The Shape of to Come

 A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Becky Chambers (2021, 2022)

"What do people need?” A curious robot seeks to answer this question by being the first of its kind in generations to interact with humans. Centuries before, humans and robots parted ways and technological trajectories following what is alluded to as some moment of both realizing that the latter had attained sentience and were thus inherently deserving of self-determination.

Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology, A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, follows the mundane travels of Dex the Tea Monk and Splendid Speckled Mosscap as they wander around a rewilding Earth-stand-in moon named Panga. Along their buddy road trip, the protagonists interact with various groups of people and other animals and other things. Each interaction provides the characters and reader opportunities for reflection on how we differentiate concepts like agency/dependence, human/nonhuman, sustainability/waste. The civilized/wild cut is most visibly rendered, as humans are taught to stay in their designated areas and pathways and to not wander into or disturb nature. The conversations around these designations are juxtaposed by the dual human and robot protagonists, who are signified by pronouns “they” and “it”, respectively, revealing an in-universe awareness of the arbitrariness of binary thinking.

The books are often categorized as “solarpunk”, and if you are familiar at all with the designations “steampunk” or “cyberpunk”, then you can probably guess the general direction where stories of this genre are going to take you. Here, “solar” signifies an ecologically positivist worldview of smaller agrarian-adjacent communities based around shared culture and religion, a gesture towards veganism and animism, and a minimal reliance on mechanized and computer technology. In literature, “punk” can co-signify a techno-dystopian future, an alternate timeline that maintains Victorian aesthetic as the preferred dress and decor, or an optimistic spin on climate doomerism à la Station Eleven or that tear-jerker episode of Last of Us with Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.

Without trapping myself in an argument of what is/n’t “real” and at the risk of saying distinctions don’t matter, the “punk” angle makes sense if one embraces the music’s anticapitalist and anti-institutional ethos over expected markers of dress and instrumentalization. Arguments for expanding the genre across music criticism platforms rarely win over adherents, but I’ve found pitches for the Pogues, They Might Be Giants, Public Enemy, and Los Tigres del Norte as punk convincing in their temporary utility and self-awareness. Green Day was punk, and then they weren’t enough, and then they were again, at least according to 924 Gilman.

Later in the story, Dex’s father asks Mosscap what robots need. Splendid Speckled Mosscap, echoing every human it had asked across the two books, doesn’t have an immediate answer and is even somewhat taken aback to be asked. This anticipated inversion of plot’s catalyst draws some attention to the subjective nature of consciousness, autonomy, and being, which the books graciously leave undisturbed.

2023: My Year in Books

“By teaching us how to read, they had taught us how to get away.”

Six years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022) now, logging my book reading. It's a streak bested by "favorite songs/albums" and "movies that came out last year that I didn't watch but would like to some day" EOY lists.

Here is every book I read in 2023, with some superlatives, followed by holistic observations. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk*.

1. The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff (2022) - 01.11 Book I'm Most Likely to Refer to When in an Argument about Originalism
2. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 3rd Ed., Ernst Breisach (1983, 2007) - 01.13
3. Places of My Infancy: A Memory, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1961) - 01.13
4. Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson (1995) - 01.30
5. Educated, Tara Westover (2018) - 01.30
6. In Praise of Shadows, Junichirō Tanizaki (1933, 2001) - 01.31
7. Whose Truth, Whose Creativity? Why Postmodern Art Theory Is A Culturally Damaging Mistake And How Neuroscience Can Prove This: A 21st Century Manifesto, George J. E. Sakkal (2022) - 02.03 Book I'm Least Likely to Return to
8. Night Boat to Tangier, Kevin Barry (2019) - 02.05
9. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Jason Stanley (2018) - 02.12
10. LaserWriter II, Tamara Shopsin (2021) - 02.27
11. On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care, Victor Ray (2022) - 03.03
12. The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays, Julia Koets (2019) - 03.13
13. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (2019) - 03.18
14. Theories and Methods of Writing Center Studies: A Practical Guide, Jo Mackiewicz & Rebecca Day Babcock, Eds. (2020) - 04.02
15. CounterStories from the Writing Center, Frankie Condon & Wonderful Faison, Eds. (2022) - 04.11
16. High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, Jessica B. Harris (2011) - 04.30
17. Hopscotch, Julio Costázar (1966) - 05.01
18. Literacy and Learning in Times of Crisis: Emergent Teaching Through Emergencies, Sara P. Alvarez, Yana Kuchirko, Mark McBeth, Meghmala Tarafdar, Missy Watson, Eds. (2022) - 05.16
19. Dis/Rupting the Center: A Partnership Approach to Writing Across the University, Rebecca Hallman Martini (2022) - 05.16
20. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard P. Feynman (1999) - 05.17
21. Bluets, Maggie Nelson (2009) - 05.27
22. Shadow Country, Peter Matthiessen (2008) - 06.05
23. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2022) - 06.15
24. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Charles Darwin (1872) - 06.17*
25. The Seas, Samantha Hunt (2004) - 06.17
26. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School, Jack Schneider & Jennifer Berkshire (2020) - 06.24
27. The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy, Paige Williams (2018) - 06.25
28. Explorers of Deep Time: Paleontologists and the History of Life, Roy Plotnick (2022) - 07.05
29. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach (2011) - 07.11 This Year's "Book to Read While at CCL Games"
30. The Story of The Earth and Man, John William Dawson (1873) - 07.12
31. Out in the Center: Public Controversies and Private Struggles, Denny, Harry; Mundy, Robert; Naydan, Liliana M.; Sévère, Richard; & Sicari, Anna (2018) - 07.14
32. Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life, Rev. H. N. Hutchinson (1897) - 07.28
33. One Life, Megan Rapinoe (2020) - 08.01
34. Dinosaurs (With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections), William Diller Matthew (1915, 2006) - 08.04
35. Animals of the Past, Frederick A. Lucas (1913) - 08.12
36. The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom, H. W. Brands (2020) - 08.12
37. The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (2013) - 08.20
38. Impossible Owls: Essays, Brian Phillips (2018) - 08.26
39. Cheddar Off Dead, Korina Moss (2022) - 09.04 Best Title, Possibly Ever
40. Stay True: A Memoir, Hua Hsu (2022) - 09.04
41. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer (1951) - 09.13
42. Actual Air, David Berman (1999) - 09.13
43. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien (1971) - 09.14*
44. Institutional Ethnography as Writing Studies Practice, Michelle LaFrance & Melissa Nicolas (2023) - 09.15
45. A Death in the Family: My Struggle 1, Karl Ove Knausgård (2009) - 09.17
46. Devil House, John Darnielle (2022) - 09.27
47. I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy (2022) - 10.01
48. The Devil in Silver, Victor LaValle (2012) - 10.10*
49. Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration, Alejandra Olivia (2023) - 10.12
50. Sent for You Yesterday, John Edgar Wideman (1983) - 10.26
51. The Last House on Needles Street, Catriona Ward (2021) - 10.26
52. Keywords in Design Thinking: A Lexical Primer for Technical Communicators & Designers, Jason C. K. Tham (E) (2022) - 11.02
53. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon (1988) - 11.03
54. The Creative Act, Rick Rubin (2023) - 11.03
55. Madvillain's Madvillainy, Will Hagle (2023) - 11.10
56. Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional, Isaac Fitzgerald (2022) - 11.21
57. The New England Grimpendium: A Guide to Macabre and Ghostly Sites, J. W. Ocker (2010) - 11.24
58. A Man in Love: My Struggle 2, Karl Ove Knausgård (2009) - 11.25
59. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, Donna J. Haraway (1989) -12.02
60. Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror, Ellen Datlow (E) (2023) - 12.05
61. Signs Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera (A, 2009), Lisa Dillman (T, 2014) - 12.09
62. A Research-based Approach to Writing and Learning Across Disciplines, Linda Adler-Kassner & Elizabeth Wardle (2022) - 12.15
63. The Axeman's Carnival, Catherine Chidgey (2022) - 12.18
64. King Lear, William Shakespeare (1608-1623) - 12.30*
65. Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir, Norm Macdonald (2016) - 12.31
66. Boyhood Island: My Struggle 3, Karl Ove Knausgård (2015) - 12.31

Patterns and trends I noticed in my reading, beyond the usual anticipated seasonal (St. Patrick's Day, beach reads, Halloween, winter holidays) and travel (Massachusetts, New Zealand, Pittsburgh), had more to do with style and genre.

