Tag Archives: louise erdrich

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Hey friends,

In putting together the books that I finished in January, I realized that all but one had been recommended to me by someone who I trust to generally have good taste. The one exception was vicariously recommended to me by a character in another book, which I guess kind of counts, too.

I’ve always thought that books, like people, tend to come into your life when they do for a reason. In my head, the universe has a book distribution system similar to TikTok’s cat distribution system: someone leaves a book on their stoop just before you happen to pass by; that book you forgot you placed on hold finally arrives at your local library; a friend eagerly presses their most recent read into your hands because they just have to talk about it with someone else.

When I was in high school, I took piano lessons in a gorgeous studio in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. On one wall, my teacher had fashioned a makeshift lineage of piano teachers out of a set of window blinds, with each teacher’s name written on one slat, leading from someone absurdly famous (Bach, maybe? I forget) down through history to her name. Her students could therefore trace the lineage of our piano education all the way back in time to one of the great masters of the instrument.

Sometimes I like to think about the lineage of book recommendations in a similar way. If you traced out all the readers that a book went through first before it got to you, depending on how long that book has been around, then you might have a pretty impressive pedigree of readership on your hands. Or, if it’s a newer book, you could be the person to make sure it gets passed on to the next round of readers who need it the most, at a time that’s just right for them.

I like thinking that this series plays a small part in the facilitation of that lineage. So from me to you, here are some of the books I read this month that I’d like to pass on.

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THE TOP:

The Sentence — Louise Erdrich

Recommended by: Phillip

This was the first book I started and finished in 2023, which set the bar high. The Sentence takes two sharp turns: the first comes soon after the first chapter, in which the protagonist, Tookie, makes a decision that haunts her throughout the rest of the book. After Sharp Turn #1, Tookie settles down as a bookseller at a Native bookstore in Minneapolis, where the ghosts of her past are soon joined by the persistent ghost of her most annoying, recently departed customer.

Sharp Turn #2 happens—painfully predictably—in March of 2020. I don’t know that I was ready to read a pandemic book yet, to watch the characters go through the same stages of confusion, fear, and devastation that still feel all too recent. Compounded with being people of color in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the book’s inhabitants are forced to reckon with not just their own personal ghosts, but with the ghosts of an entire city and country, of all the tormented history our world operates above every day.

Tookie is one of my favorite characters I’ve read in a long time. I love the way her body serves as an awkward yet formidable set of armor between her and the rest of the world. I love her insatiable craving not just for books and their stories, but for the very words that compose them, and the eagerness with which she desires to share this passion with other people. Although she grapples with the idea of motherhood and her own perceived limitations, I love that Tookie spends the whole book trying her hardest to care for the people in her life in her own way. This commitment, even through the darkest, most isolating times and through the chaos of upheaval, makes all the difference—to the living, and the dead.

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Solid Supports:

Margaret the First — Danielle Dutton

Recommended by: Zoë

Brilliant, ridiculous, genius, and mad are all words ascribed to Margaret Cavendish throughout her journey to literary infamy. A noblewoman philosopher, Margaret shattered 17th-century social norms by ambitiously publishing under her own name, though the circumstances of her sex and time precluded her from ever reaching her full potential. In A Room of One’s Own—the work that led the author (my former major advisor!) to her subject—Virginia Woolf laments Margaret’s neglected talents as “a vision of loneliness and riot,” and this novel’s evocative, wistful lyricism certainly brings that vision to life. Combined with Margaret’s own staunch determination to be discussed and remembered, Margaret the First paints a fascinating portrait of one of literature’s most eccentric foremothers.

Assembly — Natasha Brown

Recommended by: Megan

At just over a hundred pages, this deceptively slight book is a richly nuanced introspection on race, class, and empire. It spans approximately 48 hours in the life of a young, successful Black British woman as she contemplates a life-or-death health decision. In struggling with this decision, the narrator draws astute and unapologetic attention to the ongoing physical and mental costs of her life in a predominantly white, male, and imperialist workplace and country. As its narrator questions the value of remaining in a state of constant battle when the only reward is the opportunity to keep fighting, Assembly asks whether the most radical act of activism is not perseverance, but withdrawal. Brown’s prose is clean, cutting, and carefully balanced; no single word is superfluous, and each one carries the weight of centuries of conflict. I recommend reading this in one sitting.

