My July 2022 Reading List

I think I read more books this month than I have in maybe any month ever. I enjoyed the reads a lot, but I also am starting to miss working. I’m a complicated person. Anyhow, bring on August. Here’s my recap:

Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow: A nice book that will likely accompany (and ultimately please) a lot of readers at the beach this summer. The story is about a father and a daughter, but especially the daughter, as she reflects on her life. It’s nice, but also sad at times. Tender, really. There’s time travel, which gives the book a nice tick. It’s a little long in sections, but oh well. More of a reader issue. Straub is a consistently good novelist, and this is another win for her.

Sarah Pinsker’s We are Satellites: I had the privilege of getting to teach alongside Sarah earlier this summer, and I realized I hadn’t read her latest book yet, so I grabbed a copy when I got home. I loved it, too. It explores various aspects of community and technology, and the Pilot is such a clever (and likely not-too-distant) creation. Parts of it reminded me of Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, which made me love it even more. And also a story by Alexander Weinstein that I teach, but can’t think of the title now. For readers who like their apocalypses to feature technology and deep humanity, this one is a must read.

Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories: O’Connor, in my opinion, is the best short story writer to have lived, and this is probably the best collection in all of American literature. She merges grace, salvation, and pure meanness so well. Many of the endings give me chills. It’s all just fantastic. I was really struck by the final three stories—“Revelation,” “Parker’s Back,” and “Judgment Day”—in my latest reading of this book. O’Connor had such a heavy and deep interest in religion, and these stories are so layered in how they approach (possible) redemption. Take these with all the other outstanding stories of the author’s career, and you have a masterpiece.

Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez: I read this collection on a Sunday morning and was totally immersed from beginning to end. The stories here capture trauma and the strains of family beautifully. After I finished this book, I started to compare it to Olive Kitteridge. There’s some remarkable building in these stories—of layers, of place, of people. It’s undoubtedly one of the year’s best.

Catherine Raven’s Fox & I: I had been wanting to read this one for a while, so I’m glad I finally got to it. The book follows the author’s friendship with a wild fox. It has some affecting moments, particularly at the beginning and end. The middle is where it lost me a bit. It tilts toward the science side of things and loses some of the human/heart. There are a lot of shifts to other animals and the natural world. I think my expectations of what I wanted to read (unfairly?) impacted how I felt about the overall book.

Ashleigh Bell Pedersen’s The Crocodile Bride: A novel that uses magic to explore girlhood and trauma. The author gets the atmosphere down perfectly. I could feel Louisiana throughout these pages. It was a little long for me in spots, but Pedersen has written a strong debut novel.

Joy Harjo’s How We Became Human: This is a mighty fine collection of poems from my favorite poet. Some of her best work is here. “Remember”, “Perhaps the World Ends Here”, and “She Had Some Horses”. Harjo writes with a full grasp on language and weaves in our natural world so tenderly and lovingly. It’s remarkable work.

Joy Harjo’s Conflict Resolutions for Holy Beings: “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” is profound in how it captures human love—well, really the capacity for human love. It’s one of the wisest poems I can remember reading. “Praise the Rain” is another one I always enjoy revisiting. This collection is typical Harjo, bringing in our connection to animals, plants, and just general life. It’s affirming, affecting poetry, as usual from our country’s greatest poet.

George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: Basically, this was an MFA course in the form of a book. It focuses on what stories can and should do. Saunders focuses his teaching around seven Russian short stories, bringing in Chekhov and others. It was truly excellent in how it investigated what each individual work does, but I viewed it through the lens of a writer. I imagine anyone, though, interested in writing or reading in general would get a lot out of it. Highly recommended for emerging writers especially.

George Saunders’ In Persuasion Nation: This book and my previous read were the only two Saunders’ book I hadn’t read, so I checked them off my list. Saunders is one of our great short story writers, and I love his work just on a personal level, so it kind of surprised me that I hadn’t read this collection previously (although I have read many of the stories here). Anyhow, this is great. I especially love the two epistolary works. The voices are absurd, bizarre, and just frankly crazy. The energy in the prose is unlike any other. I laughed out loud and was horrified that I did. Throughout, there is an angry tech worker who complains about a complaint, a guy who is very concerned with masculinity and femininity, a roofer, a totally wild title story that is about consumerism and so many other things and is truly hilarious, and all kinds of other surprises. Not sure how Saunders hasn’t won a Pulitzer because, for me, he captures American life as it truly is.

(Editor) Laurence Jackson Hyman’s The Letters of Shirley Jackson: Shirley Jackson was such an interesting human. These letters, collected largely by her child, are fascinating to read. I admit that I really like reading writer’s letters anyhow. And I like to write letters myself. So there is no way I wouldn’t enjoy this. Jackson was funnier than I think people expect. I also appreciate how she doesn’t really capitalize very much at all. Her reaction to “The Lottery” was some of my favorite moments. Just an interesting read that provides insight into a misunderstood author’s life.

Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties: What a collection. I hate I missed this in 2021 because it would’ve easily made my best of the year list. The stories are largely about Cambodian-American life and tackle issues including the immigrant experience, queerness, and community. The prose is sharp and oftentimes very funny. Sad and brutal, but funny. I thought, strangely, of Saunders quite a bit as I was reading a couple of the stories. The final story, “Generational Differences,” which is about a mother telling her young son about surviving a school shooting and Michael Jackson later visiting, is deeply tender and among the very best stories I’ve read this year. Brilliant work.

George Saunders’ Congratulations, by the Way: This is a short speech in the form of a very, very, very short book. It’s a commencement speech given by the author at Syracuse’s graduation and is about the importance of kindness and how it’s those people who are kind who make our individual lives worth living, really. Be kind. Make a difference to others.

Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise: Another brilliant work from Harjo. This one closely focuses on her ancestors, bringing in issues of death, loss, and grief. Truly excellent. She’s at her best in these pages as she writes of memory and reflection.

Flannery O’Connor’s A Prayer Journal: I felt kind of weird reading this honestly because it’s so personal. It was interesting, but, like I said, just very, very personal. The book follows Flannery’s written prayers over the course of a year (ish) when she was very young (21-22). It seems, at least, that one of her central prayers of being a successful artist/writer came true.

Flannery O’Connor’s Good Things Out of Nazareth: This is a book of letters from (and about) Flannery. Religion and literature seem to be the two focuses of her life, which is already pretty well known. Recommended for Flannery’s most devoted readers, for sure.

Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A tea monk and a robot form a beautiful friendship as they search for crickets in this meditative, philosophical gem. This is a beautiful novella about what life is and what makes it so grand. Would be good required reading for humanity, in my opinion.

Becky Chambers’ A Prayer for the Crown-Shy: I finished these two books from Chambers on the same weekend I saw Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, so I was living in a land of gentleness and kindness. It was perfect. Should be required reading, as I said with the last book. Nothing really happens except that everything happens. A continuation of a series about connection and life and empathy. Genius.

Shirley Jackson’s Let Me Tell You: This is a collection of some of the author’s left-behind stories, essays, drawings, and lectures. It’s interesting, for sure. A fan would love this kind of thing, and many causal readers probably would scratch their heads. The lecture pieces near the end are what I enjoyed the most.

George Saunders’ Pastoralia: I reread this one due to reading so much Saunders earlier this month. I laughed at these stories, and then I felt weird for laughing. That’s my reaction to Saunders usually. He’s a brilliant writer, and this collection about lost, weird, and wild characters proves as much. The title piece is set around an amusement park, and I love amusement park stories. My only complaint is that there are only six stories here and they are all pretty long (except for one).

Ruth Franklin’s Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life: An incredibly-deep look into the life of Jackson. This book touches on basically everything, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I knew a lot of the stuff because I studied Jackson for a good while, but still lots of new info to pick up. Very, very good.