I’m not known for coming up with the right word at the right time. I think of the right answer or great burn days later, in the shower. I know I’m not alone. As a person who makes her money communicating, at times, I’m not the best communicator. Sigh.
I’m a blurter or I clam up. If my shit is flowing and I feel like I’m getting my point across, I’m probably being too self-involved and slinging the TMI. Desperately self-conscious, I come off as feckless, fancy-free. You didn’t know this if you know me. If you don’t, perhaps you can relate.
I read to meet people in books who are like me, and people who are very unlike me. I will often wander into your presence with a book still spinning in my mind. I have learned that a small fraction of people I know will engage in the book’s conversation with me. If that’s you, I love you. If it’s not you, I get it.
Sharing what I’m reading is like telling someone my dream. Supremely boring to most, if not many. It usually takes me a while to even digest a book, so if I start chatting about it too soon after finishing, I’ll approach incoherence. But I have loved so many books, so much, this year and late-last. They’ve saved me: My tea, my cat, the smell of a new book, and I am a banked flame sparked to life. Especially now, when I’m freaked out about so much that’s going on. I will go into action, soon, I hope. Just let me finish this chapter.
I have been reading many of the nominated books from 2024, like the Booker Prize books, the National Book Awards nominees, and the extremely white, extremely Euro-US-centric NY Times best of list for books published since the millennium. Also, the ones that got buzzy last year that I never got around to reading.
From All Fours to Orbital to Intermezzo to Color Television, I loved many of the books I gorged myself on instead of holiday foods (I’m on the injections).
Don’t worry if you don’t feel the same about this selection of books. Should you share a contrasting idea or opinion, that’s so fucking cool. We’re talking about books! Yay!
But what if, we meet. And you trash one of them to my face. Then, on the tip of my tongue, a smart-alecky remark may bubble up. Not a personal insult, of course, but a snarky rejoinder meant to show loyalty to the book or writer that I love. I won’t say it. You’re a reader, I’m a reader. It’s all love.
I have read a lot about these books: From Goodreads to The Guardian to Lit Hub to the LRB, I’ve found tons of great POVs. Yet what I take away from all of it— from the reading, the discussions IRL and online, the criticism, the chatter in the media, through deep-dive interviews with the authors — is the sustenance that fulfills what reading has always been to me: Food for the Spirit. So if you didn’t get fed by these few, no fear! There’s a banquet out there. Fill your plate!
As Elton John sings—- Someone Saved My Life Tonight. Over these past few months, these books saved my life, quite literally lifted me out of depression, grief, and anger. I feel like their “mechanism of action” is that they allow me to not just “check out” but to get closer to the best of who I am. The humanity brought to life so gorgeously on their pages gives me hope to go on, through my mistakes, and maybe because of them. I get to be imperfect but awesome all the same, even if the world falls down around my ears. I get to encounter art and through art, encounter the best of who I am.
If I let the experience of awe lift me up, I am suddenly in the company of the saints— who (for me) have always been artists, writers, and musicians. Those touched by the divine hand of inspiration become companions as we tiny souls trudge our little lives. Their act of creation becomes a flame where I can warm myself, when the world feels so cold.
So enjoy the captions under these photos for a little teaser and I hope we talk soon. About books or whatever you need to say. I’m here for you. XO
Patty Tomsky 