—

Sarah Mirk is a graphic journalist, editor, teacher, zine-maker, and illustrator whose comics have been featured in The Nib, The New Yorker, Bitch, and NPR. Mirk is currently a contributing editor at The Nib, where she writes and edits nonfiction comics about history, politics, and identity, and also works as a writer onThe Nib’s animation series. She currently also works as a digital engagement producer for Reveal at the Center for Investigative Reporting, where she co-writes the investigative comics series In/Vulnerable, illustrated by Thi Bui. Mirk is the author several books, including Guantanamo Voices, an illustrated oral history of Guantanamo Bay prison, You Do You: Figuring Out Your Body, Dating, and Sexuality, Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules, the graphic novelOpen Earth, and the self-published collection Year of Zines. She is an adjunct professor in Portland State University’s MFA program in Art and Social Practice, where she teaches a graduate seminar on writing and research.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Sarah Mirk appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Happy 2020, my bookish friends!

First off, let me say right away that I will NOT be doing a favorite books of the past decade post. Sorry, but also I am not sorry, because I would actually drive myself insane trying to figure out my favorite books from the PAST TEN YEARS. That is so many years! So many books! How is that even possible? Also, it seems unfair? Ten years ago, I was 22, and the books that hit me hard at 22, I may roll my eyes at now at 32, but I don’t think that diminishes the impact they had on me a decade ago, so, yeah, I’m not touching that.

If you want recaps of my past reading habits, check out my 2018 Reading Round-Up and 2017 Reading Round-Up posts and this piece I wrote for Wellesley Underground about spending 2015 only reading books by women. (2010 to 2012 I was pretty much reading only YA and middle grade books because I was teaching at a middle school in Dorchester, and 2012 to 2014 I was in grad school and was reading whatever my MFA professors were telling me to read, and then I guess I was too much of an empty shell in 2016 to write anything about what I read that year?) You can also browse my GoodReads profile which I have been updating regularly since January 2012, and see my GoodReads reading challenges from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012.

I would only read 568 pages for Alexander Chee and no one else.

But! As promised, even if I can’t handle recapping the whole past decade, I present to you my annual reading tally for the past year. So, as is tradition, here is the breakdown of what I read in 2019, my top 19 books that were published 2019, plus my reading resolutions for the upcoming decade and some of the books I am looking forward to in 2020.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 122 books, by 107 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 24
• Nonfiction: 39
• Graphic novels/comics: 3
• Graphic memoirs/nonfiction: 14
• Poetry: 9
• Drama: 1
• Young adult/middle grade: 10
• Picture/art books: 22*
• Books that I had already previously read: 6**

*Again, many of these were dead-pet-related picture books for research.

**Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 29
• Books by white women: 55
• Books by men of color: 15
• Books by white men: 22
• Books by non-binary people of color: 1
• Books by non-binary white people: 0
• Books by LGBTQ folks: ~23

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for dead pets research: 48
• Books for Non-Fiction by Non-Men/other interviews/essays/reviews: 19
• Books for my People Who Read Darkness book club: 12
• Books for teaching: 4 (though every book I read is for teaching, in a way)
• Books for fun/other reasons/just for the hell of it: 39

E.B.’s TOP 19 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2019:

As I’ve said in past years, I am really glad that I am doing this tradition of my top [xx] books published in 20[xx] because it means I get to add one more book to my list each year. I am also glad that in this list I focus on only books that were published in 2019 because that helps me further narrow down my choices, though it does mean that some of my favorite books I read this year may not make the cut, just because they weren’t published in 2019, such as Cottonmouths by Kelly J. Ford (2017) or Edinburgh by Alexander Chee (2001) or Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2011) or The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (2015) or The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson (2018) or Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala (2013). So, it’s an imperfect art, but it makes my life a little easier, so here I present to you: my 19 favorite books that came out in 2019, organized chronologically by their publication date.

1. The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang (February 5)
2. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden (March 5)
3. Good Talk by Mira Jacob (March 26)
4. The Body Papers by Grace Talusan (April 9)
5. I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib (April 30)
6. Allowed to Grow Old by Isa Leshko (May 10)
7. Ugly Music by Diannely Antigua (May 15)
8. The Edge of Every Day: Sketches in Schizophrenia by Marin Sardy (May 21)
9. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (June 4)
10. Bunny by Mona Awad (June 11)
11. With a Polaroid Camera by Sarah Dickenson Snyder (June 25)
12. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton (August 6)
13. Mitz by Sigrid Nunez (August 6)
14. Malaya: Essays on Freedom by Cinelle Barnes (October 8)
15. Holding On To Nothing by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne (October 22)
16. This is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon (October 22)
17. In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (November 5)
18. The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West (November 5)
19. Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin (November 12)

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2020 (& the rest of the decade):

• Last year I said I wanted the majority of the books I read in 2019 to be by people of color. I did not achieve that goal: of 122 books, 78 were by white people and 44 were by people of color. So, once again, my goal for the upcoming year is to read a majority of books by people of color.
• Also as I said last year, I want to keep reading more and more books by nonbinary people and LGBTQ folks. I am embarrassed that I only read one nonbinary author this year and that this year only 18% (down from 20% in 2018) of the authors I read identify openly as LGBTQ. I can do better.
• I want to continue to make sure my People Who Read Darkness book club reads diverse writers. (This year we only read one book by a person of color, My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, so we really need to work on that.)
• And also, like in past years, I need to keep paying attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing.
• And, finally, as always, I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it!!!! This is a reminder for you, too!

E.B.’s LIST OF BOOKS SHE IS ANTICIPATING in 2020:

There are many, many, MANY books to look forward in 2020, but here are just a few I am especially excited about, that you should put on your radar:

• I Know You Know Who I Am by Peter Kispert (February 11 from Penguin Books)
• Thin Places by Jordan Kisner (March 3 from FSG)
• Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby (March 31 from Vintage)
• Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan (April 21 from Celadon Books)
• Summer Solstice by Nina MacLaughlin (April 27 from Black Sparrow Press)
• Fairest by Meredith Talusan (May 26 from Viking)
• Let’s Never Talk About This Again by Sara Faith Alterman (June 6 from Grand Central Publishing)
• The Names of All the Flowers by Melissa Valentine (July 14 from Feminist Press)
• Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman (July 14 from Simon & Schuster)
• A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens (July 28 from Razorbill)
• Tomboyland: Essays by Melissa Faliveno (August 4 from Topple Books)
• Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine (sometime in September from Graywolf)
• I also heard a rumor that Eula Biss has a new book coming out in fall 2020!

Here’s to reading all the books in 2020!

The post 2019 Reading Round-Up appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Thanks for the graphics and stats, GoodReads. Shocking that no one else has read “My Pet Died” by Rachel Biale.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 137 books, by 131 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 19
• Nonfiction: 43
• Graphic novels/comics: 9
• Graphic memoirs/nonfiction: 7
• Poetry: 15
• Drama: 1
• Young adult/middle grade: 6
• Picture books: 37*
• Books that I had already previously read: 6**

*Most of these were for research. I swear.

**Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Playing Dead by Elizabeth Greenwood, Black Mass by Dick Lehr & Gerard O’Neill, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 39
• Books by white women: 50
• Books by men of color: 14
• Books by white men: 26
• Books by non-binary people of color: 1
• Books by non-binary white people: 1
• Books by LGBTQ folks: ~26

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for research purposes: 30
• Books by Non-Fiction by Non-Men authors: 14
• Books for the Nobles English curriculum: 9
• Books for my true crime book club: 10
• Books for fun/other reasons/just for the hell of it: 74

E.B.’s TOP 18 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2018:

I am really glad that I am doing this tradition of my top [xx] books published in 20[xx] because it means I get to add one more book to my list each year. HOWEVER: narrowing my list of books read this year down to only 18 was still brutal, so please appreciate the pain I went through to bring you this blog post. Now, without further ado, my top 18 books published in 2018, organized alphabetically by author’s last name.

1. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (October 23, 2018)
2. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (April 17, 2018)
3. All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (October 2, 2018)
4. How To Sit by Tyrese Coleman (September 1, 2018)
5. My Own Devices by Dessa (September 8, 2018)
6. Freshwater by Awaeke Emezi (February 13, 2018)
7. Movers and Shakers by Hope Ewing (October 9, 2018)
8. Tango Lessons by Meghan Flaherty (June 19, 2018)
9. This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins (January 30, 2018)
10. Sick by Porochista Khakpour (June 5, 2018)
11. If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim (August 7, 2018)
12. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (February 27, 2018)
13. How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery (September 25, 2018)
14. Open Mic Night in Moscow by Audrey Murray (July 24, 2018)
15. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (February 6, 2018)
16. There There by Tommy Orange (June 5, 2018)
17. Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister (October 2, 2018)
18. My Dead Parents by Anya Yurchyshyn (March 27, 2018)

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2018:

• I want to continue reading more and more books by people of color, and my goal for 2019 is to read a majority books by people of color. (This year, of 137 books, 80 were by white people and 57 were by people of color.)
• I also want to keep reading more and more books by nonbinary people and LGBTQ folks. This year I read work by two nonbinary individuals and 20% of the authors I read were LGBTQ, which is okay, I guess, but could definitely be better.
• I want to make sure my true crime book club reads more diverse writers as well! (So many white people love to write about true crime.)
• Like last year, I need to keep paying attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing.
• And, as always, I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it!!!! This is a reminder for you, too!

Here’s to more amazing books in 2019!

The post 2018 Reading Round-Up appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 110 books, by 96 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 11
• Nonfiction: 29
• Graphic novels/comics: 5
• Graphic memoirs: 9
• Poetry: 8
• Drama: 2
• Young adult/middle grade: 6
• Picture books: 40*

*Most of these were for research purposes. There are a lot of kids’ books out there about how to cope with pet death, FYI.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 22
• Books by white women: 56
• Books by men of color: 4
• Books by white men: 28
• Books by LGBTQ folks: 18

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for research purposes: 52
• Books for the Nobles 9th grade English curriculum: 4
• Books for fun: 54

E.B.’s TOP 17 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2017:

I would just like to say that a lot of really great books were published in 2017. Narrowing it down to 17 was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. This list could have easily been twice as long, but “34 books published in 2017” didn’t have quite the same ring to it. But, ugh! Making choices is so hard! Sigh. Anyway, let me present to you, my top 17 books published in 2017, in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

1. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
2. How To Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron
3. From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
4. Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly
5. Hunger by Roxane Gay
6. Fetch by Nicole J. Georges
7. Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett
8. Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
9. Alfie (The Turtle that Disappeared) by Thyra Heder
10. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
11. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
12. Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo
13. Yawn: Adventures in Boredom by Mary Mann
14. A Surprise for Mrs. Tortoise by Paula Merlán
15. Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello
16. A Girl Walks into a Book by Miranda K. Pennington
17. After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2018:

• I need to pay more attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and try to diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing. (Turns out there are a lot of white ladies who like to write picture books about pets dying.)
• I need to continue to read more books by people of color and LGBTQ folks. (Especially men of color. That 2017 statistic was shameful.)
• I didn’t tally the exact numbers, but I know that most of the books I read this year were by American writers (Scaachi Koul was one of the most “exotic” as she is, gasp, Canadian) and I want to try to read more work by international authors.
• And I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it. I’m going to die before I get to read everything on my To Read list on GoodReads, so, live it up. Life is short. Read what you want to be reading.

Here’s to a 2018 full of even more great books!

The post 2017 Reading Round-Up appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

—

For the full interview, see it on Fiction Advocate.
Published on March 15, 2017.

—

Photo Credit: Jolene Siana

MariNaomi is the author and illustrator of Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), Turning Japanese (2dcloud, 2016), and I Thought YOU Hated ME (Retrofit Comics, 2016). Her work has appeared in over sixty print publications and has been featured on numerous websites, such as LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, and BuzzFeed. From 2011-2013 her comics appeared as the column Smoke In Your Eyes on The Rumpus.

MariNaomi’s comics and paintings have been featured by such institutions as the Smithsonian, the De Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American Museum. In 2011, Mari toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. She is the creator and curator of the Cartoonists of Color Database and the Queer Cartoonists Database. She has taught classes for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA program, and is currently a guest editor at PEN America.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: MariNaomi appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

… just two of the books I read over the summer I had to read for work, and both were by men (A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin), so, therefore, if I hadn’t had to read those, I totally definitely would have made my goal, right?! Except, it did get a lot harder to keep up with my reading pace once I started teaching in September, and I did throw in a lot of plays and comics/graphic works as the year went on to try to make the 50. But my friend and colleague Dan Halperin sums it up best: he is a director and theatre teacher, and the week before any show goes up, when the whole production always feels like a complete mess and that opening night will be a disaster and what were we thinking it’s never going to come together in time, he says, “If we were ready to go right now, we wouldn’t be challenging ourselves enough.” It’s better to set the bar too high, and to always be striving for something greater, than to set the bar low, easily hit it, and then sit around twiddling your thumbs. So I’m glad I tried to read 50 books this year, even if I didn’t exactly make it, and I am going to try to read 50 more in 2016 as well. One year I will get there. And then I’ll shoot for 60 books.

Oh, and in case you have forgotten and have no idea what I’m going on about: My goal for 2015 was to read 50 books by women, with the majority of those by women of color.

So, what have I been reading since I last checked in? Why, let me tell you!  (And if you want to remember what I read the rest of the year, please see my 3rd Quarter Check-In, my 2nd Quarter Check-In, and my 1st Quarter Check-In posts.)

38. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson: This was the book I was currently reading at the time of my 3rd Quarter Check-In and let me tell you it was goddamn excellent. Margo is the best, and I may be biased because she was my professor and one of my thesis readers, but she is really great, and this book is a brilliant blend of her personal history and cultural commentary, and she deftly moves back and forth between the two. Margo is so smart, and getting to sit inside her head for 250 pages and listen to her thoughts on race, gender, class, art, academia… it was incredible.

39. Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki: Where were Mariko and Jillian Tamaki when I was in high school? This graphic novel is powerful stuff, and it should be read by teenage girls everywhere. It deals with all the complexities of friendship, crushes, trying to fit in but feeling that you don’t, isolation, angst, confusion, complicated student-teacher relationships… it’s so good! I can’t stop thinking about it, even though I read it months ago now.

40. Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe by Yumi Sakugawa: With all the yoga I’ve been doing the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been getting into mindfulness and meditation as well. We also teach a lot about mindfulness to the kids at the school where I work, and even if the kids haven’t bought into it yet, I drank the Kool-Aid. It’s amazing to feel how much your breath can control your mood and your heart rate, and reading this gorgeous book by Sakugawa was like one long meditation. Her illustrations are beautiful, and to sit and to breathe and to reflect on your relationship with the universe––it was so very calming. I fully expect to return to this book over and over for its meditative qualities. Plus, it’s pretty to look at.

41. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki: From the same team that brought you Skim, this graphic novel is also about all the complexities and confusions that come with being an adolescent girl. This book features different characters from Skim, and this is a completely independent story and standalone work, but it feels a lot like a sequel––dealing with the same issues of sexuality and identity and friendship. Also, the whole summer vacation setting feels painfully nostalgic… the Tamaki women have got this graphic novel thing figured out. It’s a great book. Read it.

42. Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks: Dan Halperin recommended I read some Suzan-Lori Parks, and this play was fantastic. It’s about two black men who are brothers, whose father named them Lincoln and Booth “as a joke.” The older brother, Lincoln, works as a Lincoln impersonator at an arcade, and the younger brother, Booth, is an aspiring card shark. I don’t want to tell you much more, because I don’t want to give the story away, but it’s really, really, really good.

