Some months are restorative

What I read in December

Winter is my favorite season. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I’m sleeping well. I’m reading a lot. In other words, this month couldn’t be more different than the last and for that I am truly grateful. Plus, it’s dead week - the infamous week between Christmas and New Years where lazying and reflecting and reading are all there is to do anyway!

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl

I’m not trying to hide from the truth but to balance it, to remind myself that there are other truths, too.

The Comfort of Crows was another of my slow reads this year. I'm so grateful that Megan Francis hosted a yearlong journey through this book. I really fell in love with slow reads this year (please don't ask how many I have planned for 2025). I love the way it allows you to enjoy the reading of a book, instead of being consumed by the finishing of a book. This book was a joy because it is structured around the seasons. You begin with the winter solstice and read one chapter a week for the entire year.

Renkl and I live only about two hours apart, so her experience of seasonal weather and its effects on flora and fauna is closely tracked by my own. I loved having her along as a guide as I took in the changing leaves and migrating birds. Her writing is thoughtful and poetic, and it felt very much in conversation with Annie Dillard, who I also read this year.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a low-effort (each chapter is only a couple of pages) slow read.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

I've been using the New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century to fill my hold shelf more intentionally. I receive a fair amount of nonfiction in my work (see my never-ending TBR pile), and I always have a classic going for Well-Read Mom, but I like to have more fiction in my life than one book a month. Usually, I fill my holds list with recommendations. Still, I'm becoming more exacting in my old age, so I thought I'd use this list to start working through significant pieces of literary fiction - many of which I've meant to read for years. The good part is they're new enough, and you often have to wait for them. I can't explain it, but if I picked a book that's always available from the library, I won't read it. I like to have a wait and then a deadline because I know others are waiting.

All of that to say, Ishiguro's masterpiece popped up as available, and I started reading. I loved his other oft-cited book, Remains of the Day, last year, so I was expecting something similar. Whew. That's not what I got.

The tone, the pacing, and the carefulness with which Ishiguro tells a story are the same, and he is a true masterclass in writing. He does have a Noble Prize in Literature, so that shouldn't be a surprise.

But the subject matter? Not what I was expecting. I don't want to ruin it. Even though this book is several years old, if I didn't know, maybe you don't either, and I think it's better that way. It's brilliant. That's all you need to know.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.

Another book off the NY Times list and another I’ve been meaning to read for years. I saw the movie and remember loving but, luckily, didn’t remember much about the plot. I loved the away McEwan structured this telling of one young girl’s choice and its consequences across three distinct time periods.

The story is a beautiful reflection on guilt and family and how those threads connect in so many lives. Plus, let’s be honest, I love an English novel about the upper middle class and their attendant burdens and blessings.

Where this novel really stood out for me was the way McEwan used the act of writing itself to inform choices made and how it both built and tore down many of the characters’ lives.

My God and My All: The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi by Elizabeth Goudge

They are truly peacemakers who amidst all they suffer in this world maintain peace in soul and body for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’m beginning to pick up on the rhythm of the Well-Read Mom years, which often contain the works on the life of a saint or other church figure at the end of the year. I love these selections because they push me out of the boundaries of my everyday reading life, which I always find is beneficial. 

I knew the famous prayer of St. Francis and that he was often depicted surrounded by animals, but that was about it. I learned much more about him and the influential order he founded - of which the current Pope is a member. The more I know about the history of the Catholic church, the more missing pieces I fill in my understanding of world history. It’s like finally learning all the Greek and Roman gods - it’s a language you don’t understand is everywhere until you can suddenly understand it.

St. Francis was also a devoted son of “Sister Poverty,” and reading about his care for lepers and rejection of all worldly possessions was a nice anecdote to this current consumption season.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!

After the listen-along was recommended on Footnotes and Tangents, I listened to this holiday classic on the Audrey app. Audrey is a guided audiobook app where literary experts offer insight and guidance at the end of every section, along with relevant art pieces and facts about the author’s life and experience.

I loved reading a story we’ve all been told a million times through adaptation after adaptation with this fresh perspective. I learned so much about Dickens’ reasons for writing the novel and gained a deeper understanding of Victorian England, how it informed the story itself, and how it continues to inform our celebration of Christmas.

You must respect that a story so focused on death has become essential to celebrating the merriest time of the year. It’s a story we keep telling because we understand you cannot appreciate the finite nature of every day if you ignore the reality that those days will inevitably end. It’s a truth I think we (mostly) successfully avoid through the other seasons, but Christmas and Dickens are always waiting to remind us again at the end of the year.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Our Well-Read Mom pick for January, this novella was exquisitely written and left me heartbroken. East of Eden is one of my favorite books, so I’m acquainted with the sprawling Steinbeck capable of taking us across generations. I loved this tightly contained novella and seeing that he is as capable within a few pages as he is within hundreds.

BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman

For men and boys, privilege and disadvantage are intertwined, feeding off each other in a way that makes the injuries hard to pinpoint.

“Are you reading the BoyMom book again?” This became the question my sons would ask when I would unexpectedly corner them in conversation with questions about their friendships, romantic expectations, and online lives.

Whippman covers it all and articulated so many of the complex and bittersweet emotions that accompany being a mother to all boys. However, this book goes far beyond her personal journey and was one of the best explorations of the post #MeToo reality and how it affects boys and men I have ever read.

Very much in conversation with Richard Reeves Of Boys and Men, I loved this book and recommend it to everyone who has a man in their life - but particularly to boy moms.

What did you read in December?

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