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!)
We’ve already talked about how I would approach this challenge. But here’s my opportunity to imagine which book I would pick for each category! Lol
Book published in 2024: This one’s too easy – any number of books could fit here.
Author with chronic illness: Gutsy by Heather Fegan
Memoir by Canadian author: Could also by Gutsy, but I don’t think I’m an overlapper, so instead I choose Hell of a Ride by Martin Bauman
I’m curious to know how different they make this challenge from year to year? Wouldn’t it be fun to pick the categories?
Hahaha, IK,R? heheh But in January that category was a little more challenging.
That’s a good one; I wonder if you could actually complete this with only Atlantic Canadian wrietrs? I’m sure you could but, if you’re like me, I focus on the new books that are most predominantly displayed in the library, whereas a theme like that might require that you read more backlisted titles.
They have a FB page, and I imagine it would be fairly easy to scroll through the years’ challenges that way? Hmmm, that’s making me rethink my FB resistance. lol
Oh my, I do think you are overthinking it! This is not a competition, so I don’t see there’s any need to be fair to the people with normal reading habits? Who is going to complain about your being unfair? This is a hobby isn’t it? I actually get a kick out of being able to hit multiple challenge (or whatever) with one book because it’s an interesting intellectual challenge to me to find connections. This is something that has given me a kick since university, finding cross-links.
I used to take part in the Australian Women Writers Challenge precisely because it wasn’t a challenge, because I read Australian Women Writers anyhow. I guess the thing is that I do not want my reading to become a challenge. I want it to always be enjoyable, so any “challenges” I choose must, by definition, not really be challenges! Sorry!
As for my choices, I’d have to think about that, which I’ll try to do another time!
Yes, I agree, I’m overthinking it. Of course we all read in our own ways and could find different elements joyful (like your crossovers). It could be fun to see how few books one could select and still complete this challenge. As a matter of course I keep my eyes on my own book, but with a public event like this, my mind wanders and thoughts snag on the idea of other participants’ thoughts and experiences: nonetheless, the challenge remains personal, doesn’t it.
Rebecca’s mention of the challenge at her library is actually a competition of sorts, though, with an iPad as a prize, so that does bring up ideas of fairness (there might be a prize for the TPL challenge too, I’ll check). But your question remains valid: who’s judging. Judgement was a pillar in my upbringing, and it’s been the work of a lifetime to move away from that and learn to experience the world differently; I can see how those old habits continue to seep into even the most innocuous places, like community reading challenges.
But I do challenge (see what I did there? hee hee) your saying that you don’t want your reading to be a challenge, when I note how many of the books you read challenge prejudices, challenge the status quo, challenge historical and contemporary patterns of injustice. They aren’t beach reading (not that one couldn’t read them on a beach) and they are challenging. But, maybe that’s precisely why you don’t want another layer of challenge in your reading experience.
Haha cheeky … to turn that idea of challenge back at me! But yes, I think you are right. That’s the sort of challenge in want – I guess we could say “in” my reading, not “what” I’m reading. (I know you also like challenges “in” your reading too.)
I’m sorry about the “judgement” issue. I’m really sorry if I accidentally touched a sore point. Judgement was somewhat present in my childhood, though not so much towards me as towards “others”, but it wasn’t extreme and could be laughed off most of the time, but I do
BTW Yes, I gathered that Rebecca’s library challenge is actually a competition – and that’s a whole different ball-game. What’s fair there, particularly when the price is valuable.
BTW2 I have discovered that if I reply to your blog on Firefox, signing in to comment is easier. I think it’s because Apple products have additional layers of security, and it doesn’t like your blog nor Kate’s (booksaremyfavouriteandbest) at all for some reason. With you and Kate I have to sign in from scratch EVERY time, when I use Safari browser on my laptop or the app on my phone. I don’t know what it is, but at least I now know I can use Firefox for you two!
I knew you’d be up for the…challenge! hee hee Even as I was typing up my thought, I realised that I probably understood the answer without posing the question, but of course it’s always better to ask and be sure.
Actually, I appreciated your questions because nobody IS judging, but I could see how that persistent finger-wag was hiding in the dark corner of my thoughts, “living rent free” as they say nowadays. Instantly I could see it for what it was and, whoosh, swept it away with the dust.
Well neither of us is likely to aim for that library’s challenge. Perhaps Rebecca should reconsider and try her hand at it after all!
Ohhhh, that’s very interesting, thank you, I will keep that in mind if anyone else has difficulties. It makes sense–the less proprietary browser being less fussy–but in hindsight.
WP, for reasons of its own no doubt, seems to be tieing us all in knots, but in different ways. Perhaps they’re running an experiment. WG’s torture (she tells me) is to have to type in her details every single time here and on other old friends. Mine is that I don’t get notified that certain bloggers have posted, yes, BIP included, but I get flooded with comments. I’m going to stop here, just to make sure I can comment easily, then go on.
That’s true: each of us having slightly different parameters for our individual sites does make for different impacts, which only makes it harder to try and make sense of it all. I’m glad your comment went through, and I guess it works out for the best that you’ve been notified about comments (if it draws you into the conversation eventually), but it’s better when things are tickety-boo, I agree.
A friend of mine had that happen on my blog Bill, and we sorted it out. It was something to do with her original subscription. Maybe if you look at your list of blogs you’ve subscribed to, you might find that your subscription to Marcie’s blog is not properly set up. I just noticed, in doing this that mine for yours isn’t either, so I’ve just corrected it. It used to be, so I think in some upgrade over the last year or two some of these settings have been reset. You can access this under reader in the black menu bar at the top of your blog screen – Click on Reader, and down near the bottom you’ll see a Manage Subscriptions button. If you find Marcie there, then click on the three buttons at the right of that row and you’ll see subscription options that you can toggle. (I have taken a screenshot of my just corrected one for you so can email it to you if you can’t find what I’m talking about.)
Thanks for explaining that, Sue, and I hope it helps you fine-tune things, Bill. I’m always grateful when I come across this kind of information on other people’s sites, too, because we all have technical irritations and just because some of them can’t be sorted (the overarching system overlords setting the tone and resetting and resetting and…), there are often areas where we can make small and key adjustments.
Sorry WG, I clicked on a grey W and on I went. (But I didn’t see this post until readers began to comment).
I could say I don’t do challenges, I certainly don’t do (or read) any of the monthly memes. But I do run one or two projects each year – mostly I think because having everyone reading at the same time helps to tease out themes and trends, etc – and so I take part in other people’s projects in a spirit of reciprocity.
Still, filling in a ‘bingo’ card, as you (Marcie) seem to be doing here is an interesting way of making a post, and of pointing out connections, and I have been known to read something just to fill in the last one or two spaces.
When I see the book challenges on some social media (IG, Litsy, etc.), with prompts for each day, I find myself wondering what my daily life would be like to create a space in which I could respond to challenges like that (not that you have to read them all, just name them, often) but, then, I do look more closely at things like this library challenge…I guess because it feels complementary to reading I’d already doing and habits I already practice. So I guess I want a challenge to be challenging but not TOO challenging either.
Typing that brought to mind the Pop Sugar Challenge, which actually made me laugh. Right now, in this moment, some of those prompts seem ludicrous, beyond-challenging…but maybe if I’d printed out a copy of that in January, I’d be halfway through it as well? My fill-in-the-blanks seems a breeze, comparatively. But now I wonder how many times I’ll be examining characters I meet on the page to see if one of them is forty-two years old!
I chuckled when you referred to ‘people with normal reading habits’. I know you can’t relate to them, and neither can I! LOL
I signed my kids up for the CPL summer reading challenge here, and like you, I think I’m definitely overthinking it. I really really really wanted them to follow the rules exactly and colour in the page each day after reading something, but they quickly lost interest in coloring in the sheet, their reasoning being they read every day anyway, so why waste the time colouring? I didn’t have an answer to that, other than ‘reading challenges are fun, and so are following rules!”
Right?! But at least we can still recognise we’re not normal.
I looooove the kids’ summer reading programs at the library: every year I have to remind myself that I am NOT allowed to join. Do your kids have to tell the librarians about their book? That was always so funny, comparing how each kid responded to that part of the challenge (also, hats off to libarians in the children’s department who accept all those “book report” styles lol). But I suspect there are more independent/virtual elements with the challenges these days?
This reading challenge (for the kids) is pretty loose. They just need to color in a little sheet after they’ve read a book each day (or done any kind of reading, one of the librarians said reading a cereal box they’ll even accept) and then bring that sheet in to the library for a special sticker at the end of each week. We haven’t really been doing any of that to be honest, but we read every day. We’re currently doing a family read aloud of Harry Potter, we read a few pages each night, and are on the third book! Very exciting stuff 🙂
Ahhh, very similar to what we have here. (And I’ve read my share of cereal boxes for sure! lol But good thing no book reports are required. “And, then, they added the Riboflavin…”) That family readalong sounds good. I still remember certain summers with fondness as “The Summer We Read…” and that’s a nice thing to carry forward, for everyone.
Interesting to hear about the way your library does the summer reading club challenge! We send the kids home with a log book, they colour in a little picture after every 20 minutes of reading. After 400, 800, and 1200 minutes they get little prizes. As well as ballots for the grand prize. We had a record number of kids sign up this year, so they must be enjoying it. How I love seeing the logbooks that are coloured in so neatly and carefully. 🙂
That sounds really great: a combination of short-term and long-term milestones always works for me, too! It’s great to hear from the librarian’s perspective, too, that it’s rewarding all the way around. Another way of building bookish community!
Thanks for sharing how some of your reading has been going! I read Martyr! this year and thought it was just okay, a little bit too florid and abstract for my taste even though some of my friends loved it or really liked it. I read Irby’s book many years ago and found it funny and I think I rated it in the 3-4 star range. Hope your reading continues to go well and it’s fun and motivating to read your bookish updates (:
I think I’d agree with both florid and abstract (in some places, anyhow) but figure that fits with the idea he’s playing with (I say playing only because of that exclamation mark in the title, it’s a serious topic beneath, of course). The central relationship kept me intrigued throughout (often it’s a romance that pulls me into and through a story) and I was pleasantly surprised by a plot element (that I hadn’t had spoiled via any reviews or chatter) and I do love it when a story surprises me. Irby IS funny (says now-me, then-me was not impressed lol).
I’ve been terrible about doing the TPL reading challenge, though I think about it every year. Half-complete (or better! in your case) is still pretty impressive.
I’ve had no luck commenting on WordPress blogs lately, but then one went through. Will this? We’ll see!
I just found a little stack of all the half-completed challenges the other day; as if I wasn’t feeling badly enough about never having managed to finish it, now I have evidence of my failure. lol
Hopefully your WP weirdness will clear up magically; early in July I was having a lot of login issues with other sites, but that seems to be magically dissipated by now, while I’ve been away from my desk.
Irby sounds fun. Thank you for the link, Ill have a look!
Her pieces would make great intermissions between the kind of grim reading that sometimes proliferates in your stacks (as it does in mine)…not to discount the inherent value of her work.
I read Martyr! earlier this year and very much liked it. I found it to be a compelling and satisfying read.
OOH, it makes sense, given the content of much of the first chapter, that readers would feel compelled to carry on, but OTOH the plot summary doesn’t sound suspenseful. Contradictory!
I was put off Martyr by all the hype around it, at least here, but you’ve convinced me.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that either, so initially I told myself it was just a first-chapter situation, but the characterisation therein settled it for me.
Self-set reading challenges are so much fun! Why not up the ante by saying your current reading stack has to include books that together cover all 12 categories? 😉 I haven’t signed up for my library system’s adult summer reading challenge (to read three books) because it just feels unfair and I’m sure the prospect of winning an iPad is meant to lure in people who don’t regularly read. I like the looks of the Granofsky.
Haaaaaah! That’s actually a really great idea for poly-readers like us! lol But I’m also glad to see that I’m not the only one who feels as though there are certain audiences for certain gigs: I wouldn’t have felt right about taking part in the three-books-in-a-summer challenge either. And I can imagine other activities that would be, for me, a real challenge to complete three times during the summer.