30 before 30 :: the books

I’ve always loved reading but, like many others, college reading and assignments forced me to stop reading for fun. I rediscovered reading in the latter part of my 20s, ironically, when I was working full-time and in grad school full-time. My job required too much of me, and grad school on top of that was depleting my humanness. I ached for time to myself, not having to worry about how 18-year-olds’ choices affected my sleep or how APA citations impacted my grades. 

I started reading again, sometimes waking up at 5:30am to get an hour in before I had to start on that paper or respond to that duty call. It was time just for me, before the rest of the world woke up and required something of me. I have vivid memories of sitting on my couch in my apartment on the 9th floor of Ondine Residence Hall, reading a book and watching the sun rise out my window.

Reading doesn’t feel like fun anymore, like just a hobby or a pastime. Reading has saved me from nights of loneliness, especially in this last year of the pandemic. It’s helped me witness lives outside of my own, pushing me to acknowledge my privilege and power and the shitty systems in our world. And every book, in some way, has stretched me to learn new things about myself. Books are crucial to my life, a requirement that allows me to show up better in the world. It sounds dramatic, but dang — it’s true. Just like I need a cup of coffee in the morning, I’m a better human when I make time to read.

The circumstances of my 20s were the perfect conditions for reading as much as I did: I was single for most of this decade and lived alone for most of it, too. I leaned into my introverted side and preferred Friday nights curled up on my couch with a book. I became a morning person and learned to wake up a few hours before work, with nothing to do except what I chose.

My reading habits will change in this next decade, I’m sure of it. I hope that one day, I have a partner whom I live with, who goads me to put down my book to watch his favorite movie for the fifth time or who whisks me off the couch on a Friday night. I hope that one day, I will have children running around my house who will steal away my morning peace, but give me the opportunity to reread the Junie B. Jones series.

Maybe this next decade will allow room for all of it. The quiet and the chaos, the solitude and the family, the time to read squeezed alongside the rest of life’s big, messy moments. I’ll hold onto both possibilities: grateful for the books I’ve read so far, hopeful that there will be many, many more. 

And so: here are the best books I’ve read in the last decade. Like choosing songs, narrowing these down was hard. If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve read over 330 books since 2011. I only know that fact because I’ve kept track of every book I’ve ever read in a Google Spreadsheet, which made it easy to remember and also reminded me that I’m a little bonkers.

Memoir:

1. Tiny Beautiful Things x Cheryl Strayed

2. Untamed x Glennon Doyle

3. Between the World and Me x Ta-Nehisi Coates

4. Gift from the Sea x Anne Morrow Lindbergh

5. When Breath Becomes Air x Paul Kalinithi

6. The Bright Hour x Nina Riggs

7. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone x Lori Gottlieb

8. How We Fight for Our Lives x Saeed Jones

9. On Writing x Stephen King

Nonfiction:

1. Love Wins x Rob Bell

2. Bird by Bird x Anne Lamott

3. The Crossroads of Should and Must x Elle Luna

4. Attached x Amir Levine & Rachel Miller

5. Daring Greatly x Brené Brown

6. The Road Back to You x Ian Cron & Suzanne Stabile

7. Missoula x Jon Krakauer

8. Eaarth x Bill McKibben

9. Bad Feminist x Roxane Gay

Fiction:

1. The Poisonwood Bible x Barbara Kingsolver

2. Americanah x Chimamanda Adichie

3. The Round House x Louise Erdrich

4. All the Light We Cannot See x Anthony Doerr

5. Gilead x Marilynne Robinson

6. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine x Gail Honeyman

7. Where the Crawdads Sing x Delia Owens

8. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue x V.E. Schwab

Poetry:

1. Devotions x Mary Oliver

2. Milk and Honey x Rupi Kaur

3. Citizen x Claudia Rankine

4. Good Bones x Maggie Smith

heart-filling times.

A handful of weeks ago, in the midst of some heart turmoil times, I thought of an essay in “Tiny Beautiful Things.” I specifically thought of one particular line that I needed to read to have the courage to carry on through said heart turmoil times; the words I believed would grant me permission to do the thing I had to do.

When I went to pluck my copy off the shelf to locate these words, it was gone! Not totally surprising, since I think I have owned at least six copies of this book and have gleefully given each one of them away. So I did the thing anyway and survived without the line and ordered a new copy for myself.

And now I’ve been rereading. I haven’t read this book cover to cover since I was 22 and unemployed and sleeping in the trundle bed I lugged across the country to Portland. I am going slow, underlining words and folding in corners of pages and sitting for awhile with the ‘Yours, Sugar’ at the end of every piece.

