About Some Beautiful Things I Read Last Year
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Along with sequins and kissing, year-end reading lists are one of my favorite things about saying goodbye to December. Annually, one of my oldest friends shares her book count and select titles, and I look forward to it so much that she inspired me to do the same.
Since 2015, I’ve been in an independent reading contest. After two years of tying myself with the number 32, I finally surpassed my record with 40 books. Of those, 13 were audiobooks, which I started listening to yearning for productivity during my work commute. I read one graphic novel and 23 fiction, 10 poetry, and six nonfiction titles. 29 were authored by women, 28 by people of color, and 14 by the LGBTQ community. A little tardy but it’s never too late to talk about how these books dazzled me.
Nelson’s brain intimidates me. In a good way. One of my choice interviews to relisten to and beloved books to recommend, Bluets, this memoir about love, sex, and gender didn’t disappoint. Hello, passion: “I know we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song.”
A couple of the countless things I love about this debut novel are the setting and description. An island girl, I’ve always loved and looked to Caribbean literature. Felt a kinship with their ocean and flowers and, last but not least, celestial bodies: “The stars are sprinkled across the sky like grains of salt.”
A birthday present from my fiancé, the cover, bright yellow with flowers (two of my weaknesses) drew me to this book. The vignettes, charts, and footnotes solidified that I needed this on my shelf to revisit its experimental form and lines like “I fall in love carefully.”
The Argonauts
Here Comes the Sun
What We Lose
