A Year In Books

Last New Years I set out to read a book a month. Probably the best resolution I've ever had... a. because I accomplished it. (a first) and b. because books are air. This year, has been in some ways the most important of my life. And these books walked through each season, held my hand, sat in the dark, woke up to the morning breeze.

Each one made me think, made me see, made me feel.

A year in books:

January:
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

February:

“I'm not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you're supposed to think are deep because they're in italics. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about sentences like this:

The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.

Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are less meaningful. All right?”
― Jesse Andrews, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl

March:

“...we can choose to reflect the places we see the lack of love in the world, or we could try to be stronger than our weaknesses, and shine a light on something better. We were facing down our own personal Goliaths. I wanted to invite her to stand with me and try the radical act of simply staying put. To tell the truth and trust that whatever comes next is going to be okay.”
― Sara Bareilles, Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song

April:

“When we open ourselves
you yourself to me and I myself to you,
when we submerge
you into me and I into you
when we vanish
into me you and into you I

Then
am I me
and you are you.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

May:

“Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children's bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

June:
“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

July:
“They were great men, with huge flaws, and you know what – those flaws almost made them greater.”
― Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two

August:

“Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

October:

“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

November:

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

December:

I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief