What I Read: August 2019

This is going to sound super cliché and the furthest thing from genuine, but I’ve missed this space. After writing a new blog post every Monday for months, I just stopped. It started as a pause. And then it became a habit. And now, six weeks in, I’m feeling that itch to check in again. Starting with the books I read in August feels like both a toe and a plunge. There were weeks at a time in August when I didn’t read, followed by days of binging page after page.

A lot happened to me in August. Like, a lot. I left my job at the Seattle Art Museum, I workshopped two new plays (more on that next week, I promise), I got a new job as a teaching artist, I said yes to too many things, and every moment alone was spent collapsed on my bed, unable to read or talk or think about any of the things I just listed. Now that it’s mid-September, I’m feeling a lot more like myself. And none of the things on my list have gone away, I’ve just processed. Or I’m in recovery.

I stopped drinking in December, but August made me want to start again. Which is why I didn’t. More on that in another week too. This week I’ll just tease and tease and tease.

Because I had so many external deadlines in August, I did create one healthy rule for myself: no library due dates. Instead, I reached into the collection of books I already owned and started to read. As I look out my window right now, the sky is grey and threatening to rain for the fourth or tenth time today. But August was sunshine and paperbacks and trying trying trying to read for fun.

I loved everything I read that month, but it also washed over me. Everything felt like research, no matter the form. It was all the means to an infinite end.

Violated by Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach was more read to me than something I read. I carried around the hardcover, a vestige of an overambitious research purchase last year, making notes and flagging pages as the audiobook played in my ear. I had to request the title from my library again and again and each time I was number one on the list. Here’s what I learned from Violated: everything worth knowing about the sick patterns of sexual violence on college campuses.

Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain was the perfect read for the moment because I was already thinking about the culture of football fans. That was already consuming my brain. This Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein reminded me that love doesn’t always have to be loud and profound. And Educated by Tara Westover struck me at my very core and refused to come out. I listened to that one on audio as well — between rehearsals, on grocery runs, and as I drove to the airport to pick up my friend.