've been crying since halfway through the book. This is a story that covers a topic that is hard to talk about, but talking about it is maybe the bravest thing we can do about it. Bradley is doing important work, and I am so glad I found her books, even though I am crying right now, writing this review. It's so much harder to find words when they matter. After reading this, I want artwork of a wolf to put on my wall. To remind me that packs take care of each other, that I'm not alone, that we need to both give and accept help, and that it's okay and even important to fight back. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4569774769?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

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Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

I found Ex Libris tucked behind another book I wanted on a library shelf, and as I simply cannot resist essay anthologies, and this one was all about books, I read it in one sitting. Books and reading to me are sacrosanct. Not an hour of my life passes that I do not think of books. Everything reminds me of one I have read, am currently reading, would like to read, distantly know about but have no interest in, etcetera. The most surefire way for me to find the motivation to do something is to imagine I am a book character, and to narrate the scene in my head as I enact it. This is seriously how I trick myself into cooking dinner. Given the depth of my bibliomania, there was little in this compilation that did not resonate with my soul, and I am going to share the best ones. Sharing the Mayhem was an essay about reading aloud. I think anyone who has ever spoken to me knows of my passion for this topic. I listen to podcasts about it. Like, more than one, about reading out loud. It is one of my most positive childhood memories, it is something I still do with my siblings, and once I had a friend start reading to me just because, and I started crying. So, I loved this one. Insert a Carrot is an essay about compulsive proofreading. I do this. I feel like a dick sometimes because most people don’t want their text messages picked apart, but it is reflexive. Though I sometimes intentionally use a word that doesn’t exist, or spice up the grammar for the sake of getting my dramatic point across, I assure you that the errors are intentional sacrifices for the sake of style. The way I feel about correcting grammatical and spelling errors is how I imagine my mother feels about watching those pimple popping videos. Guilty and somewhat embarrassed for the subject, but deeply satisfied at the conclusion. (I do not watch pimple popping videos). Never Do That to a Book is an essay that really, really hit home for me. Fadiman describes readers as loving their books in either a courtly manner or a carnal one. So often book lovers are appalled by a reader dog-earing a page, or opening a book so wide that the spine breaks. These are the courtly loving readers. I am firmly in the camp of carnal readers. My books are left spread-eagled on the table overnight to mark my place, they are torn, and crunkled, and probably have spilled tea on them. My sister's copy of I Am Malala has blood smeared on the back cover from the time I took it with me to make a plasma donation. My copy of Little Dorrit is deformed and crunchy from taking a swan dive out of my car, where it lives as my 'just in case book', right into a snowbank. Our communal Harry Potter paperbacks that went around my family in a loop as we all took turns reading them, and rereading them, and rereading them a half dozen more times have completely fallen apart. The fourth book is taped together with packing tape, and there is green duct tape on top of that because the first taping job didn't last. The fifth book is in 3 pieces that we just prop up next to each other on the shelf. I like my books loved, just as I like the rest of my possessions. I am a super tactile person, and it makes me sad when books are touch-starved, used decoratively, placed on a pedestal, kept in pristine condition. They aren't meant for that, they're meant to be read and loved, like the Velveteen Rabbit. "How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves, and worn-out appearance... How they speak of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages with delight! Who would have them a whit less soiled?" - Charles Lamb wrote this, and it was included in the essay. I love it. I also deeply love Charles Lamb. There are eighteen essays in here, and they're all worth reading if you're as obsessive about books as I am.

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Just read Crybaby by Caitlyn Siehl, and I read, reread, and reread again the poems Achilles to Patroclus and Patroclus to Achilles. All of the poems in this collection are sublime, but I would tattoo these two over every inch of my exposed skin.

[maura-roo]

Favorite Books of the Year

These are not necessarily books that came out this year, just ones that I read in 2021.  There are so many that I loved, I am only going to put down my tippy-top favorites, of all genres, only in order of when I read them.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (I read it twice this year)

Mother’s Milk and I Gave Her a Name by Rachel Hunt Steenblik

I haven’t included rereads, or books in series that I haven’t finished yet.

Honorable Mentions:

These are the books I kept seesawing about whether to include in my favorites list, and then just decided that if I was wavering, they didn’t make the cut. I have to draw the line somewhere. They were really close, though, and so lovely that I couldn’t NOT mention them. Ya know?  

 The Art of Tangled by Jeff Kurtti, John Lasseter, et al. (If anybody knows how I can get prints of Claire Keane’s Rapunzel artwork, please tell me immediately).

Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry

Art Matters by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Nottingham and Lionhearts by Nathan Makaryk 

Favorite Literary Experiences of the Year:

1.      Listening to the Sandman comics on Audible. These are still coming out, so they don’t make the best of 2021, but it’s been like listening to an old timey radio show with a phenomenal cast, sound effects, and a storyline that absorbs you. It is right on the line of being too much for me content-wise, but I love it too much to give it up. I just squirm a lot, and can’t listen to it at night.

2.      Going to the Library of Congress. Holy Hera, talk about bibliophile heaven. A lot of this building was restricted, but what is available is incredible. I spent an hour just reading all the quotes on the ceilings. I also befriended a security guard who let me see the children’s section, which was one of the rooms that wasn’t open to visitors. It was magical.

3.       Going to the New York Public Library. Again, magical. This was another incredible building, but what was really special was the treasure room. It contained P.L. Travers’ parrot umbrella, Charles Dickens’ writing desk, Christopher Robin Milne’s stuffed animals, handwritten drafts of many famous books, several first editions of classics, original illustrations by Arthur Rackham, and so on and so forth. I asked the official-in-charge person if I could hug Winnie the Pooh, but was emphatically denied, more’s the pity.

I may’ve gone a bit overboard with this, but I really like having this kind of thing for my own reference, and this is way better than the little notepad on my phone that I’ve been using for the past few years. If anybody is actually reading this and wants my reviews for any of these books, they are on my Goodreads profile. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9620538-maura 

The end.