43. To Be the Poet by Maxine Hong Kingston: I’ve been moving this little square hardcover book around with me for decades, and only this year did I finally stop and look at it. It was given to me as a gift, by someone, I forget who, who gave it to me when I was in middle or high school, back when I spent a lot of time talking dramatically about how I wanted to be a writer and composing pretentious, bad poems. I never actually read it, and assumed it was one of those gift books they sell at The Paper Store, with inspiring quotes by famous women or whatever. (Because I was such a literary snob in middle and high school.) Then after I read one million things by Maxine Hong Kingston this summer I paused and thought, wait a minute, I’ve seen a picture of that woman before… and I dug up this gem. It’s an interesting book––basically Kingston’s journals as she decides to transition from writing “long books” (prose) into poetry. At times it feels a little self-indulgent, to just decide I’m a poet now, okay? and then publish a whole book about it. But the writing exercises she takes herself through to compose poems, and the way she analyzes the difference between prose writers and poets, it’s all fascinating stuff, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. It made me think, oh, maybe I could also write a poem one day. And I guess that’s the whole point of her book, right?

44. Lumberjanes, Vol. 2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, and Shannon Watters: This is the second collected volume of the Lumberjanes comic series, and everything I said about volume one applies to this book as well: “File this under books that I wish had been around when I was a teenager. A thoroughly fun read, Lumberjanes follows a group of friends at Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. I loved that the graphic novel is all about friendship between girls and that it puts queer girls, girls of color, and not traditionally feminine girls at the center. (No sexy Wonder Woman outfits in this series!) The diversity of the characters shows the many ways there are to be a girl in the world, and each girl brings her own personality, style, background, talents, and flair to the group. Every adventure they have is only possible because of the power of their differences and their unity. I think this series perfectly executes the Audre Lorde mantra of how, in a group, our differences shouldn’t be divisive, but they should make us stronger.”

45. Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? by Liz Prince: I read the rest of Liz Prince’s comics partially because I was in the process of interviewing her for my Non-Fiction by Non-Men column (her interview goes up on January 13th! stay tuned!), but also because she’s funny and great. This little collection of comics was refreshing because so many books are about all the ways love can go wrong (Romeo and Juliet, every book ever written, etc.) and these comics focused on all the things that are just plain wonderful about being in love––those goofy silly moments when you completely let your guard down in front of another person. Sure, those moments can be a little sappy at times, but why does everything have to be all angst and sadness? If you want to read about Prince’s depressing single times, read her book Alone Forever. 

46. Delayed Replays by Liz Prince: This collection of Liz Prince comics is about day-to-day shenanigans that she and her friends and family get up to. Again, just as with Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? it’s about those little funny things that happen every day. It’s charming, and it made me chuckle, plus I loved the fact that it is a nonfiction comic––real life is rich with so many great moments, why not preserve them? For more about writing comics about real life, read my Non-Fiction by Non-Men interview with Liz Prince!

47. Presto Agitato: A Dictionary of Modern Movement by Elizabeth Schmuhl: This book of prose poems was written by another one of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA gang, my buddy Tuck’s friend Elizabeth Schmuhl. Just as with Sarah Xerta (see 2nd Quarter Check-In), I had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth at the AWP Conference in Minneapolis this spring, and Sarah and Elizabeth have even collaborated together. I was especially excited to read Presto Agitato, though, because when I edited Catch & Release, the online publication of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, I was lucky enough to get to publish a few excerpts of this book. But that experience was nothing in comparison to the experience of holding this beautiful slim volume in my hands, taking in the gorgeous formatting and illustrations and translucent paper (great work, Zoo Cake Press!), and reading Elizabeth’s fantastic poems. Her book is really unlike anything I’ve ever read before, it’s not just a book, but a whole experience, and, don’t worry, Elizabeth, I am working on my dance response to your definitions.

48. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad: I will have a review of this book up on The Rumpus in a month or so! You can read all my thoughts about it then.

49. BONUS BOOK: The Teenage Brain by Frances E. Jensen: This is one of the two books I am currently reading. This book is required reading for the faculty at my school this year as part of our professional development, and I can’t tell you much about it yet, as I just started it, but so far, I really like how Jensen incorporates her own experience as a mother of teenagers into her writing about research about teenage brains. I’m a sucker for writers who fold a personal story into a historical, cultural, scientific, academic, whatever commentary. (See: Negroland, for example.)