Not by design, at least not at first, my reading over the past year was marked by writers writing about themselves: autoethnography, memoir, autofiction, first-person narrative, autobiography, manifesto. Hsu felt like hearing a beloved college friend tell stories; same with Fitzgerald, except it was high school. Macdonald's Not a Memoir was as factual as Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and as silly, too. I plan to talk about Knausgård elsewhere when I've finished the set, so I'll save my thoughts for summative assessment. McCurdy, Herrera, and Westover started with me feeling miserable for the authors, but then respectively hopeful, in reverence, and somewhat letdown. Rapinoe's book left me with a greater sense of respect for ghostwriters.

Three instances of writers writing about other people — Say Nothing, The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, The New England Grimpendium —not coincidentally with ties to my home state of Massachusetts, caused me to seek out additional works by their authors.

Three that I've had in the queue for a while and that I finally made space for invoked different recognizable aesthetics that I would broadly attribute to 21st century writing. Impossible Owls picks up where the blog era left off, but shows the benefits of working with an editor that even the best writing of the pre-social media moment lacked. The Seas is lyrical and magical-realist, the latter in my favorite sense of that genre, when you can't tell if the magic is real and knowing the distinction might not matter. LasterWriter II juxtaposes straight fiction, fictionalized non-fiction, and fourth-wall breaking practical advice.

Finally, the longest gap between my first read and the reread, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. You might recognize the title from the animated film The Secret of NIMH, part of Don Bluth's absolutely killer 1980s cv, which along with Dragon's Lair, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and All Dogs Go to Heaven, is a run that rivals any animation studio before or since. If you're familiar with the accelerating conflict of the story, which can be read as character versus nature or technology depending upon where you scale a bunch of rodents who can read and write, you'll recognize why it was silly of me to select this as an autumn reading. The header quote is from this book.

2022: My year in books

Once again (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), I logged my book reading for all of 2022. Here's the list, followed by some reflection. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk*.

1. Year of the Monkey — Patti Smith (2019) - 01.04
2. The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Radical Change — C. J. Polychroniou & Noam Chomsky (2021) - 01.05
3. White Evangelical Racism: the Politics of Morality in America —Athea Butler (2021) - 01.07
4. Rhet Ops: Rhetoric and Information Warfare — Jim Ridolfo & William Hart-Davidson (E) (2019) - 01.17
5. Critical Discourse Analysis: A Literature Review — Jennifer Tabernero-Diamante (2016) - 01.20
6. Selves, Bodies and the Grammar of Social Worlds — Jodie Clark (2016) - 01.25
7. 4 3 2 1 — Paul Auster (2017) - 02.24
8. The Faraway Nearby — Rebecca Solnit (2013) - 02.24
9. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson — (2020) - 02.25*
10. Beowulf — Seamus Heaney (2000) - 03.04
11. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamotte (1994) - 03.05
12. Shuggie Bain — Douglas Stuart (2020) - 03.23
13. Dinosaurs Rediscovered: the Scientific Revolution in Paleontology — Michael J. Benton (2019) - 04.08
14. The Border Crossed Us: the Case for Opening the US-Mexico Border — Justin Akers Chacón (2021) - 04.09
15. The Sellout — Paul Beatty (2015) - 04.14
16. Multilingual Contributions to Writing Research: Toward an Equal Academic Exchange — Natalia Ávila Reyes (Ed.) (2021) - 04.19
17. Community is the Way: Engaged Writing and Designing for Transformative Change — Aimée Knight (2022) - 04.25
18. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland — Lady Augusta Gregory (1904) - 04.26
19. The Three-Body Problem — Cixin Liu (A), Ken Liu (T) (2006) - 04.30
20. The Future of our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice — Lois Weiner (2012) - 05.01
21. Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe — Michael Löwy (2011) - 05.10
22. Queerly Centered: LGBTQA Writing Center Directors Navigate the Workplace — Travis Webster (2021) - 05.15
23. The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext — José Olivarez, Willie Perdomo, Felicia Chavez (E) (2020) - 05.24
24. The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany — Graeme Gibson (2021, 2005) - 06.04
25. A Long Petal of the Sea — Isabel Allende (2019) - 06.04
26. Vesper Flights — Helen Macdonald (2020) - 06.05
27. Prisons of Poverty — Loïc Wacquant (2009, 1999) - 06.14
28. This Is Not Propaganda — Peter Pomerantsev (2019) - 06.20
29. Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm — Dan Charnas (2022) - 06.26
30. Fossils: A Story of the Rocks and Their Record of Prehistoric Life — Harvey C. Markman (1954) - 07.16
31. The Devil and the Dark Water — Stuart Turton (2020) - 07.21
32. Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis — Camilla Vásquez (Ed) (2022) - 07.22
33. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — John Berendt (1994) - 07.24*
34. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study — Fred Moten & Stefano Harney (2014) - 08.04
35. The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939 — John Carey (2012) - 08.07
36. Try This: Research Methods for Writers Research, Pedagogy, Writing — Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, & Kate Pantelides (2022) - 08.27
37. Geek Love — Katherine Dunn (1983) - 08.28*
38. Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers — Stephen Deusner (2021) - 08.31
39. Monsieur Pain — Roberto Bolaño (1999) - 09.03
40. Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review — Charlotte Taylor & Anna Marchi (E) (2018) - 09.06
41. We, the Drowned — Carsten Jensen (2006) - 09.07
42. Book of the Dead — E. A. Wallis Budge (1920) - 09.08
43. Ways of Seeing — John Berger (1972) - 09.11
44. Graveyard Shift (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. Book 1) — Angela Roquet (2014) - 09.17
45. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War — Isaac A. Kamola & Ralph Wilson (2021) - 10.02
46. Lincoln in the Bardo — George Saunders (2017) - 10.13
47. Underland: A Deep Time Journey — Robert MacFarlane (2019) - 10.18
48. The Neoliberal Crisis — Johnathan Rutherford & Sally Davison (E) (2012) - 10.26
49. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion — Jia Tolentino (2019) - 11.06
50. Mind Lit in Neon — R. J. Lambert (2022) - 11.20
51. The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. Le Guin (1971) - 11.30
52. Doctor Socrates: Footballer, Philosopher, Legend — Andrew Downie (2017) - 12.18
53. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures — Merlin Sheldrake (2020) - 12.19
54. Winter Street — Elin Hilderbrand (2014) - 12.20

