Seven books and a baby

Over deep dish pizza on New Year’s Day, our friend Dan proudly mentioned that in 2023, he actually read the number of books he had resolved to read. The number was impressive – 42! – considering he is a hands-on dad of two young kids (though not as young as my baby) and works full-time.

The question going around the table was, “What are you most proud of this year,” and Dan had not one but two answers at the ready. Aside from the books, he’d completed the Tough Mudder in October, for his wife’s fortieth birthday, which, to me, is among the worst activities anyone could want to do for any birthday. But he seemed most proud of the fact that he’d read those forty-two books.

“I didn’t know there were that many Boxcar children books,” Tom said. But we both acknowledged the feat and I, perhaps more than Tom¹, felt critical of my own shortcomings as a self-proclaimed reader.

Last year, when I wrote this post, I was suddenly filled with hopeful energy because that’s what you’re supposed to feel around the New Year. Also, I’d just finished a damn good book and was genuinely invigorated and looking forward to reading more in 2023. The difficult days of Artie’s infancy, though far from forgotten, were charmingly distant. The new baby was nineteen days from making his debut and a capable and loving confinement nanny was on her way, promising some postpartum rest and relaxation. And yes, after her arrival there was definitely some of that, but a baby is a baby and temporary visas are just that, temporary. Her tenure ended in July, and we were quickly thrown back into the sleepless reality of being two sleep-deprived shells against a baby and an Artie.

Now 2023 is no more. The New Baby is now a crawling, curly-haired, cutie-pie we call Chompy but whose real name is Andrew and who, despite being nearly one-year-old, has yet to make his official debut on this mostly-defunct blog.

But his time will come. As will my time to return to being a reader-writer person. Will it happen this year? It’s that sliver of New Year’s hope I’m feeling, because I really need it. In 2023 I set the arbitrary goal of reading thirty books, because it seemed much more achievable compared to my usual goal of fifty. Instead, I continued a steady diet of Apple News+ (lots of those strangely addicting and formulaic BuzzFeed listicles) and have become an even more voracious listener of podcasts, mostly because they help me drift off to sleep better than melatonin or Unisom.

On some nights however, the insomnia is so bad the wise thing to do would be to turn my back on anything electronic (minus a lamp), and open the pages of Moby Dick, a novel I’ve literally been trying to finish for the past five years. I swear it’s actually good, but my smartphone-wasted brain just can’t slow down to appreciate it’s old-timey cadence. It makes me sleepy. So of course I don’t read Moby Dick. I return to the phone and by 3AM am all caught up on Meghan² and Kate and Vogue Weddings and why the kids aren’t alright³(smartphones), and I’m finaaaaally feeling like drifting off when – “Waaaah.” Every mother’s most-dreaded nighttime sound comes shooting through thin walls.

Ah, ol’ Chompy, wanting some boob. Or Artie, wanting a midnight cuddle or a sip of water. It’s one or the other or both of them, like midnight whack-a-kid. It’s always something.

But it’s just that season of life. The kids grow up, we grow old, and now, no one seems to read more books than my mother-in-law, who raised three children without any of the help I have today, and still, I’m pretty sure, managed to read a lot during that time because you can’t doom scroll a rotary phone.

Anyway. 2023 wasn’t a total forfeiture of literary ambition. I was um…going for quality, not quantity! Aside from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I read the following six novels, all memorable. Maybe you’ve read them too. Cheers to books and to you, for still reading this (now, apparently annual) blog.

Foster by Claire Keegan – a punch in the gut kind of book if there ever was one.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver – seemingly universally read, and universally loved.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer – I read this instead of Prince Harry’s Spare, which I felt like I didn’t need to read thanks to Buzzfeed and Vanity Fair, and man can this guy write a memoir.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – the perfect balance of literary and romantic comedy for postpartum me. What can I say, Reese Witherspoon has great taste (usually. Sometimes.)

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner – despite everyone in it being tense and anxious I thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the whole New York-ness of it all. I am looking forward to eventually watching the show.

1. Tom’s self-reports: “I’m at 2-3 books a year. I used to read way more when I didn’t feel like ass all the time.”
2. The Royal grifter! Haha.
3. Or mothers, for that matter.