50. BONUS BOOK: Redefining Realness by Janet Mock: This is the other book I am currently reading. I picked it up after it was highly recommended by Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast. Always trust Ann and Aminatou. They know what’s up, and this book is excellent. Mock is the queen of writing both in childhood moments and reflecting back on those moments as an adult. The way she analyzes gender, identity, sexuality, love, family relationships, and sexual abuse, is so good. It’s not an easy read, because Mock hasn’t had an easy life, but it’s an important book to read. As she herself says, her life was hard, but she is one of the ones that “got out.” Reading Redefining Realness, it’s important to remember all the transwomen who have not been able to achieve the sort of life that Janet Mock has now. As soon as I’m done writing this post, I am going to go curl up with her memoir again.

Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for! The statistics breakdown!

In 2015, for my reading challenge, I read…

• 48 books total.
• 50% (24/48) of them were written by women of color.
• 18.75% (9/48) of them were written by (out, or as far as I know) LGBTQ women.
• 39 different writers (there were several repeat offenders, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Audre Lorde, Liz Prince).

And even though I didn’t make my goal of reading 50 books by women, I did learn two really valuable things from this past year:

1. YOU HAVE TO MAKE TIME. You have to make time to read. This may seem pretty obvious, but reading isn’t something that just happens. This isn’t 19th century Imperial Russia, where all anyone had to do was sit around and sip vodka and read Tolstoy. There are a lot of things out there that can steal your attention away from reading these days (i.e. The Internet), and it’s super easy to crawl into bed at night after work and think, “I’m too tired to read,” and then play Two Dots on your phone for a half an hour instead. That way, days and days, even weeks can go by, without me reading a whole book, and because I had the goal to complete 50 books this year, I found myself more aware of all the times that I could be reading that I wasn’t, and I would stop myself, and quit playing Two Dots (even though it’s so addictive), and open up my book. I hope I continue to keep that mindfulness of “I could be reading right now” throughout 2016 and the rest of my life.
2. YOU HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION. Since I had the goal to read 50 books by women this year, with a majority of those books by women of color (and also LGBTQ women), I found this year made me become aware of what and who I was reading. As I said in my 2nd Quarter Check-In post, it’s so easy to fall into default recommendations or to just pick up the books you have lying around, and, when you stop and look, more often than not, those books are by white men. I have a ton, a ton, a TON of books in my apartment (seriously, I bet they actually weigh a ton in total), and when I would spend some time reading the books by women that I had accumulated in my collection, I would suddenly realize that I had read three books in a row by white women. Spending a year trying to focus on almost exclusively reading books by women, specifically women of color, woke me up and made me start to think about the people behind the names on the covers, and I hope that I can hold onto that awareness throughout 2016 and the rest of my life as well.

So, this ends my 2015 reading challenge, but as I said in my 3rd Quarter Check-In post, just because it’s January doesn’t mean I’m going to go back to reading only books by white men all the time (though I have been thinking about finally finishing War and Peace after seeing Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812 at the American Repertory Theatre last week). My apartment was flooded with books by women this year, and I have plenty of other wonderful books by ladies to read––these are the ones by my bed alone!

Making sure to read books by women––and books by all underrepresented groups: people of color, LGBTQ people––is going to be a life goal of mine, and an on-going, never-ending process. Happy New Year!

The post 2015 Reading Challenge: 4th Quarter Check-In a.k.a. The End appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

In case you have forgotten and have no idea what I’m going on about: My goal for 2015 is to read 50 books by women, with the majority of those by women of color.

In terms of numbers, 75% of 50 is 37.5 books, and by the last day of September I had read only 34. Luckily, this weekend I didn’t have much going on, so I got to practice my favorite Saturday morning pastime of drinking coffee in bed while reading, and I finished a few things I had been reading simultaneously and brought things up to 37.

