2020 reading in review

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Book I would read again: Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
Book I would gift to a friend: Beartown by Frederik Backman
Book I’m surprised I read: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Book I loved reading on vacation: This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga
Book I regretted buying: Note to Self by Connor Franta
Book that made me want to travel: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Books that make me want to change my habits and life: Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, The Year of Less by Cait Flanders, Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki

General themes and genres:

• antiracism

• social justice

• food writing

• biographies and autobiographies

• self-reflection and mindfulness

Whew! What a year. When 2020 reading started, I had no intention of reading so much, just to read more than three books. Then, it escalated and blossomed — it kind of just happened. I started January and February with a handful and then the pandemic hit. With more time to myself and at home it seemed a natural progression. Reading really, really got serious once I started to track and share my reading metrics with friends and family. As the months passed I felt an intense need to read at least ten books a month. Not sure why ten. It was easy some months, harder some months. From antiracism, biographies, food writing, and more I escaped to worlds outside my quarantine bubble. What a great way to travel, learn, and entertain myself all year long.

Am I doing it again in 2021? I don’t think so. I will continue to read, but at a more leisurely pace. I participated in my first book club this year so I’m looking forward to reading more intentionally and slowly moving forward. I might still track my progress and document it, not sure yet. Doing less is my motto for 2021.

December — reflections, stories, peculiarities

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Favorite book: Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs & Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki
Least favorite book: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
Read I would recommend: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

Memorable quotes:

• “Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. ” ― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism

• “That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.” ― Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt

• “The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving. And, more important, the internet already is what it is. It has already become the central organ of contemporary life. It has already rewired the brains of its users, returning us to a state of primitive hyperawareness and distraction while overloading us with much more sensory input than was ever possible in primitive times. It has already built an ecosystem that runs on exploiting attention and monetizing the self. Even if you avoid the internet completely—my partner does: he thought #tbt meant “truth be told” for ages—you still live in the world that this internet has created, a world in which selfhood has become capitalism’s last natural resource, a world whose terms are set by centralized platforms that have deliberately established themselves as near-impossible to regulate or control.” ― Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror

November — my first book club

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Favorite book: Beartown by Fredrik Backman
Least favorite book: Note to Self by Connor Franta
Read I would recommend: Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay* (my first book club read!)
Memorable quotes:

• I don’t ever want to forget that resistance must be its own reward, since resistance, at least within the life span of the resistors, almost always fails. ― Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

• Whites in the middle class often brought with them generational wealth—the home of a deceased parent, a modest inheritance, a gift from a favorite uncle. Blacks in the middle class often brought with them generational debt—an incarcerated father, an evicted niece, a mother forced to take in her sister’s kids. And these conditions, themselves, could not be separated out from the specific injury of racism, one that was not addressed by simply moving up a rung. Racism was not a singular one-dimensional vector but a pandemic, afflicting black communities at every level, regardless of what rung they occupied. ― Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

• I know that “gentrification” is but a more pleasing name for white supremacy, is the interest on enslavement, the interest on Jim Crow, the interest on redlining, compounding across the years, and these new urbanites living off of that interest are, all of them, exulting in a crime. ― Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

October — introspection & inspiration

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Favorite book: Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall and What I know Forsure by Oprah Winfrey
Least favorite book: Dear Girls by Ali Wong
Read I would recommend: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
Memorable quotes:

• There’s nothing feminist about having so many resources at your fingertips and choosing to be ignorant. Nothing empowering or enlightening in deciding that intent trumps impact. Especially when the consequences aren’t going to be experienced by you, but will instead be experienced by someone from a marginalized community.” Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

• “Beginning when we are girls, most of us are taught to deflect praise. We apologize for our accomplishments. We try to level the field with our family and friends by downplaying our brilliance. We settle for the passenger’s seat when we long to drive. That’s why so many of us have been willing to hide our light as adults. Instead of being filled with all the passion and purpose that enable us to offer our best to the world, we empty ourselves in an effort to silence our critics. The truth is that the naysayers in your life can never be fully satisfied. Whether you hide or shine, they’ll always feel threatened because they don’t believe they are enough. So stop paying attention to them. Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are ignoring the owner’s manual your Creator gave you. What I know for sure is this: You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more. To be more splendid. To be more extraordinary. To use every moment to fill yourself up.” Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure

September — less and less

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Favorite book: Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Least favorite book: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Read I would recommend: The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
Memorable quotes:

• “Combine that Western savior complex with a dominant cultural group with real power and you have a recipe for social disaster. Dominant groups anywhere in the world are prone to overriding the narratives of marginalized people with their own perspectives… “Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” The Trouble I’ve Seen by Drew G.I. Hart

• “But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.” Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

August — reflections and slowing down

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Favorite book: Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Least favorite book: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Read I would recommend: Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
Memorable quotes:

• “The world will tell you how to live, if you let it. Don’t let it. Take up your space. Raise your voice. Sing your song. This is your chance to make or remake a life that thrills you.” ― Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

