One Writer's Reading List
By Victoria Fortune
A few years ago, I asked a friend who was writing a novel what some of his favorite books were. He shrugged, “I don’t really read much,” he replied. I was speechless. I couldn’t comprehend having the desire to write a book, much less the audacity to attempt it, without a love of books and a passion for reading. Yet, despite my desire and inclination, I don’t read as much as I should.
I blame it on lack of time—daily responsibilities get in the way—but as Stephen King wrote, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Grub Street, the writing center in Boston, uses this quote in the introduction for an online class starting Jan. 23 called “Reading Like a Writer,” named, no doubt, after Francine Prose’s excellent book by that name.
Prose notes in her book that before there were writing workshops and MFA programs, writers learned by reading the work of other writers. Learning by “osmosis,” as Prose puts it, is not as passive as it sounds. It requires reading not just for pleasure, but with an analytic eye, “conscious of style, of diction, of how sentences [are] formed and information [is] being conveyed, how the writer [is] structuring a plot, creating characters, employing detail and dialogue.”
Prose’s book changed the way that I read, but not how I chose what to read. My selections continued to be somewhat haphazard: I read books featured in the bookstore window or at the table near the entrance of the library, books recommended by friends and family, books by authors I heard or read interviews with, or books my book group selected. These are all excellent ways to find good books, ways that help connect me to communities of other readers. But this year, my New Year’s resolution is to be more deliberate in my reading choices, so I did some research, and made a list of books to read in 2019.
Some of the books on my list came from the usual sources, but I also scoured the “Best of 2018” booklists from NPR and The New York Times. There were so many books that appealed to me I had to narrow them down somehow, so I picked books that have some connection to the one I’m working on.
Some touch on themes I’m exploring in my novel:
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, which, according to one review, “allows us to look at how our past can guide us in our present.”
• The Wrong Heaven, Amy Bonnaffons’s collection of “short stories about women trying to square their desires with societal restrictions.”
• Motherhood by Sheila Heti, a novel about a woman deciding whether to become a mother.
• The Witch Elm by Tana French, about privilege and the challenge of coming to see it.
• Educated, Tara Westover’s memoir about how her thirst for knowledge led to estrangement from her family.
• A Summons to Memphis, Peter Taylor’s 1987 Pulitzer-prize winning novel about a man delving into his family’s past.
Others books employ a technique I am interested in using:
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, not only utilizes letters but is also a story about love and betrayal set in the South.
• The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth Winthrop includes multiple POVs and is historical fiction, also set in the South.
• Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi has an unusual structure: the seemingly numerous POVs are the different selves of a single character from different points in her life.
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman has a main character who is a loner, like mine.
Some I chose simply because I’m intrigued by the setting or what I’ve heard about the book:
• If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, because I want to read the book before I see the movie, and it’s James Baldwin.
• The Largesse Of The Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson because I’ve heard this collection of short stories is a great example of his “hardcore minimalist” style.
• Florida by Lauren Groff because I read one of the stories in Best American Short Stories last year and loved it, and I’ve heard rave reviews.
• The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers because I heard an interview with the author, I have an almost spiritual affinity for trees, and I loves stories that weave disparate tales together.
And, as always, I have some nonfiction books on my list:
• White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, which is necessary reading for me, being a white person writing about racism.
• These Truths by Jill Lepore because I’m passionate about American history and intrigued by a historian who has the chutzpah to write a single volume history of the U.S. in this day and age.
• A New Reality: Human Evolution for A Sustainable Future by Jonas Salk and Jonathan Salk because it will be good research for life and for the next book that’s brewing in the back of my mind.
I will most likely revise the list as the year goes on, adding new titles, possibly dropping some, but at least I am starting with a plan.
Photo credit:By Victoria Fortune
