March 2022 Reads

February went quick and March went quicker, although cold temps and snow flurries kept this March lion from turning lamb. Just before the calendar turns and you children and co-workers unleash April fool's jokes on you, (please not anther variant), here's the March 2022 reads.

Books

Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

I bought this book for my intermediate creative writing class in January of 1995 when I was an undergraduate at DePaul. I know this because I still use the receipt as bookmark. Our teacher, Anne Calcagno made this book part of our class, and since there were maybe fifteen people in the class, the bookstore didn’t get it in time and yadda yadda yadda I’m boring you in the first paragraph of the post which doesn’t bode well. Back to the book! 

Bird by Bird is a book about writing and, frankly, it is one of the best. The title comes from a story Lamott tells about her brother, who put off his school project about birds until the last moment and was overwhelmed by the task ahead. Her father’s sage advice: “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” Simply put, do it a step at a time. Chapter 3, “Shitty First Drafts,” is my favorite advice.  All good writers write them. This chapter I have read a least a half dozen times, especially if I am agonizing over something I am writing (I have become terrible at finishing my own shitty first drafts). The book is a great read for anyone interested in writing, and I won’t wait more than twenty-five years to read it again. For you Ted Lasso fans, Coach Lasso snuck in a “Bird by Bird” reference in the second episode of season 1 after Richmond lost their first game with him as a coach:

              Coach Beard: I hate losing.

              Ted Lasso: Bird by Bird, coach.

Also, for the next two plus years at DePaul, Ryan Maconochie and I would frequently sing song “Bird. By bird,” to each other whenever we were writing. I don’t think anyone outside of our creative writing class understood where that came from.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I should have read this book already. Chicago writer, acclaimed book, the stories set in Chicago, like one of my favorite writers, Stuart Dybek. I really have no excuse for waiting this long to read this book. Fortunately, my oldest was assigned this as part of his freshman lit class, so once he was done with it, I stole it from him and read it (and got to read his highlights and comments, too). Cisneros wrote some fantastic and very short stories about growing up in a Chicago that most people didn’t see at a time when there were not many places for such short works.

Deadheading & Other Stories by Beth Gilstrap

“A dress with pockets is a reason to celebrate on its own.”

My wife has always complained about dresses not having pockets, or women’s pants not having
pockets and that’s why I picked up on that line from the title story of this collection. There isn’t much else to celebrate in that story, but it is one of many powerful stories in this book full of fantastically crafted stories about complicated, world-weary women working through life, love, death, bad decisions, bad husbands, bad boyfriends, bad girlfriends, absent parents set in the modern south. Gilstrap is a fantastic writer (I feel remiss at omitting mention of her piece titled “A Monstrous Silence from the Jan/Feb issue of Poets & Writers I read in January), and I can't wait to read more from her. Seriously, you should go buy this book and start reading it right now.

For the Kids

A Boy Called Bat by Elena K. Arnold, Illustrated by Charles Santoso

My youngest boy’s school chose A Boy Called Bat as the One Book One School selection this year. Every student received a copy of the book and each night, the students listened to one of the school’s teachers reading a chapter. Ben and I read a couple chapters together, but he looked forward to seeing and hearing his favorite teachers read as well.  The story revolved around a boy called Bat who is autistic, who ends up helping his mother, a veterinarian, care for a baby skunk. Bat (his nickname) and his sister also navigate living in the separate homes of their divorced parents, and as the story progresses, Bat becomes friends with another boy in glass who is also interested in the baby skunk.

 

A Very Large Expanse of the Sea by Tahereh Mafi

My daughter just finished this YA book, centered on Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl, who, shortly after September 11, 2001, moves to a new school and fights against stereotypes, rude stares, and degrading comments from both students and teachers. She meets a boy, Ocean, her biology partner, who wants to get to know her for her, not just the stereotypes so many others see.  Abby rated this 4.5 stars out of 5 and it is now on my want to read list.

 

 

 I'm looking forward to April, when, hopefully, I have read several of the too many books I bought at AWP this year. Really, though, is there such thing as too many books?

 

February 2022 Reads

February can be the cruelest month. It’s so short, it’s the dredges of winter and don’t get me started on the long hard relationship I’ve had with Valentine’s day over the years. It also makes it a hard month to read a lot, but read I still did. So here’s February’s Reads.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

This book had been on my to-read list since it was published in October of 2018 and I finally picked it up while doing some Christmas shopping at The Book Table. (Ed. Note: while shopping for books for others for gifts you are required to buy a book for yourself). Part deep dive into the mystery of who set the Los Angeles Central Library fire in 1986, part history of the Los Angeles Library system, part exploration of the current Los Angeles Central Library and part ode to all libraries, this book winds it’s way through all of these subjects. If you like libraries, you will like this book and you will want to go visit your local library (and for sure you will want to visit the Los Angeles Central Library which I plan on doing on my next trip to Los Angeles) . I will say, I was hoping for a clear resolution about the fire, but, well, as Susan Orlean found out, there really wasn’t one.

 

The Best American Short Stories 2021, editor Jesmyn Ward

The first Best American Short Stories collection I read was the 1991 edition, which was assigned to my
Independent Study Creative Writing Class in high school by the wonderful Kate Glass, and I’ve read every edition since. B.A.S.S. collects twenty stories chosen by a rotating guest editor as the best, which obviously is very subjective. Most years, I’ve read a handful of the stories in their original publication (this year I had already read five). Stories in this collection that stuck with me include “Clementine, Carmelita, Dog” by David Means, which is the best story every written from a dog’s point of view; “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” by Jamil Jan Kochai; “The Last Days of Rodney” by Tracey Rose Peyton (who is from Chicago); and “In This Sort of World, the Asshole Wins” by Christina Romanosky. If you read one collection of short stories a year, it should be this one. But then you should go out an buy another or subscribe to some of the literary journals where these stories first appear.

 

Smithsonian, January/February 2022 Issue

There is so much in the issue. It starts with the history of potato chips, then the bug that saved the California citrus groves, the origins of snowboarding (or snurfing as it was originally called), and wraps up with The Wonder Bird, the Hudsonian godwit, which flies thousands of miles without stopping to eat, drink, sleep or rest. This is one of the best magazines out there.

The New Yorker, January 17^th, 2022 Issue

If you ever wanted to learn everything about permafrost, The Great Siberian Thaw will teach you more than you wanted to know. And on the Russian theme, check out Graham Swifts short story “Fireworks,” which is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

Outside Magazine, Jan/Feb 2022

Covid-19 made me subscribe to Outside magazine. Well, hiking Yosemite for a week during Covid-19 did. The Magazine is focused on the outdoors, includes travel tips, gear reviews, profiles, and amazing photography (even the photos in the ads are amazing). Any magazine is better when you know one the writers, and what a pleasure it was to read about “The Mexico You Don’t Know,” with contributions from long time family friend Kristin Gill.

For the kids

My curious youngest boy brought home "Bog Mummies, Where Did they come from?" sparking days worth of discussions about mummies in our house. Also, he just got his library card and brought home two "Who was" books: Benjamin Franklin (he tells us he wants to change his last name to Franklin) and Babe Ruth.

My middle-school daughter is currently reading two book: "The Sun is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon (which is also on my to-read list) and "Becoming" by Michelle Obama (adapted for younger readers).