December 2020 Reads

In December of 2020 I read four books. Two of them were nonfiction and two were fiction.

Breath, by James Nestor:
Eric recommended this. Nestor tells the story of science lost through the ages surrounding breathing. Definitely convinced me to breath slower, more fully, and through my nose, but I didn’t find it the most compelling writing. 59/100

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett:
This book is written with what I read as a similar magical charm to Where The Crawdads Sing. I was impressed with how differently the atmosphere of each characters’ sections read. Enjoyed this read. 79/100

The White Book, by Han Kang:
The Future Library project is a Norwegian art project where one author a year writes a book and it is kept unread until the project ends in 2114. I read about this when it started, but forgot until recently, and when clicking through, was captivated by the novel The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Through the machinations of COVID and the Dartmouth library I have found myself unable to get a copy of it, so settled for this when I saw it in my local book store. Consumed it in one breath.

This is clearly a la Bluets, by Maggie Nelson which I read at the end of last year, and Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson, which I have not read yet. The prose and poetry mix, central color theme, and deeply personal content run through all three. I loved reading this, and can’t wait to come back to it. 85/100

Marking Time, by Nicole Fleetwood:
This was the book that took me the longest to read this year. It was dense, and academic, yet deeply personal. A display of artwork of artists in the carceral state, it is as good an argument against incarceration as any. It might just be the academic nature of this work, but Fleetwood consistently justifies her language choices (why she uses one term over others) in a way I found very distracting. 44/100