Early April seems to be the time of year where the number of great books out there to read – both recent and previously published – goes from exciting to overwhelming. Even when I feel like I’ve been responsible with my purchases and judicious in the number of review copies I request, by April I start to feel this weird stress about ALL THE BOOKS and the knowledge that I’ll never get through it all.

It has helped, I think, that I’ve been focusing this year on only buying books in bookstores rather than online. The fact that I work at a library and can basically request any title I want somewhat negates that, but at least library books won’t sit on my shelves for too long.

Although I did break my pledge once in the last few months – I pre-ordered Leslie Jamison’s new memoir, The Recovering, because I was just so excited to read it – I’ve been largely successful. Here are the books I’ve bought since my last update:  

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti – A coming-of-age story of a young girl whose father has a mysterious past, told in alternating chapters with the father’s coming of age story. I read this on vacation and loved it.

The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen – A collection of short stories reimagining our favorite fantasy and children’s story characters. I’m thinking this will be a late evening Readathon palate cleanser.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle – I don’t think I’d ever read this children’s classic, so I snagged a copy and read it a few weeks ago. It was… ok? It didn’t really hit me the way I was hoping that it would.

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot – This memoir has gotten a lot of buzz, and so when I saw it on a staff recommends table at my favorite independent bookstore, I had to grab it. This one is also on my Readathon pile.

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead – I am obviously going to buy a novel by Colson Whitehead about a sort of parallel universe in which there’s a department of elevator inspectors. It sounds so fascinating.

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper – A friend recommended this collection of essays about black women’s anger, how it’s portrayed, and why it’s important.

Nasty Women, edited by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding – This collection of essays from women writers about resistance and revolution has been on my radar for awhile, so I finally decided to just buy it.

After my last update, I realized I didn’t include the books I’ve selected through my Book of the Month subscription. It feels only fair that I admit to them too (especially since I’ve selected multiple books during multiple months… not responsible!):

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – Oprah’s newest Book Club pick about what happens to a marriage after the husband is jailed and then released after being convicted and acquitted of a crime.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan – This is a YA novel about grief that’s gotten amazing buzz. I keep wanting to pick it up, but I’m also kind of apprehensive.

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs – This one was compared to The Westing Game, a novel I really loved a long time ago, so I was pretty much sold. A mathematician dies, perhaps murdered, and leaves a clue for his relatives to solve.

Circe by Madeline Miller – The infamous witch of The Odyssey gets her own book. I’m prepared for this one to be amazing.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil – This memoir is about two sisters who escape from genocide in Rwanda to come to the United States. It sounds like a tough read, but also very meaningful.

Oh dear… now that it’s all written down, it’s clear that is a lot more books than any one person ought to acquire in the span of just a few months. I think a book buying diet is in order soon!

Thanks to four days in Mexico with no plans but to read, swim, and relax, I managed to finish a whopping 11 books in March! And on the whole, I found them pretty satisfying, and am happy that I also managed to write reviews of the ones I had strong feelings about. Here’s what I read this month:

• The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (fiction – review)
• The Rocks by Peter Nichols (fiction – review)
• Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai (fiction – review)
• You Don’t Know My Name by Kristen Orlando (fiction – review)
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (fiction)
• Educated by Tara Westover (memoir – review)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle (YA fiction)
• This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (essays – review)
• Wires and Nerve: Gone Rogue by Marissa Meyer and Stephen Gilpin (fiction, comic)
• The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt (nonfiction – review)
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (YA fiction – review)

Of the fiction I read, I think The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley and Children of Blood and Bone were my favorites. Both grabbed my attention right away, and didn’t let it go until I finished.

I also loved all of the nonfiction I read this month. Educated was a stellar memoir – it’s probably going to be among my top books of the year. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a warm, funny collection of essays that I was sad when I finished. And The Dragon Behind the Glass is just the sort of odd, well-reported nonfiction that I love. I’d recommend them all.

A Look to April

The Readathon is coming! April 28 is the annual spring edition of Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, and I’m already getting a little excited. Is there anything better than sitting down for a full day to read with no other responsibilities? I think not. In addition to read Readathon, April is a pretty stellar month for new books. Here are a few I’m excited about possibly picking up this month:

The Recovering by Leslie Jamison – This memoir is probably my most anticipated book of the year. I loved Jamison’s previous book, a collection of essays called The Empathy Exams, and can’t wait to dig into a more personal book about addiction and recovering.

The Opposite of Hate by Sally Kohn – This book pulls together recent research from psychology, sociology, and neuroscience to explore the evolutionary and cultural roots of hate. I’m intrigued by this one mostly because of the blurbs – both Sean Hannity and Elizabeth Gilbert are quoted on the jacket.

The Library by Stuart Kells – Now that I work doing communications for a public library, I’m even more interested to learn about the history of the institution and the role that libraries play around the world. In this book, Kells becomes a library tourist to explore these stories. I am excited!

The Displaced, edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen – This book is a collection of essays by 17 refugee writers from around the world, all writing about their experiences and “what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge.”

And that’s a wrap for March! What books were your favorites last month? What books are most looking forward to in a few weeks? What’s at the top of your Readathon pile?

Last year at about this time I (impulsively) decided to join The 100 Day Project, a free, global art initiative where people around the world commit to doing something creative every day for 100 days. At the time I was feeling unmoored and confused, and had plenty of time on my hands thanks to a recent layoff from my job in community newspapers. I hoped that the project would help me recenter on the things I love – reading, writing, and books – and help me begin to put myself out in the world again.  