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The Foundation:

Literally Show Me a Healthy Person — Darcie Wilder

Recommended by: Rachel

This is a fever dream of a book that reads like the Twitter thread of someone fast approaching, if not already in the midst of, a mental breakdown. It’s a stream-of-consciousness monologue about a young woman trying to process grief while also attempting through painful trial and error to be a functional adult. I read it in one sitting on a Monday morning before work and it made my brain feel like it does when I ignore my social media limits too many times in one day: slightly disoriented, inexplicably anxious, and ultimately suppressing the addict’s urge to go back for just a little bit more.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI — David Grann

Recommended by: Kate

Killers of the Flower Moon is a true crime story that is shocking on multiple levels: the horrors of its events, its relative recency, and the near-silence of mainstream history about these devastating cruelties. It chronicles the murders of several members of the Osage tribe in the early 1920s, when their oil riches made them vulnerable targets to white neighbors who believed themselves above the law. Journalist David Grann dives deep into a web of secrets and sinister deceit to bring these murders, once largely forgotten, back into the public eye and reveal layers of evil that not even the nascent FBI could fully comprehend at the time. This story has also been adapted into a movie by Martin Scorcese which will be out in May, so expect to hear much more about it very soon.

Deacon King Kong — James McBride

Recommended by: Tookie

This is the book recommendation I borrowed from another book, which was The Sentence! In The Sentence, Tookie recommends Deacon King Kong to a notoriously tough customer, whose uncharacteristically effusive praise made me curious about the book I’d picked up off a stoop a few months prior. Set in a housing project in south Brooklyn in 1969, Deacon King Kong follows the tumultuous chain of events set off when its elderly titular character inexplicably shoots the project’s most powerful drug dealer in broad daylight. I loved it for the same reasons as the difficult customer: for its vibrant community of larger-than-life characters, its wisdom and clever heart, and for the frequent comical mishaps that get an old drunk mixed up with drug dealers, the Italian mafia, and ancient spoils of war. This book just feels alive in all the right ways.

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Honorable Mention:

The House of Hades — Rick Riordan

Recommended by: Nikhil

Between the holidays and having my holds lapse twice before I could renew them in time, it took me over a month to get through the fourth audiobook in The Heroes of Olympus series. This is regrettable because it made it hard to mentally distinguish between the events of this book and those of the ones before it, but with our pals safely out of Tartarus now, I’m looking forward to finally finishing Book 5 (the last of the series!) in a more timely manner.

Women Talking — Sarah Polley

Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 book by the same name and inspired by true events, Women Talking is about a group of Mennonite women who have been repeatedly sexually assaulted by the men in their colony and must now choose how to respond to the arrest of their perpetrators. As the title suggests, most of the film is taken up by the women’s deliberations on whether to do nothing, stay and fight the men, or leave the colony. These conversations are raw, thought-provoking, and strangely literary, feeling at times as though they might have been better suited for the stage. While sexual assault is the main subject of the movie, there is no on-screen violence, and the survivors’ trauma is handled with the kind of tact and compassion you’d expect from such a talented cast of women.

Abbott Elementary — Quinta Brunson

This show deserves every award because it is so authentically clever and funny and heartfelt in a way that feels rare and special for a sitcom these days. I finally got caught up over the past couple of weeks and found it the perfect show to knit and giggle through on a lazy weekend night in. It reminds me of Derry Girls in that I always genuinely laugh at least once per episode, and there’s always a touching moment of true kindness that just makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The Neverending Story — Wolfgang Petersen

The Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn does “nostalgia movies” on the weekend, which was the perfect environment for my first viewing of this charming, escapist classic about the power of story. I smiled through just about the whole movie because it made me remember the thrill of being a kid and staying up late to escape into far more fantastical worlds than ours. It was an absolutely lovely way to spend a Saturday.

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That’s a wrap on January! If you’re interested in getting these round-ups in the newsletter form, make sure you subscribe to my Substack below:

And if you have any recommendations you want to pass on to me, I’d love to hear them! The comments, and my inbox, are always open for chatting.

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine