Thirty Books for Thirty Years: Part Three

thirty years of living with books

Hey! I’m so glad you are here. This is part three of my little project of putting together the thirty books of my life so far. If you unzipped me, all you’d find is this precarious pile of books. Oh and two weird little dogs named Dunkin & Yaya, but that’s a whole other story.

You can read parts one & two of the list here & here.

I never saw a single one of these books coming. And isn’t that the wonder of it? Each of the ten books on this list were written in the last thirty years. I was out here learning to ride a bike and tie my shoes and eating frozen pizza (probably) and somewhere out there these writers were putting together words that would change the course of my whole life. Even now, someone is writing something that will save someone else. Or reading something that will inspire them to write something that will change another’s life. Can you even imagine what stories the next thirty years will bring? I can’t and that’s the very best part.

HOLES by Louis Sachar // I read this for the first time in third grade. I read it again in my early twenties as a new teacher and I taught this great novel to over a hundred fifth graders in my short teaching career. Forget The Odyssey, Holes is the true hero’s journey. I have never met a twelve year old who didn’t like this book and I think we can all agree twelve-year-olds are the best of us. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a fifth grader realize the truth about Kissin’ Kate Barlow. If you know, you absolutely know.

FELICITY by Mary Oliver // Okay we get it Mary Oliver writes nature poems. The birds, the ocean we get it. But I don’t think we talk enough about the love poems. The God poems. The queer poems. It’s all here. This is the first collection she published after the death of her partner, Molly Malone Cook. A testament to reckless, bold, steady, fierce, queer love. An argument for staying and loving this world anyway.

RED, WHITE, & ROYAL BLUE by Casey McQuiston // This book just made me happy to be alive. Happy to be queer. It’s the novel that taught me queer joy and love can exist in the pages of a book as an end in itself, that it’s okay, in fact essential, to have fun and delight in my reading life, in my whole life.

ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong // The novel that expanded my understanding of what a novel can be and do. The novel that changed how I think about language. The novel that moves me the most every time I hand it over to a customer. A weird little earth shaker that’s growing and growing even still.

INFERNO by Catherine Cho // In this masterful, brutal, astonishing memoir, Catherine Cho tells the story of her survival through postpartum depression and psychosis. It is a hard read. It is hard to read someone tell the truth about mental illness. It is life changing to read someone tell the truth about the things I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about. And by hard I mean essential, like a lighthouse in a storm.

THE SWIMMERS by Julie Otsuka // Ask me why I read fiction and I will point to this novel. It is singular and specific and endlessly surprising. It made me pay closer attention to this work of living and caring. I went in knowing almost nothing and it changed me.

HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL by Alexander Chee // You know those books that, once you read them, you just need them nearby. Need to know exactly where they are on the shelf. This collection is the closest thing to a manifesto I need. A witness of queer life and queer joy. A commitment to building a life around storytelling and the written word. I needed this book when I read it first and I know I will need it forever.

A LIVING REMEDY by Nicole Chung // I couldn’t decide whether to include A LIVING REMEDY or Nicole’s previous, stunning memoir ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW. Really, you should read both. Nicole’s work is courageous and careful as in full of care. She writes tenderly of what it means to survive and the work and belief it takes to know and tell your own story. These books make me want to keep trying for myself and for the people I love.

FAMILY MEAL by Bryan Washington // This novel is not even out yet and it already changed my life! Another one that’s on my yes this is why I need fiction to live list. On the darkest days I want to believe I don’t need anyone. For me, that’s often how depression manifests - it’s not worth it to need anyone else. This novel is a brilliant and soft refutation of this isolation. We need each other. We need food and communion. We need queerness. We need love. We need stories. I needed this story. It comes out October 10th and I think you should read it.

CONGRATULATIONS, THE BEST IS OVER by R. Eric Thomas // This brilliant essay collection came out less than a month ago and wow we are the lucky ones. I read it just before my thirtieth birthday and it was straight medicine. But not straight straight ,don’t worry. It’s queer and hilarious and true. Life is hard and weird and surprisingly good and nobody writes it all like R. Eric Thomas. Hope is the hardest thing and this book makes it feel possible.

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Even now, in the deep of August, the brink of autumn, a hard year after another year, someone is writing the next book for this list. I can’t believe it, and I know it’s true.

I’m scared and sad most of the time. I’m still paying close attention, though, because books teach me there is more to the story, more to life, more to see and surprise and learn.

Here’s to the books and stories left to read and tell, to the art we haven’t yet made to save the lives only just now beginning.

Thank you, always, for being here.

Love,

Rosamond

p.s. I am going to keep writing this newsletter! I’m not exactly sure who she’ll be yet, but if you’re into it I hope you’ll stick around. Oh, but I am definitely going to write about my dogs more so you’ve been warned.