You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive
- James Baldwin to The New York Times, 1964
intro.
I have been a voracious reader since I was 4 years old. I consumed books at such a speed that my parents had to ration them. I think I’m the only person whose parents actively discouraged them from reading. As I’ve delved deeper into literature, I’ve developed a kind of eclectic taste in literature. Still, only a few books are rated 5 stars on my goodreads. I long for books that leave a mark on my heart and mind. I want to cry, I want to think and I want to reflect. I am also a lover of beautiful things. I want quotes that I am compelled to stop and reread, to mutter under my breath. Below I have listed 8 books that I feel have integrated themselves into my soul. I hope they do the same for you.
i. east of eden - john steinbeck
“But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.”
I’m struggling to articulate a coherent description of my thoughts surrounding this novel. An epic exploration of free will, love and morality, East of Eden is a familial saga spanning decades. Against the backdrop of the symbolic Salinas Valley - located between the eastern Gabilan Mountains “full of sun and loveliness” and the “dark and brooding” Santa Lucia Mountains to the west - Steinbeck illustrates the relational patterns and journey for meaning that humanity endures. I fell in love with the writing style; each chapter is easily digestible despite the length of the book. Steinbeck vividly portrays the storylines and characters, so much so that I feel that I’m watching the scenes play out on TV. While it might seem oxymoronic to describe a book as explorative and expansive as East of Eden as easy to read, it truly is. This is a quintessential American classic; a must read for anybody and everybody.
ii. slouching towards bethlehem - joan didion
“To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.”
Joan Didion’s mastery of language shines through in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Throughout the collection, she details her observations of American life in the 1960’s, with a focus on California. She not only relays the condition of society through her razor-sharp, cool prose; she intuits the undercurrent of chaos and looming threat of moral collapse. Through her series of vignettes and essays, Didion captures a period of history with the clarity of a photograph. My personal favorite essay, On Self-Respect, has been framed on my wall since I was 15. While she is a master of new journalism, her personal musings on social and individual philosophy are the pieces that linger with me the most.
iii. on earth we’re briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong
“I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a beautifully-articulated,subtly-tragic punch to the gut. With the help of masterful, haunting prose, the narrator works their way through a letter to their mother that will never be read. Vuong hits the golden spot of raw personal vulnerability and appealing to our collective human experience, resulting in a poignantly transcendent piece of work. I cannot emphasise enough how gorgeously written this novel is. Vuong frames moments of devastation under a beautiful light, taking these tragedies in stride to explore a holistic portrait of what it means to be an immigrant, queer and above all, human.
iv. self-help - lorrie moore
“A series of pictures here of mothers and daughters switching places- women switching places to take care of one another. You, the daughter, becoming the mother, the Ceres, and she the daughter, kidnapped to hell, and you roam the earth to find her, to mourn her, leaving the trees and grain to wither, having no peace, you have no peace.”
This book ingrained itself so deeply into the crevices of my brain that I couldn’t write in anything but second person for three months. Self-Help creeps up on you. While reading, I immediately fell in love with Moore’s exploration of writing in the second person. The juxtaposition of the specificity imbued in the text with the universal pronouns makes this a richly engaging collection. Written at the age of 25, Self-Help has an electric energy to it. The prose is razor-sharp and witty. Moore perfectly balances her dry humor with her emotionally devastating explorations of the lives of various lonely women. A beautiful balance of cynicism and empathy, Self-Help is my favorite short story collection of all time.
v. the goldfinch - donna tartt
“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
The Goldfinch is simultaneously the novel that rekindled my love for reading and ignited my appreciation for art. The sheer length and density of this book demands attention; over the course of 771 pages it will embed itself into your heart. I genuinely think this book will be considered the East of Eden of our generation. As we follow Theo Decker’s life from the day of his greatest trauma, we are able to see how one seemingly minute act can alter the course of one’s life. His grief manifests itself in the form of a painting, The Goldfinch, that Theo carries from New York to Las Vegas to Amsterdam and back again. While some may be deterred from this novel due to its epic nature, the last few pages tie together everything in a way that is indescribably beautiful. A testament to art, love and grief, The Goldfinch is a heart wrenching portrait of humanity.
vi. the odd woman and the city - vivian gornick
“One's own best self. For centuries, this was the key concept behind any essential definition of friendship: that one's friend is a virtuous being who speaks to the virtue in oneself. How foreign such a concept to the children of the therapeutic culture! Today we do not look to see, much less affirm, our best selves in one another. To the contrary, it is the openness with which we admit to our emotional incapacities - the fear, the anger, the humiliation - that excites contemporary bonds of friendship. Nothing draws us closer to one another than the degree to which we face our deepest shame openly in one another's company... What we want is to feel known, warts and all: the more warts the better. It is the great illusion of our culture that what we confess to is who we are.”
Reading The Odd Woman and the City, I felt like I was in the company of a friend that reflected myself back at me. As a native New Yorker, seeing the depictions of the city running through Vivian Gornick’s witty social analysis and literary commentary brought an already incredible memoir to a level of perfection. This book is a look at pure talent. I feel like I know Gornick, her vulnerability is laced with levels of self-awareness and emotional intelligence that elevate The Odd Woman and the City from a memoir to a cultural commentary on individualism and relationships in our time. Through this series of vignettes, Gornick explores purpose, fulfillment and the conflict between individuality and companionship. I feel like she’s my kindred spirit. Having felt like an Odd Woman for all of my life, this was so incredibly comforting for me. The feeling I have while reading this truly embodies the Baldwin quote at the top of this post.
vii. the awakening - kate chopin
"I do not know you well enough to say. I do not know your talent or your temperament. To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts—absolute gifts—which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul."
"What do you mean by the courageous soul?"
"Courageous, ma foi! The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
When a book causes so much social controversy that the writer never publishes again, you know it will have an impact. The effect that The Awakening had on me moved me to tears. Kate Chopin presents a look at life in 1800s New Orleans; she paints it as both suffocating and familiar. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is a housewife that undergoes a self-actualization. Throughout the novel, she strives to balance her social and spiritual selves. Beautifully written, The Awakening resonated with me so deeply. The fact that women in the 1800s were compelled by the same craving for meaning and desire to express themselves is so moving to me. Edna intuits that there is something deeper to her. She finds solace in this depth, chasing it through her relationships with female role models such as Madame Reisz, artistic pursuits and her innate love of the sea. I am so Edna and I am beyond grateful that I have the opportunity to embody the courageous soul in my own life.
viii. the saturday night ghost club - craig davidson
“People the world had broken in some ineffable way, the same way my uncle had been broken, the same way we all end up a bit broken—a collection of small hurts, hairline cracks in the foundation—who were only looking for something to give their lives meaning, hope, or at least help deal with the confusion. Some of us find it in faith, some in science, and some in the lightless places between those pole stars.”
Fun fact: I accidently confused this book with The Thursday Night Murder Club and mistakenly ordered this instead. I am beyond glad that I did. The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a masterpiece in reflective nostalgia. It mythologizes memory, exploring how it’s part of human nature to turn our most devastating memories into haunting chronicles of our childhoods. I don’t want to get too into the plot in order to avoid spoilers, but I recommend this to anybody. It explores the nebulous space between science and superstition, ultimately serving as a testament to the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive the human experience.
outro.
honourable mentions: tacky - rax king, hamlet - william shakespeare, brutes - dizz tate, just kids - patti smith & ariel - sylvia plath