Notes:

The publication date for The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is 2020, but that obviously isn't indicative of when the poems were written. The most famous (and famously reclusive) resident of Amherst, Massachusetts, lived and wrote during the middle of the 19th Century. Each poem in the collection is conveniently numbered, and I will inconveniently indicate the ones that stuck out to me as I read: 28, 51, 76, 84, 128, 131, 135, 145, 148, 173, 175, 185, 214, 254, 255, 328, 465, 520, 698, 699, 712, 718, 809, 810, 822, 866, 893, 917, 919, 943, 980, 1104, 1272, 1303, 1308, 1395, 1422, 1479, 1512, 1545, 1627, 1681, 1736.

As anyone reading this has likely come to expect, I read strategically and contextually. Each year, that means themed readings around St. Patrick's Day (Gods and Fighting Men), Halloween/Día de los Muertos/Autumn (Book of the Dead, Graveyard Shift, Lincoln in the Bardo, Underland), and this year, the FIFA Men's World Cup (Doctor Socrates).

Sometimes, I plan to read something based on where I expect to be reading, such as Where the Devil Don't Stay during breaks from driving through Alabama and other parts of the South. I listened to Welcome 2 Club XIII, the latest album by the Drive-By Truckers, while actually driving.

I spent one long summer afternoon reading The Devil and the Dark Water—a creepy murder mystery, possibly supernatural, set on a 17th century Dutch merchant ship—sipping a Flyaway New English IPA from Shovel Town Brewery (North Easton, Massachusetts). This was my view:

My favorite reads of the year include: Beatty's style in The Sellout is relentless; a less careful, more pretentious, writer would have made mincemeat out of all those clichés, puns, slang, and references. Macdonald has for some time been one of those "I'll read whatever they write" authors, and Vesper Flights shows how a familiar theme can manifest across shorter modes. Entangled Life—paired with Bjork's mushroom-influenced-but-not-in-that-way-album, Fossora—was less about fungi than about how humans perceive the interconnectedness of things (I was hoping for a little more on those other definitions of "entanglement," though).

Some other observations, by the numbers:

At least nine of my completed books are ones that I have or am likely to incorporate into my teaching and research: White Evangelical Racism, Rhet Ops, Bird by Bird, Queerly Centered, Fossils, The Bedside Book of Birds, The Undercommons, Try This, and Free Speech and Koch Money.

Five books were read as part of various "book clubs", a term employed here to mean a combination of accountability group and an excuse to regularly gather together to share a chat and coffee/beer.

Four were written by folks I know (or have met). Two of these, Mind Lit in Neon and Queerly Centered, represent projects I followed throughout development, so it was rewarding to see them in print.

None of the books I read are regrets, although a couple or three were less engaging than their reputations led me to select them.

2021: My year in books

For the fourth year in a row (2018, 2019, 2020), I logged my book reading for all of 2021. Here's the list, followed by some reflection. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk*.

1. Rewriting Composition — Bruce Horner (2016) - 01.05

2. At the Existentialist Café — Sarah Bakewell (2016) - 01.19

3. Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back — Alicia Cook (2020) - 01.29

4. The Night of the Virgin — Elliott Turner (2017) - 01.30

5. Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri (1472) - 01.31

6. Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories, and Pedagogies — Han Yu & Kathryn M. Northcut (E) (2018) - 02.02

7. The Lost Girls of Paris — Pam Jenoff (2019) - 02.06

8. Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work — Genie Nicole Giaimo (E) (2021) - 02.21

9. Scientific and Medical Communication: A Guide for Effective Practice — Scott A. Mogull (2018) - 02.22

10. Happiness: A Novel — Aminatta Forna (2018) - 02.26

11. Passing — Nella Larson (1929) - 02.28

12. Love — Roddy Doyle (2020) - 03.10

13. Democracy in Chains — Nancy MacLean (2017) - 04.15

14. Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics — Lisa King, Rose Gubele, & Joyce Rain Anderson (2015) - 04.21

15. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race — Jesmyn Ward (E) (2016) - 05.07

16. An Illustrated Book of Arguments — Ali Almossawi (A), Alejandro Giraldo (I) (2014) - 05.08

17. The Peregrine — J. A. Baker (1967) - 05.14

18. The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed — Shea Serrano (2015) - 05.19

19. Outline — Rachel Cusk (2014) - 05.22

20. Dinosaur Lady: The Daring Discoveries of Mary Anning, the First Paleontologist — Linda Skeers (A), Marta Alvarez Miguens (I) (2020) - 05.31

21. Zikora: A Short Story — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2020) - 05.31

22. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance — Hanif Abdurraqib (2021) - 06.01

23. The Night Country — Melissa Albert (2019) - 06.05

24. The Glamourist — Luanne G. Smith (2020) - 06.12

25. The Atlas of Literature — Malcolm Bradbury (E) (1996) - 06.16

26. The Conjuror — Luanne G. Smith (2021) - 06.20

27. In Defense of Ska — Aaron Carnes (2021) - 06.25

28. Slouching Towards Bethlehem — Joan Didion (1968) - 06.28*

29. The Murmur of Bees — Sofía Segovia (A), Simon Bruni (T) (2015) - 07.08

30. A Writing Center Practitioner's Inquiry into Collaboration: Pedagogy, Practice, and Research, by Georgianne Nordstrom (2021) - 07.09

31. Resurrecting the Shark — Susan Ewing (2017) - 07.15

32. The Last Best League: 10th Anniversary Edition — Jim Collins (2014) - 07.24*

33. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer (2014) - 08.05

34. Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated — Shae Serrano (2020) - 08.21

35. The Pricing of Progress — Eli Cook (2017) - 09.25

36. The Overstory — Richard Powers (2018) - 09.30

37. Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School — Mica Pollock (E) (2008) - 10.01

38. 100 Fathoms Below — Nicholas Kaufmann & Steven L. Kent (2018) - 10.09

39. Border & Rule — Washa Harlia (2021) - 10.19

40. The Complete Wilderness Training Book — Hugh McManners (1994) - 10.31

41. Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods — Alexandria Lockett, Iris D. Ruiz, James Chase Sanchez, & Christopher Carter (2021) - 11.06

42. The Lord of the Rings — J. R. R. Tolkien (1954-1955) - 12.08*

43. The University in Ruins — Bill Readings (1996) - 12.09

44. Witch, Warlock, and Magician Historical Sketches of Magic and Witchcraft in England and Scotland — W. H. Davenport Adams (1889) - 12.11

45. Asgard Stories Tales from Norse Mythology — Mabel H. Cummings, Mary H. Foster (2015) - 12.20

46. Macbeth — William Shakespeare (A), Jesse M. Lander (E) (1623, 2007) - 12.31*

47. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet — John Green (2021) - 12.31

Maybe it’s because I read multiple books at a time, but when I consider what I read over the past year, what sticks with me are parts of books and moments while reading.

