2020 #REREAD LIST:

1. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (1989) | Initially read this a decade ago in the first creative writing-focused class I ever took. Hung onto it all these years because, while slim, inspired many conflicting feelings. Haven’t read any other books by AD.

1. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1989) | Wild this was pub’d the same year as the Dillard! My mom loved this book but went through trauma around the time she finished it and has been unable to read fiction since. It’s been 10 years. 1/2

Maybe more like 11 or 12 years, actually? Couldn’t imagine her liking a book like this so I tried to read it back then and didn’t get more than 100 pages in. This time I wanted to stop at exactly the same spot but pushed on. Still nope. Will try to finish later w/ audiobook. 2/2

3. Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block (2003) | Read when I was 14 then wrote an 80-page novella about faux-incestuous “siblings,” which I made my grandma read, set in Hamilton, ON bc that seemed very cool. It had a “Jesus of Suburbia” aesthetic bc I was obsessed w/ that song/video.

4. Night by Elie Wiesel (1956) | Most 1-star Goodreads reviews of this book (yes, awful) are ppl who hated English class, or find the book too depressing. I read this in Grade 10; don't remember anything about how it was taught, but certain passages come back w/ complete clarity.

Cont’d: Reflecting on education, teaching, our mental models as students, & how this was the first Holocaust story centered Jewishness as a religion & faith in my mind & challenged my own mental model of how such stories should “bravely” resolve and achieve “closure."

5. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (first published 1952) | I cannot even express how delightful it was to reread this book. Profound tbh

6. Crush by Richard Siken (2005) | Crush has graphically violent, masculine, sexual, & confessional qualities that remind me of the emo/hardcore lyrics [not a drag] I used to paste into 100-page long Word docs & endlessly analyze as a (pre)teen. Kind of an intense realization.

7. Begin with the End in Mind by Emma Healey (2012) | What vision! It seemed wild to know someone who published a book like this so early—it pushed me to expect more from myself + also activated some weird baggage. Like a mixtape, it reminds me of a specific time, place & spirit.

8. When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams (2012) | This book influenced my early poetry more than any other; only realizing now 8 years later. I remember reading this in Westmount park on a day so hot I rolled under a bench to get some shade, thinking I might pass out.

9. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1984) | Re-read this years ago, brought me comfort during a breakup. Really does not resonate now. Part of me wonders if I felt pressured to enjoy this book to seem more “intellectual” or to prove something to myself.

Still, beautiful moments. I enjoyed the philosophical tangents, + one of my favourite descriptions of cows!: “Calm, guileless, & sometimes childishly animated, they looked like fat fifty-year-olds pretending they were fourteen. There was nothing more touching than a cow at play."

Ok but also, an interesting phenomenon—the author inserts himself into the narrative to make the reader very aware that they're reading about characters in a novel. Yet the characters feel so memorable & real nonetheless? I concede it is a cool effect that endured.

10. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (1986) | This book still holds up! How is it that I can’t remember books I read a year ago, yet the scene of Brian eating those damn turtle eggs feels burned into my 12-year-old memory??

One Morning— by Rebecca Wolff (2015) | Trying to get a brain for poetry again, during National Poetry Month no less. I took this out of the Iowa City Library and during the summer dividing my MFA I bought a copy secondhand from @knifeforkbook (when it was located in Rick's Cafe!)

11. in the re-reading list, btw. If I had to describe this collection in one word it would be "idiosyncratic."

12. Drolleries by Cassidy McFadzean (2019) | These mythic, witchy, travelogue poems feel so good right now. The poems are so tightly-crafted and musical and incantatory. I miss museums.

13. I left nothing inside on purpose by Stevie Howell (2018) | On my third or fourth re-read of this. “Repetition,” from this collection, is one of my favourite poems period. This book is a lesson on voice that I can’t quite articulate.

14. New and Selected Poems, Volume One by Mary Oliver (1992) | Oh god this is sweet and bittersweet. What a gift to continue to experience Oliver’s love and joy for the world through her writing. I just want to roll around in some clover and swim in a lake and listen to birds.

15. Outline by Rachel Cusk (2014) | I took Cusk’s trilogy out of the library when I lived in Toronto. I liked the books then, but HOLY MOLY!?? I’m marvelling at every page. Writing wildly in the margins. Moving on to Transit immediately, then Kudos.

16. Transit by Rachel Cusk (2016). | Gaining such an appreciation for these books not only as standalones but as pieces of a whole. Imagine a world devoid of small talk where every conversation is as vivid and resonant as the ones filtered through Faye’s consciousness? Damn.

17. Kudos by Rachel Cusk (2018) | These are officially some of my favourite novels. Kudos is far more meta, and somehow fully drives home the trilogy’s themes and motifs while still managing to be discreet, complex, riveting, philosophical, and full of fascinating characters.

18. Versed by Rae Armantrout (2009) | Not my fav Armantrout, but maybe I also generally enjoy encountering her poems as one-or-two offs in the wild more than reading a whole collection. Standing as individual poems w/ time in between, I can enjoy their idiosyncrasies more.

19. Heroines by Kate Zambreno (2012) | This book, while it has a special place for me, didn’t quite age as well as I’d hoped.

20. Book of Mutter by Kate Zambreno (2017) | Enjoyed this, I like prose with breathing room, but touches too lightly on many interesting and emotionally resonant threads. Read it in Iowa.

21. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2004) | These lines, also an epigraph to Tess Liem’s Obits.: “There’s no innovating loss. It was never invented, it happened as something physically experienced. It is not something an 'I' discusses socially."

22. Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014) | “because white men can’t / police their imagination / black people are dying"

23. Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso (2015) | First read at the campus recreation centre in Iowa City, distracted by feeling that I didn’t deserve “free" access to such a space. Recently found a diary where I X'd out multiple pages & apologized for them. I was 10.

24. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (2006) | Lost my mind when I first read this! Thought it was the best book ever, recommended it to everyone. Now it took me weeks to finish. Too much... plot? I dunno. Did bring back some pretty strange (unrelated) memories.

(cover, for reference)

25. Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Wave Books, 2009) | A book that lives up to its cult status. No one does hybridity and the fragment quite Nelson—maybe Manguso comes close. I could re-read this aways.