Five Books I’m Glad I Read in 2022
Thoughts from the 36 I Read Last Year
I read 36 books in 2022. It was one of the richest ways I could have added to my life. Over the course of that year, I regained my sense of self as it connects to the love of reading.
Of the books I read last year, here are five that I want to highlight (in no specific order) and an idea that I took from it (that is to say: that I still hold now).
Happiness, Alain Badiou
The logic of misery is something predictable and endless. One learns the promise misery offers almost immediately after sinking into it. It is nothing new. And for that reason, I found Badiou’s ideas about happiness radically encouraging. It could be said this book is a philosophical attempt at defining (but not in exhaustion) what happiness is. At the end is a list of “conclusions” as to what happiness is that I want to share with you.
“Happiness is the affirmative experience of an interruption of finitude”
“Real happiness is the jouissance of new forms of life”
“Happiness is always the jouissance of the impossible”
Happiness as the joy of the impossible is a radical break in the logic of misery.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley
I stand by what I wrote about The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley in August 2022. I recall telling a friend while reading this book that some parts were hard to read but were necessary to know. I shared how astonishing his transformation is at the end. How a man who could so precisely express anger toward white America could be turned to actually believe that unity was possible after experiencing something from a stranger. Again, I affirm what I wrote before and would full heartedly recommend this book to anyone, but I want to now modify one word there. I chose the wrong ‘g’ word. It was not gratitude but generosity.
The Will to Change, bell hooks
This book is urgent. Sharing the theme isn’t strong enough to spoil it for those who will pick this one up: this book is about masculinity and the difficulty men experience in finding and expressing love. I have heard the parenting advice that “boys are easier to raise.” I would assert this is simply neglect. Men, as much as anyone, need help understanding how to accept and give love. It is not a coincidence that our mass shootings are committed by men, and I don’t think mental health alone is enough to explain this. I appreciated this book for helping to point out issues and giving me a new framework with which to see myself as a man; one such alternative as being a man not of domination, but affirmation. This is a just responsibility that I welcomingly accept. I hope you will hold me to it.
Reinventing You, Dorie Clark
Remember those 100 Words for 100 Days? I won’t say it started here, but this book definitely put a few tools on my list namely a career test run. In this past year of coming to realize and accept where I was in life, I found it empowering to consider the next steps forward as a type of reinvention. After getting more of my sea legs together, the idea of a career test run became something fascinating to me, and it led me to this moment, this newsletter you’re reading now. I want to be a writer, and this is one more step in that reinvention and see the value I can bring to any situation.
Upstream, Mary Oliver
It is no surprise that I adore Mary Oliver. The name of this newsletter is inspired by her words. I love poets. I am one. I feel better around them. Something in the craft of poetry is a study in the essentials of life, knowing how to peel back the layers and hold the heartbeat of a moment. I often find that in Mary’s work, and I thought it would be fun to read nonfiction from a poet. I walked away with three welcome splinters:
“Attention is the beginning of devotion”
“And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life”
“In creative work- creative work of all kinds- those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go round, but forward”
Trevor