• “Here is a radical idea that I would like you to understand: white silence is violence. It actively protects the system. It says I am okay with the way things are because they do not negatively affect me and because I enjoy the benefits I receive with white privilege.” ― Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad

July — antiracism, continued

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Favorite book: Appalachian Reckoning by various authors
Least favorite book: Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Read I would recommend: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Memorable quotes:

• “Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.” ― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

• “But home isn't where you land; home is where you launch. You can't pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.” ― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

June — antiracism reckoning

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Favorite book: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Least favorite book: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Read I would recommend: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Memorable quotes:

• “When we are willing to check our privilege, we are not only identifying where we are perpetuating oppression, but we are also identifying where we have the power and access to change the system as a whole. Where I benefit the most is where I have the most power and access to change a system that disadvantages others. ” So you want to talk about race by Iljeoma Oluo

• “You have been racist. You will be in the future even if less so. You are racist because you were born and bred in a white supremacist society. White supremacy is insidious by design. The racism used to uphold white supremacy is woven into every area of our lives. There is no way you can inherit white supremacy from birth, learn white supremacy’s history in school, consume racist and white supremacist movies and films, work in a white supremacist work force, vote in a white supremacist governments, and not be racist. This does not mean you have hate, you may intend to treat everyone equally, but it means you have absorbed racist thoughts in this society.” So you want to talk about race by Iljeoma Oluo

• “You have been racist. You will be in the future even if less so. You are racist because you were born and bred in a white supremacist society. White supremacy is insidious by design. The racism used to uphold white supremacy is woven into every area of our lives. There is no way you can inherit white supremacy from birth, learn white supremacy’s history in school, consume racist and white supremacist movies and films, work in a white supremacist work force, vote in a white supremacist governments, and not be racist. This does not mean you have hate, you may intend to treat everyone equally, but it means you have absorbed racist thoughts in this society.” So you want to talk about race by Iljeoma Oluo

• “At times it seems never-ending, like no matter what you do, you are doing something wrong. But you have to try to adjust to the feelings of shame and pain that come from being confronted by your own racism. Fear of facing the worst in ourselves. Instead, fear unexamined racism. Fear that you are contributing to the oppression of others, even if you don’t know. Do not fear the opportunity to do better..” So you want to talk about race by Iljeoma Oluo

• “Claiming to be not a racist is a claim of neutrality. “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But, there is no neutrality in the racism struggle - the opposite of racist isn’t not racist, it’s anti-racist. What’s the difference? One either endorses the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in a people as a racist or locates the problems in power and policies as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere as a racist or confronts racial inequities as an anti-racist. There is no safe space in between as a not racist. The claim of not racist neutrality is a mask for racism.” How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

• “Fear is a choice. We do not have to be fearless like Harriet Tubman to be anti-racist. We have to be courageous to be anti-racist. Courage is the strength to do what is right in the face of fear. We gain the insight of what is anti-racist, we gain strength from fear while many people are fearful from what can happen but I am fearful of what would happen if we don’t resist. Fearful of cowardice, cowardice is the inability to amass the strength to do what is right in the face of fear. Racist power has been terrorizing cowardice into us for generations..” How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

• “All our phrasing – racial chasm, race relations, race justice, racial profiling, white supremacy, etc – serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience that dislodges brains, rips muscle, cracks muscles, breaks teeth. Remember the sociology, history, economics, regressions, etc - all land with great violence upon the body.” White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

May — American foundations & society

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Favorite books: Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance, Evicted: Poverty & Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Least favorite book: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Read I would recommend: Evicted: Poverty & Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Memorable quotes:

• “The home is the center of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. We say that at home, we can “be ourselves.” Everywhere else, we are someone else. At home, we remove our masks.
  The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, where as children, we imagine, play, and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised.” Evicted by Matthew Desmond

• “it is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.” Evicted by Matthew Desmond

April — a multitude of voices

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Favorite book: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Least favorite book: The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Read I would recommend: Black Privilege: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Memorable quote: “The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent—strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering. It has the power to heal the psychic harm and injuries that lead to aggression and violence, abuse of power, mass incarceration.” Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

March — escape to Greek mythology

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Favorite book: Circe by Madeline Miller
Least favorite book: -
Read I would recommend: The Wisdom of Sundays by Oprah Winfrey
Memorable quote: “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” James Clear, Atomic Habits

February — street smarts

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avorite book: Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It by Charlamagne Tha God
Least favorite book: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Read I would recommend: Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It by Charlamagne Tha God
Memorable quote: “Fuck your dreams.” Charlamagne Tha God, Black Privilege

January — strong females & education

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Favorite book: Educated by Tara Westover
Least favorite book: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Read I would recommend: Daring to Drive by Manal Al-Sharif
Memorable quote: “Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure.” Tara Westover, Educated