Poems 30, 43, 61, 81, 89, 4, 21, 25, and 85 in Cook’s Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back. Doyle’s, “Advice for the agein’ man.” Any part of Powers’s The Overstory that focuses on the arboreal rather than the human characters, especially this line: “By the time an ash has made a baseball bat, a chestnut has made a dresser.” Comparably, when Forna leaned into the foxes, and contrastingly, when Baker reflected on people. Collins’s The Last Best League was even better while sitting in the stands at Wareham Gatemen games because it reified the personhood of the named players, while other rereading allowed for recognition of humanity of near-universally reviled characters (Tom Bombadil, Lady Macbeth).

Perhaps my most important realization: A book about vampires on a submarine absolutely delivers if you go in expecting to read a story about vampires on a submarine.

Some other observations, by the numbers:

Five books were written by people I know or have met. That’s not rare, given my line of work. In fact, a cool dozen of the books listed here could reasonably be considered for work, including one I read as a review assignment. Writing about the books I read, and reading in order to write about them, was something I used to dedicate time and find enjoyment with, and I’m considering ways to make that more of a habitual practice, blending popular and academic genres.

Four of the more enjoyable/insightful books I read were actually new for this year, which is rare, for me: Border & Rule, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods, and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance. I've already got a shelf of books I'm eager to read next, which likely means any 2022 releases will have to be added to the back of the queue.

Two of the books were recommended by my daughter, a dedicated and joyful reader. She shared her own annual list with me just the other day, with each physical book spread out on the floor, and noted her top five for the year. Outside of the classroom, or formal group arrangements, reading is mainly a solitary act. But moments of shared reflection with family, friends, and colleagues (Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics) illuminate the value of reading as a communal experience, too.

Finally, less than I set out for. Not included on this list is a great deal of other reading: scholarly journals, comics, online content; The New York Review of Books and Texas Monthly; Ploughshares and The Boston Review. That said, a goal in the upcoming year is to read exactly as much as I recommend whenever someone asks me how much they should read: “more.” 

2020: My year in books

As with 2018 and 2019, keeping track of my reading was one of the simple pleasures of 2020, which for well-known reasons I won't get too deep into here was in most ways a quite miserable year. There was a moment where I envisioned reading more as a result of mostly-staying-home, and although I'm grateful for the safety and thoughtfulness of those closest to me, as evidenced by a few gaps in the reported dates on my list, my reading energy and focus ebbed and flowed.

Here's the list, followed by summative reflection. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk*.

1. Post-Truth, Lee McIntyre (2018) - 01.05

2. The American Liberal Tradition Reconsidered: The Contested Legacy of Louis Hartz, Mark Hulling, Ed. (2010) - 01.13

3. Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine (2014) - 02.06

4. Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation, Jeff Blake & Sarah Knopp, Eds. (2012) - 02.07

5. Juicy and Delicious, Lucy Alibar (2012) - 02.11

6. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (2017) - 02.16

7. The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates (2019) - 02.26

8. The Celtic Twilight, William Butler Yeats (1893) - 02.29

9. Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education, Henry A. Giroux (2019) - 03.03

10. Paradise, Toni Morrison (1997) - 03.22*

11. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte (2018) - 03.25

12. Nosotras. Historias de mujeres y algo más, Rosa Montero (2018) - 03.25

13. Take Me to Your Paradise: A History of Celtic Related Incidents and Events, Liam Kelly (2019) - 03.29

14. Before the Dawn of History, Charles R. Knight (1935) - 03.29*

15. The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America, Sarah Kendzior (2018) - 04.03

16. The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic, Mahogany L. Browne, Idrissa Simmonds, & Jamila Woods, Eds. (2018) - 04.04

17. Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis (2015) - 04.11

18. Unlucky, Zom Barber (2017) - 04.21

19. Neoliberalism's Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital, Adam Kotsko (2018) - 04.24

20. White Rage, Carol Anderson (2016) - 04.28

21. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber (1905) - 05.08

22. The Sickness Unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard (1849) - 05.10*

23. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939) - 05.16*

24. Philosophy in the Modern World: A New History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 4, Anthony Kenny (2007) - 05.24