You see, not only did I start working full-time at a school this fall which leaves me a) with significantly less time for personal reading and b) pretty wiped out when I try to read before bed a.k.a. fall asleep with a book on my face, but I also got sidetracked reading a really awesome but really long novel (a casual 592 pages), plus I had to read two books over the summer for work that were by men, so that took time away from my ladies. (Men! Ruining everything! Typical!) I’ve decided to try to bring up my numbers by taking time to appreciate some great graphic novels/memoirs, plays, and poetry by women.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’ve read since my 1st Quarter and 2nd Quarter Check-In:

27. She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan: Last I left you I was on page number five of Boylan’s memoir and already had a good feeling about it. The remaining 283 only got better. Boylan is an incredible memoirist––conversational, thoughtful, accessible, and funny as hell. She leaves you reflecting on your own life and also the entire world, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book for weeks and weeks after I finished it. Definitely read it! Though I may be biased… I got to interview Jennifer Finney Boylan for my Non-Fiction by Non-Men column on Fiction Advocate, and I think she is the bee’s knees.

28. Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, and Shannon Watters: File this under books that I wish had been around when I was a teenager. A thoroughly fun read, Lumberjanes follows a group of friends at Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. I loved that the graphic novel is all about friendship between girls and that it puts queer girls, girls of color, and not traditionally feminine girls at the center. (No sexy Wonder Woman outfits in this series!) The diversity of the characters shows the many ways there are to be a girl in the world, and each girl brings her own personality, style, background, talents, and flair to the group. Every adventure they have is only possible because of the power of their differences and their unity. I think this series perfectly executes the Audre Lorde mantra of how, in a group, our differences shouldn’t be divisive, but they should make us stronger.

29. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde: Oh, hey, speaking of Audre Lorde, as I promised I would in my 2nd Quarter Check-In, I went and read more Audre Lorde, and I love, love, LOVED Zami. (Thanks for the recommendation, Cris Beam!) In her poetic, story-telling style, Lorde goes through the history of her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. She perfectly balances that mix of adult-in-the-present-looking-back and child-wonder-and-confusion-in-the-moment. Zami is an exemplary memoir, plus it has all that great Lorde feminist ideology tucked into it as well. Just go read it. Right now. Stop reading my blog and go get a copy of Zami, okay?

30. OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu: Haydu is another Nobles graduate (class of 2001!) and young adult author. While reading OCD Love Story this summer, all I could think about was how badly I needed this book when I was a kid. The story follows a teenage girl, Bea, as she battles chronic anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, while she also deals with a huge crush on a boy, Beck, whom she meets in group therapy. Haydu is masterful in her portray of mental illness and anxiety. She manages to bring awareness to the issues, lay out clearly what they are, and give a very powerful experience of what it’s like to cope with anxiety on a daily basis, but this is also not a Book About Mental Illness. It’s also a goofy, fun, teenage love story with all that good ol’ adolescent drama, which really hammers home the point that people are more than their mental illnesses. Anxiety, depression, OCD, all that––it’s just like someone having to manage diabetes or arthritis or hearing loss. It shouldn’t define who you are, and you shouldn’t be afraid of people with a mental illness. Haydu’s book tackles that concept head-on. It’s great. Read it. Unless maybe you yourself suffer from anxiety and OCD… sometimes Haydu’s portray of what it’s like to live with anxiety was a little too real for me… Also, trivia: Haydu has written a stage adaptation of OCD Love Story, which will be performed by students at Nobles this fall!

31. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: I also promised in my 2nd Quarter Check-In that I would read more stuff by Kingston, and I was not in the least disappointed by The Woman Warrior. In fact, I may even like it more than China Men, because I’m partial to narratives about multiple generations of women, but also because Kingston was so much more present in this memoir. Again, she blends family legend and cultural commentary and global history and myth and fairy tale all into one magnificent thing. I’m obsessed.

32. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison: This is Morrison’s most recent book, and it is her first novel to take place in a contemporary time. It’s a riveting story, fast-paced and engaging, and Morrison’s commentary on the modern United States is fascinating. However, I was frustrated by the length of the novel. It felt like it ended too soon, and I kept thinking about loose ends that I wish had been addressed. Morrison’s characters are complex, and I was so intrigued by their stories that I was annoyed when I didn’t get to hear everything about all of them. So I guess all my whining here is to say that I really liked the book and am just upset there wasn’t more of it.

33. The Big Green Tent: A Novel by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, translated by Polly Gannon: This is that little 592-page novel that ate up a bunch of my August and September. It was totally worth the effort, but, whew, did it take a while to read. I’ll save my comments on this one as I have a review of it forthcoming at The Rumpus. [EDIT: Here is the link to the review on The Rumpus!]

34. Alone Forever: The Singles Collection by Liz Prince: I panicked after spending so much time on The Big Green Tent and grabbed a short and sweet comic collection by local writer and artist, Liz Prince. I read her Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir last fall, and I loved it. I enjoyed the standalone comics of Alone Forever, but I definitely preferred Tomboy. Prince can do a really great job at managing a long, connected storyline, and I think that’s why my favorite part of Alone Forever was the multi-part series about Prince’s OK Cupid dating history. (Though I do love that Prince is local, so I got a little thrill every time she would try to make eyes at a dude on the Red Line or go on a blind date at Diesel Cafe–I’ve been there! I’ve done that!) I think that Alone Forever doesn’t show Prince’s full potential as an artist. Still, it’s fun, and I would recommend reading it, especially if you’re currently going through Tinder Hell.

35. The Mountaintop by Katori Hall: Shout out to Dan Halperin who recommended a whole list of women playwrights for me to read! His suggestions did not disappoint. I’ve spent a lot of time this fall remembering just how much I love theatre and how helpful it is to read plays to help think about dialogue in prose, and, on top of all that, Hall’s The Mountaintop was an incredible play that made me think about how to incorporate real people into fictional work and how to carry a play with only two characters and how to write about history in a personal way and how to put magical realism on stage and and and and my mind was blown. I’m writing this from a coma. I’m a pile of mush. Bye.

36. The Worrier’s Guide to Life by Gemma Correll: I started reading this while standing in Newbury Comics, waiting for a certain wise man to finish browsing the records, and I had to buy the book to bring home to finish because I was making a scene in the store laughing. I was already familiar with some of Correll’s work from Twitter, but this whole book is a gem. Look at her website for a sampling, but go get the book and laugh-cry over it in the privacy of your own home.

37. The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith: This was another book I read for work, as it was summer reading for the 8th graders this year. Smith is another local writer, and I got that same thrill as I did reading Liz Prince whenever her characters did things that I have also done, such as walk by Jamaica Pond or go to Starbucks in Brookline or drive down Blue Hill Ave. The story tackles the intense, complicated issues of reparations, Boston’s kept-quiet ugly history of slavery, how race and class play into relationships, and how history shapes everything we do in the contemporary world. It also is a ghost story/mystery, which makes for fast-paced reading.

38. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson: This is what I’m currently reading. I pre-ordered this book and picked it up on the day it came out, September 8th, but am just getting to it now. So it goes. The author of this memoir is my beloved professor and thesis-reader from Columbia’s Writing Program, and I already have good feelings about this book, because Margo is the best. If you don’t believe me, read my Non-Fiction by Non-Men interview with her from this summer.

And now it’s time for those horrible statistics! Out of the twelve books above, only five are by women of color, and three are by out members of the LGBTQ community (I never want to assume anything about anyone’s sexuality or gender identity). Basically, I’m a mess, and I need to really plan out everything I’m going to read for the rest of the year, because when you grab random comic books at Newbury Comics, the odds are they’re usually by white women, if they’re by women at all. So. I’m ashamed, but I’m going to keep at it.

I’ve also realized something: while I really want to hit my 50-books-by-women goal for 2015, either way it doesn’t mean that in January 2016 I’m going to go back to reading only books by white dudes all the time. Sure, I’m looking forward to reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, but I think trying to read mostly-to-only books by women is going to be a goal of mine for the rest of my life. One of my fellow teachers has said that she feels that diversity and inclusion goals are a mindset, not a set curriculum. It was never as if I read 50 books by women and *poof* I would suddenly just get it. It’s an ongoing, life-long process.

Still, I’m going to try my hardest to hit my 50 books by January 1, 2016. Wish me luck!

P.S. If you can’t wait until the end of the fourth (LAST!) quarter to see what I’m reading, follow me on GoodReads.

The post 2015 Reading Challenge: 3rd Quarter Check-In appeared first on E.B. Bartels.