And it did. Completing 100 Days of Books was an incredible experience, and I’m really proud of the work that I did during that time. I learned a lot about books, photography, and writing. Seeing a collage of all 100 books together still makes me smile.

As the beginning of this year’s 100 Day Project approached, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. This year I’m in a totally different place. I’m in a busy season at a new job, and have other projects filling in the time and mental space I have available for books and reading. I don’t need another project, but I’ve nevertheless been feeling the pull to participate again… so I’m going to try!

Two things I’ve been fascinated with for a long time are art journaling and commonplace books, both creative ways of using notebooks to collect thoughts, feeling, anecdotes, observations, or information that may eventually become useful. As you might expect, art journals lean towards the more creative, while commonplace books are more utilitarian. In the past, I’ve kept versions of each one. I have many notebooks lying around with a few pages of sketches or quotes or memorabilia that were meaningful at the time. I don’t always remember why they mattered, but I like when I stumble across these little pieces. 

My project for this year – 100 Days in a Notebook – is somewhere between those two creative outlets. Every day for the next 100 days (April 3 to July 11), I am going to put something into a notebook. It may be as simple as a line of journaling or a meaningful quote, or as elaborate as a collage or watercolor painting. I’m not committing to filling a page every day, just to putting pen or paintbrush or glue stick to paper before I go to bed each night.

In order to (attempt) to work around my tendency to perfectionism, I bought a $5 Artist’s Loft dot grid notebook from Michaels to use instead of one of the nice notebooks I have sitting around my house. This is the style of notebook I use for my bullet journal at work, so in my head it’s a low-pressure notebook where it’s ok to be messy and imperfect. The important thing is making space for creativity, not obsessing about the outcome.

I don’t really have an idea of what 100 Days in a Notebook will end up looking like – the whole concept is a little bit vague on purpose – but I am excited for an excuse to sit down and be creative in a tactile way every day. I’ll be sharing a bit on Instagram as the project progresses, so be sure to follow me there!

My nonfiction reading has been absolutely on fire lately. Thanks to the work I do over at Book Riot — writing a weekly nonfiction newsletter, and hosting a bi-weekly nonfiction podcast — I’m pretty up to speed on the big nonfiction that’s being published now. My TBR is miles long, but it’s ok because that means I don’t often read books I don’t like — I know to avoid them, or I’m happy to quit because I know there are good books on the horizon. All that to say I’m excited to be sharing short reviews of three books I really loved — a memoir about survivalists, a collection of essays, and a scientific travelogue about exotic fish. 

Educated by Tara Westover

There’s a lot to try and fit into a description of Tara Westover’s amazing memoir, Educated, so I’m just going to give you the bare bones. Westover grew up in a family of fundamentalist, survivalists in Idaho who distrusted the government, educational system, and medical establishment. After seeing one brother leave and go to college, Westover taught herself just enough math, science, and grammar to pass the ACT and enter Brigham Young University as a freshman at 17 – the first time she’d ever been in a classroom, and the beginning of a big life made possible by education and the help of people she found along the way.

This memoir is absolutely stunning, both incredibly hopeful and incredibly sad in the space of just a few pages. Westover’s upbringing is full of violence and misogyny, but also small acts of rebellion and love that keep it from feeling completely hopeless. I was impressed with the clear perspective Westover brings to the book. It would be easy for her to feel bitter about her childhood and angry with her family for how she’s been treated, but I didn’t feel any of that as I read, which feels important in making this book not seem completely dire. It’s an incredible book, one that I’m confident will end up on my top books of the year list.

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

It took me a weirdly long time to finish This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. I probably started reading it last fall, but finally got around to finishing the last piece just last weekend. I thought, for awhile, that the reason I took so long finishing it was because of the format. The book includes all essays that have been previously published, so I thought perhaps the collection didn’t build in a way that compelled me to keep turning pages… because of the format, there’s no surprise because they’re all by the same person, and no argument being built that pulls you into the next piece.

But as I’ve thought about it trying to write this little review, I don’t think that’s true. The essays do have a particular flow to them, building a roughly chronological story about Patchett’s life as a daughter, student, writer, dog mother, bookstore owner, and wife. The book synopsis talks about creating “both a portrait of a life and a philosophy of life,” which is quite accurate. This isn’t a biography or a memoir, but reading the essays does give a lovely overview of the relationships and moments that have meant the most to Patchett, and the ways those incidents have helped her become the writer she is today.

I think, instead, the reason I took so long to finish is because the collection is so lovely – warm, funny, thoughtful, beautifully-written, and resonant. I took forever to finish because I didn’t want my time spent with this book to end.

The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt

I love nonfiction about weird things, so of course a “true story of power, obsession, and the world’s most coveted fish” would make it onto my reading list. The fish at the center of The Dragon Behind the Glass is the Asian arowana, aka the “dragon fish,” an endangered species that is beloved and highly coveted by those who collect ornamental fish. The dragon fish is nearly extinct in the wild, yet the fish is thriving in captivity thanks to the aquarium market. And despite the huge numbers available to sell, they’re illegal to own in the United States because they’re an endangered species. The dragon fish has inspired heists, fraud, kidnappings and even murder – so many crazy things!

This book is such a strange delight from beginning to end. Voigt meets a ton of fascinating people in her pursuit of the dragon fish, and follows the species around the world trying to understand it’s shift from wild animal to aquarium star. It’s an interesting story about nature, conservation, and obsession, all around a very odd looking fish. I thought it was a fun read – definitely one to pick up you’re open to the idea of a “scientific travelogue” about exotic fish.