25. Shine of the Ever, Claire Rudy Foster (2019) - 05.26

26. Poems of Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Emily Dickinson (2012, 1890) - 05.28*

27. Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?, Maya Schenwar, Joe Macaré, & Alana Yu-lan, Eds. (2016) 06.07

28. Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann (2019) - 06.22

29. The Strange Bird, Jeff VanderMeer (2017) - 06.28

30. The Oxford Companion to Beer, Garrett Oliver, Ed. (2012) - 06.28

31. How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi (2019) - 07.03

32. The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert (2014) - 07.11

33. Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020) - 08.13

34. Awful Archives, Jenny Rice (2020) - 09.04

35. National Parks of America, Lonely Planet (2016) - 09.23

36. Welcome to Hell World, Luke O'Neil (2019) - 09.27

37. Radicals in the Barrio, Justin Akers Chácon (2018) - 10.02

38. The Inheritance Trilogy, N. K. Jemisin (2010, 2010, 2011) - 10.21

39. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West, Wendy Brown (2019) - 10.31

40. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (1819) - 10.31*

41. The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert (2018) - 11.05

42. Hiding in Plain Sight, Sarah Kendzior (2020) - 11.09

43. Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives, S. Megan Berthold & Kathryn R. Libal, Eds. (2019) 11.14

44. Capitalism and Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell, Marta Russell; Keith Rosenthal, Ed. (2019) - 11.21

45. H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald (2014) - 11.22

46. Undoing the Demos : Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution, Wendy Brown (2015) - 11.24

47. The Travel Book: A Journey through Every Country in the World, Lonely Planet (2005) - 12.07

48. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2017) - 12.23

49. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843) - 12.24*

50. The Bathroom Sports Almanac, Jeff Kreismer (2017) - 12.31

As usual, a number of reading tasks I took on over the past year were inspired by my professional work; McIntyre, Giroux, Blake & Knopp, Kotsko, Kolbert, Rice, Russell, and especially Brown have already emerged in my writing and teaching.  Relatedly, as the work/life demarcation softens, the job/work distinction ossifies. That is, I'm welcoming certain aspects of my work as more relevant to my personal life and identity, while others become more easily compartmentalized.

With similar intention, much of what I chose to read was informed by the political and public health conditions under which we spent much of the past year (Kendzior, Kendi, Anderson, Steinbeck). Others, I couldn't help but read (or re-read) through that same context (Dickens, Morrison, Foster). Directly related to that mission, my most visited publisher of the year was Haymarket Books —a "radical, independent, nonprofit" out of Chicago, Illinois — with seven completed titles on my list. Most of the HB books are edited collections of previously published material, augmented with updated essays and interviews. In the case of Davis Taylor, I learned that much of what I thought were new ideas about politics and justice were ones that have been developed and tested over decades, often by Black women. Unfortunately, a trend I've noticed over the past year involving folks of predictable political and demographic slants (re: leftist white dudes) is that some of them seem to think that the policies and procedures they're advocating for are brand new and that anyone who doesn't agree with their all-or-nothing approach is an enemy. Now, the "didn't do the reading" criticism is open to critique itself on classist and racist grounds, but when folks come after Angela Davis, as did happen in the lead up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, then the fact that they didn't do the reading is problematic.

While it would be disingenuous to suggest that this year was worse politically than previous years — more accurate to say that things became less comfortable for the privileged — there was a palpable recognition of how much our communal experiences and societal expectations are precarious and require defense. The National Parks travel guide was a literal and figurative illustration of this. Throughout that slow reading, my mind was moved to Albert Camus's The Plague (on the re-read list for 2021), which begins by observing that a pestilence — which I'm interpreting as a pandemic — as that "which rules out any future." For a long time, I've been wanting to purchase a National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands annual pass, to dedicate time traveling to our shared spaces and encountering the places in between. This upcoming year seems at once like the one it would be least pragmatic yet most needed.

Let's bring this to a close with that slight spirit of optimism. Along with the absolutely lovely Wingspan and my own backyard, The Strange Bird and H is for Hawk formed a multifaceted thematic I hope to build upon moving forward. Related only in title, Ducks, Newburyport was my most rewarding read of the year, and many of you can expect to be gifted that doorstop in the future, hopefully in person. Combining much of the above, along with recent conversations over how schools and teachers should function and what students should read, Sing, Unburied, Sing was my book of the year.