The last few weeks, I’ve been sitting in some heart-filling times — a snap-of-the-fingers shift from the turmoil, just like that. Karaoke singing and nature walks and bookstore adventuring, big belly laughs and big questions and big conversations that get right to the good stuff. In one essay, Sugar writes, “The whole deal about loving truly and for real and with all you’ve got has everything to do with letting those we love see what made us.”

These heart-filling times have only been so because they’ve been filled with some of my heart-people, in Fargo and Minnesota and across the country: the ones who see me, all of me, when I’m at my fullest and when I’m at my turmoiliest. And who let me sit with them, too.

This wasn’t the line I was looking for when I started, but it was the reminder I needed all along.

this is a public service announcement.

This is a Public Service Announcement.

Stop scoffing at how the subtitle of this book includes both "advice" and "love" and is written by someone called Sugar. Forget everything you think you know about advice columns. Tuck away your feelings about how silly they are. Set fire to the idea that only desperate people write in to them. Whether you are a 24-year-old living far away from home or a 62-year-old who has never left home, there is some part of your life that needs both advice and love. From Sugar. Accept that no matter how finely stitched or tightly wound or perfectly scheduled your life is, there is always room for more love.

Google Map your local library or used bookstore or not-used bookstore. Go there. If you can't go right now, put a Post-It in your paper planner or an appointment in your iCal so you can go as soon as you have an hour of freedom from your job, your other job, your responsibilities, or your other responsibilities. Get it in your hands. (Don’t use an e-reader.)

If it's not there, put it on hold. Request that another copy be ordered for you and shipped to the store, or better yet, to your front door. Don’t wait and return in a week or two or when you know you'll have more time to read. You won't go back, because you'll come up with all sorts of excuses as to why you don't have enough time right now. Right now will turn into this summer will turn into this year will turn into this life. There is never enough time in life to read things that aren't gross bills reminding you of the capitalist patriarchy, or the airline credit card offers that show up in your mailbox every Monday, or the textbooks you're supposed to want to read because their titles match your future degree. Get it now and find the time later. Make a habit of reading one chapter before bed or getting up one hour early to sit in your lime green chair with the next chapter. 

When you have the book in your hands, flip through the pages. Read what Sugar says inside the front cover. Look at the empty margins, the crisp corners, and the meager 26 letters filling 353 pages with thousands of words and maybe just as many revelations for your life. Now move the book into one hand and grab a pen with the other. A highlighter works too. Whisper a little apology to the book; because by the time you get to this line on page 15 -- “The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of love” -- you will already have covered it with ink and tears. You will have smudged it with your greasy face oils as you buried your face deep into that sentence and breathed in its truth. 

Dog-ear the top corners so you can use that quote on page 130 for an Instagram caption, or so you can easily find 'The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us’ to read out loud to your roommate one rainy night, or so you can remind yourself of whatever you need to be reminded of next week or next year. The questions you need to ask yourself will come hurtling through these pages straight into your gut. They will lead you to answers that have been there all along, but have been in hiding or hibernation because they will bring a devastating but maybe-much-needed hell that may or may not turn into a definitely-much-needed heaven. Turn to page 155 to be reminded that "every last one of us can do better than give up." Wherever this book brings you to in your life, it will be okay.

Put it on a shelf, or better yet, near your bed. Pull it down when you are full of uninhibited joy and naïve optimism, and pick it up when you are completely drained of those things. Especially then. Read your favorite column, the one that speaks to you and resonates with you and makes the world seem a bit brighter. Read it again. Read it one more time, out loud to yourself. Tell your friends about it. Make them sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with you or on the other side of the FaceTime screen with you as you say the salutation ("Dear Sugar") and until you say the closing ("Yours, Sugar"). They will listen to Sugar's words. They will listen to yours.

If you find that this book was not for you, give it to someone who might make it theirs. Let it feed them. If you find that this book was perfect and made for you, still give it to someone so they can make it theirs too. There is enough for everyone.

Eventually, you will find another book. Get a title from a friend, mentor, or stranger on the bus. Ask them about one that has moved them, rattled them, taken care of them in a way that only books can. Remember the title. Write it down. Thank them for it. There is nothing stronger and more intimate than recommending a title to someone, and having them read it.

Then, if they ask for a recommendation in return, share this -- or your very own -- Public Service Announcement for your favorite tiny, beautiful book.