{"id":1981,"date":"2021-12-30T00:20:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T08:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2021-12-30T00:35:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T08:35:44","slug":"but-shes-asking-after-your-dreams-books-read-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"“But she’s asking after your dreams”: Books Read in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Untitled\"<\/a>As the picture above suggests, this was a hard year. A coffee spill in October washed away the bottom portion of my analog record keeping and there was a two-ish month period in the summer when this notebook just got lost in the chaos that was year two of global pandemic. You’ll notice an asterisk for this year\u2019s books – this post tallies the books I could account for with a system that wasn’t designed for the foibles of personal exhaustion or caffeinated catastrophe. In short, my reading and my record keeping of it were erratic. Here’s the closest to my annual rundown (here are my posts on books read in 2020<\/a>, 2019<\/a>,\u00a02018<\/a>,\u00a02017<\/a>,\u00a02016<\/a>,\u00a02015<\/a>,\u00a02014<\/a>,\u00a02013<\/a>,\u00a02012<\/a>,\u00a02011<\/a>,\u00a02010<\/a>, and\u00a02009<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Books read in 2021: 136*<\/strong>
\nComics and graphic novels included in reading total: 13
\nBooks of poetry included in reading total: 12
\nBooks reread included in reading total: 3
\nAcademic & Education related books included in reading total: 16
\nYA and Junior Fiction books included in reading total: 4
\nUntitled new research project: 19<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My favorite book of the year was Hanif Abdurraqib\u2019s A Little Devil in America<\/em><\/a>. Every essay in this book was a delight and I cannot recommend it enough.<\/p>\n

Ishiguro\u2019s Klara and the Sun<\/em><\/a> and Natasha Brown\u2019s Assembly were the two (very different) literary fiction books that stayed with me for months after finishing them. I keep thinking about Klara and the Sun<\/em> as a book about futility and climate change. Assembly<\/em><\/a> is a single-sitting novella that feels piercing and precise and deeply unsettling.<\/p>\n

I read a lot of really great poetry this year. Muriel Leung\u2019s Imagine Us, The Swarm<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and Chen Chen\u2019s When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities<\/em><\/a> were two of my favorites. I also have been dipping into several collections I still haven\u2019t finished, like the massive complete collection of Jim Harrison’s poetry<\/a> and the latest collection<\/a> from Tracy Smith – both are wonderful.<\/p>\n

The academic book that blew my thinking open this year was Decolonial Feminist Research: Haunting, Rememory and Mothers<\/a><\/em> by\u00a0 Jeong-eun Rhee. The book is dense and personal and centers \u201crememory\u201d from Toni Morrisson\u2019s Beloved <\/em>as<\/em> method.<\/em><\/p>\n

An accessible and loving text, Alexis Pauline Gumb\u2019s Undrowned:<\/a> Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals<\/a><\/em> embodies the kind of radical imagination that gave me a little optimism in a pretty dreary year. I would continually bring this book up in as many conversations as possible. It took a nudge from a colleague to pick this up and I offer this same favor to you as well – you will not read another book like this one.<\/p>\n

Over the summer, I got into an argument about abolition with the gentleman giving me a tattoo. It was because I was holding Mariame Kaba\u2019s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and he asked me what the book was about. Maybe\u2019s that an endorsement?<\/p>\n

There’s a\u00a0new<\/em> research project I’m not ready to talk about yet but the reading for that project has gone in a ton of wild directions. Harsha Walia’s Border & Rule<\/em><\/a> and Emily Ratajkowski’s\u00a0My Body<\/em><\/a> are both part of this work and (in very different ways) books I appreciated sitting with.<\/p>\n

Music wise … Okay so, I’ve been writing\/making books for my kids about the lives of notable women of color. Some are family members\/people in their lives but some are about people like Ellen Ochoa<\/a> and Aurora Castillo<\/a>. Making these books–the writing, the gluing, the engineering<\/em> sometimes–has been one of the more playful forms of writing I got to do this year. The most recent book is about Filipina singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. Her album, Sour,<\/em> was one of the most played in our house this year.
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