What I Read: December 2021
Here's what I've been reading as the year draws to a close.
Hello from the last day of the year!
We finally got a delicious bout of snow in Wisconsin, so we are sledding our way in 2022. We’ll celebrate Tennyson turning two (2!) in a couple of days, and then the holiday spirit will taper off as we see if we can limp our past-its-prime tree along until Epiphany.
I just reached my goal of reading 52 books this year. I’m not sure what kind of a numerical goal I’ll set for next year, but I do know that I want to keep making this newsletter — it helps me think more deeply about what I’m reading, and I hope it’s helpful to you, too. If you have any feedback for me, please share! I’d love to hear what’s been valuable or not these last five months. Now, onto the books…
Here’s what I read in December:
Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)
by Eve Rodsky
I don’t think the subtitle is at all accurate for this book. It’s not a productivity book—it’s a literal game that you are supposed to play with your partner in order to make the invisible labor of the metal load more visible for everyone, hopefully resulting in you and your partner re-balancing the labor within your household (esp. once you have kids) to give everyone more physical and mental space in life. The first 30% of the book is well-researched and full of great info on how the ways in which we undervalue women’s time in comparison to men’s time. Then the book explains the rules of the game and asks you to print out cards online that represent every single household task to literally divide among you. It sounds gimmicky, because it is—but if you find yourself struggling to communicate the effort and planning that goes into the most basic of household tasks (recall Christmas cards, anyone?) and need a concrete way to explain it to a partner, this book might be the ticket. I cannot attest to the efficacy of the game itself: we have yet to divvy up the cards.
I’m taking away two things from this book: a) the fact that Scott and I do almost everything in the evening jointly (dinner/cleanup/bedtime), and we’d both get more of a break if we divided it up; and b) her concept of “Unicorn Space”: each partner needs guilt-free time in life to do something they are interested in and that makes them interesting, i.e. a hobby, passion, etc. This can be your job, but it likely isn’t. We have got to figure out a way to carve out this time for both of us if we want to get out of this feeling of survival mode while parenting small children.
The Deal of a Lifetime
by Fredrik Backman
This was a short story in the form of a single book (65 sparse pages, lots of illustrations) and while it was a bit thought-provoking and well-written (it’s Backman, OF COURSE it’s well-written), it just didn’t grab me. I felt the same about And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. I’m not sure if you consider this allegory or a fable of sorts, but it is definitely trying to hand down a lesson, and I’m just not sure I was the audience for it.
The Bodyguard
by Katherine Center
After reading Katherine Center's What You Wish For this past summer, I knew I wanted to read more of her books. When I saw The Bodyguard available on NetGalley, I leapt at the chance to read it a full six months before it hit shelves. This book is just plain fun. Is it a fairly formulaic rom-com? Yes. Do you know within the first 50 pages of what is (roughly) going to happen? Also, yes. But it is a delight to go along for the ride with Center and her characters. Hannah and Jack are both fully-formed and like-able, and both are exceptionally easy to root for. The story unfolds with a few twists and turns that keep you reading, and honestly: every page is worth the time. If you want a gem of a rom-com that takes you exactly where you want to go, this is it.
I received an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley.
12 Tiny Things: Simple Ways to Live a More Intentional Life
by Heidi Barr and Ellie Roscher
This book is simple concept: the tiny things in life will help ground you and keep you amidst all the trials of life. It takes 12 different things — from food to sensuality to nature — and explores how they impact our life and how to start to incorporate pieces of them into your life as easily as possible. The last section on “community” might be my favorite—and it clenched my desire to gather a group of women sometime in the new year to work through this book chapter by chapter. Nothing felt revolutionary here, but I think the book offers great jumping-off points for discussion. The book isn’t about faith, but is faith-adjacent.
These Precious Days: Essays
by Ann Patchett
I’ve talked elsewhere about how I have been unimpressed with Ann Patchett’s fiction. I’ve read Bel Canto and Commonwealth, and I feel like I should love them, and I just kind of like them. But this essay collection: I loved it. There were a few essays I wasn’t as invested in as others, but there were some that I will be thinking about for years to come. Patchett is a good writer, and she deftly handles faith and writing and death in this collection. Some of these essays talk about the early pandemic, and I cannot yet describe how it feels to read about the thing that is defining our lives in this decade. Surreal? Comforting? Unsettling? Possibly all of those and more.
84 Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff
I read this in a single sitting one morning earlier this week, and it was just what I needed. It’s a book full of real letters written between Hanff and a bookseller named Frank in England, a relationship that spans several decades even though they never met in person. The circles expand to include notes from Frank’s wife, neighbor, his colleagues, and, eventually, his own children. At times brusque — Hanff is no saint — it’s also full of care as Hanff sends packages to a war-torn and still-rationed group of booksellers in England from her own not-quite-comfortable life in New York City. If you love books about books, history, or epistolary novels, this one is for you.
Here’s what I’m reading right now:
Rewilding Motherhood: Your Path to an Empowered Feminine Spirituality
by Shannon K. Evans
My friend Ashley Brooks sent me this at Christmas and I teared up after a single chapter. I’m going to try and take this one slow and really dig into the reflection questions at the end of each chapter.
The New York Times Cooking: No-Recipe Recipes
by Sam Sifton
I love using the NYT Cooking app, so this was also a delight to receive from Ashley as a Christmas gift. I’ve been flipping through it before bed each night, which is both a good and bad idea (I think I might be hungry again…?).
What I’m reading with the kids:
We are still joyfully reading all the Christmas books next to our still-lit tree, but we’ve also been loving these three library finds:
Red Sled by Lita Judge makes my kids giggle from start to finish. The book is entirely written in onomatopoeia and now we say “scrinch scrunch” as we walk through the snow outside our front door.
The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi is brilliantly illustrated in mostly black and white with splashes of primary color, and it follows a young girl’s brave adventure through the woods to get to her grandmother’s house.
On The Trapline by David Robertson and Julie Flett is the true story of Robertson’s first visit to his ancestral lands along with his grandfather. The book mixes in Swampy Cree words along with the English, explaining what each means as they appear. It also has a pronunciation guide at the back of the book, which is so handy. It’s a lovely book and an important story. It definitely goes a bit over Arthur’s head (he’s 4.5), but I’m filing the title away to try again when he’s maybe 7 or 8. It’s a great option if you are looking to add more Indigenous voices to your bookshelf.
Next month, I’ll dig into the books my kids got for Christmas once we’ve read them all!
That’s it for 2021!
In case this hasn’t been enough chatter about books for you, the aforementioned Ashley Brooks and I released our one-and-only podcast episode this week on Chasing Creative, and it’s all about books. Check it out here—and let me know what you’ve been reading lately.
Happy New Year!