Now that it’s July, I’m re-examining the goals I had in mind earlier this year, checking to see whether my plans have aligned with my reading choices so far. A few days ago, I wrote about one of my slow-reading projects this year, and in a few days I’ll write about another; in between, I wrote about some of the books still worming in the back of my mind weeks (months, even) after I’ve finished reading.

It’s possible I’m over-thinking the TPL Reading Challenge, which I often leave in a half-finished state, turning many pages through the year, but rarely turning the final page of this challenge.

It’s not enough that I’m reading a 2024 book, but I tell myself that I can’t count Kiley Reid’s Come & Get It because I didn’t read it from the library. (I mean, it IS the library challenge, but maybe the emphasis is actually on the Reading part of it?)

And I don’t allow myself to count Angela Sterritt’s Unbroken for more than one category, although it fits both “A non-fiction book by an Indigenous author” and “A book about politics” (in the advanced challenge on the underside)—and some might include it as “A Canadian memoir”. (Is it clever to combine, or is it cheating?)

Why obsess about any of the details? I suppose because I think the challenge of twelve books alone is enough to keep some people engaged for 366 days of the year, whereas I’ve read nearly ten times that number of books just halfway through the year; so it feels as though I need to up the ante to be fair to the people with normal reading habits.

I feel like it should BE challenging. And that’s why, halfway through the year, I’ve not filled in many of these categories yet. So, that’s probably too challenging? (I’ve read a couple books with the other categories in mind, but haven’t written about them: we’ll see if that ever happens.) Here’s where it begins:

A Book Published in 2024: Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! (2024)

Kaveh Akbar’s poetry was the sort that I read too quickly, gobbling up the beautiful phrases; his concepts were complex and even though I was aware, in the moment, that I wasn’t actually comprehending them, I had the sense of something marvellous. I just kept reading, trusting that I would, eventually, find a couplet to cling to, a sliver of understanding, something to pull me through another few pages.

So you can imagine that I approached his novel with a sense of trepidation: would there be enough of a framework for me to rally to his longform storytelling, I wondered. In fewer than a dozen pages, I was hooked. I enjoyed the elements of bookishness (reading and writing, and not-writing, poetry), the multiple points-of-view that were curious but also prismatically explored a theme which I didn’t fully understand until the end of the novel, the prompt to explore outside cultural references, and the solid characterisation of a main character that I really wanted to know, to spend time with, to get postcards from after the book ends.

“I grew up eating Hot Pockets and watching Michael Jordan, not thinking about Hussain or Ashura or the fucking Iran-Iraq War. My dad wouldn’t even let me speak Farsi in the house.”

A Book by an Author with a Chronic Illness: Samantha Irby’s we are never meeting in real life (2017)

You know timing matters, but this book reminds me just how much: I picked up these essays years ago and had not one smidge of patience for the voice and tone that, on this reading, was so wholly and start-to-stop entertaining. I suspect I was reading them in literary-essay mode (one after the next) and I should have been reading them in stand-up-comic mode (like each one’s a set).

There are twenty essays in here, on a variety of topics ranging from “My Bachelorette Application” (see below) to ‘Yo, I Need a Job”, most of which aren’t actually about their stated topic, so much as they’re about all the aspects of selfhood that circle around their subject. By the end of the book, you feel as though you know Sam Irby intimately, despite having glimpsed only a few scenes in her life. The core of this sense of understanding resides in vulnerability, her undeniable capacity to view the humour in situations that aren’t funny at all while they’re unfolding, and her ability to say one thing while distinctly meaning exactly the opposite (and somehow situating the reader in exactly the right place to see this is happening).

“I am unfamiliar with coffee shop etiquette. Since I let the dude texting across from me hog the outlet, is he morally obligated to make sure no one runs off with my wallet while I’m in the can? If I take my wallet, will he keep an eye on my laptop? And what about my bag?! I am anxious, and I don’t trust anyone and would also never want to burden a stranger with my literal shit, but I had to buy a drink to get the Wi-Fi password and didn’t want to look like a cheapskate, so I got the big one, and a doughnut, and now I have to pee but I’m not ready to leave and Jesus God what can I do?!”

(This is from “A Case for Remaining Indoors” and you’ll have to read it to find out what happens. The first Bachelorette essay is available as an excerpt here.)

A Memoir by a Canadian Author: Anais Granofsky’s The Girl in the Middle (2022)

For several years I worked in the neighbourhood of Degrassi Street in Toronto, passing by a couple of times every day (at least), occasionally marvelling at it having been the title of a show I watched when I was a teen (living, what might as well have been, eleventy-million miles away) and now was part of my everyday life. But I didn’t recognise the author’s name from the show until I saw her photograph on the cover, so you don’t need to know the show to read her coming-of-age story.

Her situation (summarised in the subtitle Growing Up between Black and White, Rich and Poor) provides her with contrasting experiences, growing up largely with a single mother but regularly spending weekends with her father’s family in Toronto’s Bridle Path neighbourhood (i.e. where Drake lives). Early in life, she realises that she must compartmentalise parts of her identity, must adapt to suit the people whose company she shares at the time; this leads to a fractured sense of self, but simultaneously sharpens skills that are useful as she ages.

Although life with her mother is more difficult, and dynamics between her parents’ two families are strained, “poor” is a relative term. In comparison to mansion living, the Ossington subway station would be “dirty and drab”, but it’s a residential neighbourhood on the edge of Little Italy…I wouldn’t describe it like that. Still, I really enjoyed the Toronto flavour and her openness about difficulties as a child of divorce…and it even left me craving some Degrassi reruns.

“We would walk out into the bracingly cold night and pile into his orange-and-green cab and go to Mars Diner on College Street. Mars Diner was an old-school joint downtown where taxi drivers hung out on their breaks drinking coffee. Every night I would order a hot chocolate and one of their famous corn bread muffins for dinner. I loved sitting with my dad and his taxi buddies at the counter while they exchanged stories and commiserated.”

If you’re interested in playing along, there’s a PDF available here.

If you can decipher the tiny writing, you’ll see that the next book I’ll discuss is selected as a book about Community.

And, all of this fits beautifully with Rebecca’s monthly #LoveYourLibrary event (on the last Monday of each month).

What would you have chosen, instead, for these three themes?

Would you have started with different categories entirely?

Would you have read them in order? (I never thought of that!)