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In this week’s issue:

• Essay: Dept. of Speculation and the best books I read in 2022
• Recommended Reads: An interview with Jenny Offill, Making NYE resolutions, and the botanists are disappearing
• Quotes & Musings: All the details of being and doing

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Dept. of Speculation and the best books I read in 2022

My first book of 2023, was Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, a flash novella about a woman experiencing first-time motherhood, a cheating husband, and writer's loneliness.

First, a word about format. I'm reading a lot of flash novellas because that's what I want to write. In service of that, I made a list of well-regarded books that might fall into, or at least lie adjacent to, that quasi-category. My definition is that flash novella is a set of loosely linked short stories that form a (somewhat) cohesive whole. The individual stories or passages can often standalone, but are linked in theme, characters, and a sense of movement. Offill’s book (as well as a more recent one called Weather) are on my short, yet distinguished list (a couple more below).

I loved this book. Its brevity makes it possible to finish in one sitting, but it's worth pacing yourself. As Offill describes in the interview below, the book doesn’t really have a plot. What it has is movement and escalation; a compelling narrator; beautiful, considering prose; and, individual passages worth slowing down for.

There's also this wonderful subtle movement within the 3rd person perspective. The story is told partly in a distant 3rd person – the main characters are wife, husband, daughter, while first names are reserved for bit side characters. But there's another version, much more intimate, narrated as though the wife is talking about herself in the 3rd person. The passing from one to the other is seamless. Things happen, but most of the movement occurs through the inner workings of the wife, who has a great self-deprecating humor.

The text on the page has a visual configuration reminiscent of poetry. There are typically 7-8 short paragraphs with large blank white spaces in between. The spaces have the effect of creating a consistent rhythm and pacing that pauses and brings the reader closer to the action and the prose. As a reader you pay attention differently, I think. And for the writer, they signify what’s left unsaid in the story and between the characters.

Each passage (or paragraph) stands alone as its own micro story provoking emotion and contemplation regardless of where it leads.

Here’s an example:

This style of standalone, linked fiction is what I'm most drawn to right now. Aside from being funny, maybe I like the idea of stories, descriptions, and mundane but indelible moments not weighed down with the responsibility of being essential to the whole.

Best books I read in 2022 (in no particular order):

1. ​Foster and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
   ​Two incredible novellas both set in Ireland and by the same writer. One remarkably told through the perspective of a young girl experiencing different sets of parents. And the other a harrowing, but touching story about the infamous Magdalene laundries tragedy perpetrated by the Catholic Church.
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2. ​On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey by Paul Theroux
   ​When I moved to hinterland Hefei, China in late 2002, one of the first books I read was Paul Theroux's "Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China". It was perfect for me then learning about China, particularly people outside the middle class. I loved his rich descriptions and compassionate, curious lens on the culture and its people. Plain of Snakes brings the same curiosity and compassion to Mexico.
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3. ​Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
   ​One of the books whose arrival I awaited most did not disappoint. In a previous edition I shared Love Letter and the beeautiful rendition by Stephen Colbert. The others are great too, especially "A Thing at Work" and "Ghoul". They're intimate stories about what makes us human (both good and horrible) during not so distant dystopian-like times.
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4. ​The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
   (flash novella) This is admittedly a weird book, but it has a pretty strong emotional pull throughout, including someof the best (hard to read too) writing on dementia. It's about a group of recreational swimmers who all religiously swim at the same pool, keeping the same routines. One day a mysterious crack appears and shatters their existence, including one swimmer's mother who begins her descent into the disease.
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5. ​Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
   (flash novella) This gorgeous book takes place as a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. As Khan sits in his palace far from the outer reaches of his expansive empire, Marco Polo weaves magical tales (every city is one flash story) that leave Khan, desperate for intel, enraptured.
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6. ​Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler
   ​This was a great book all around, but what really captured my attention was Feiler's process. He and his team go around the country interviewing and documenting people's life stories so he can find insights and trends about living a fulfilling life. The process is what got my wheels really spinning about the importance of family storytelling. Feiler writes a lot in the book about the power of storytelling to transform lives and relationships.
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7. ​Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
   ​This collection has maybe my favorite short story ever. The title story. It's about a linguist trying to decipher an alien language. Later adapted to film as Arrival. The story within the story though is what's so moving and it's presented in one of the most inventive narrative forms I've encountered. Another story I really loved was "Liking What You See: A Documentary."

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Recommended Reads

​How Much Could Be Left Unsaid: An Interview with Jenny Offill (The Paris Review)

A few highlights that provide insight into Jenny Offill's writing approach and process:

• Library Roulette: Offill coined this term for a brainstorm/prompt process she uses in her writing. When looking for a new idea she'll skim outdated reference books to find something beautiful or compelling to write about.
• Writing has no rules: "...this idea that that there are verifiable dos and don’ts in fiction. I don’t believe this at all. If you have enough authority, you can do anything you want."
• And my favorite: "Fuck the plot, as Edna O’Brien said. What I try to capture as a writer is the feeling of being alive, of being awake. Because of this, I’m more apt to follow the wisp of a thought or a half-glimpsed image than chart a sequential series of events. But I absolutely believe in momentum. Momentum is not plot, but it has that same quality of urgency and forward motion, I think."

​Making a New Year’s Resolution? Don’t Go to War With Yourself. (Oliver Burkeman)

For anyone plunging into the annual review and resolution process, read this interview first. Burkeman writes about productivity and mortality, and in particular how to steer clear of the so-called prodctivity trap. In this interview, Burkeman praises reviews and goal-setting, especially if they provide clarity behind change. But advises that we go easy on ourselves. Too much perfectionism can have diminishing returns and unintended consequences. With any goal, ask yourself why you're pursuing it, says Burkeman. Seems simple, but it's offten surprising how often we skip this basic step. I also love this thought experiment: we try too often to change traits about ourselves we don't like (short temper, too impatient). Instead, what if we assume we are stuck with that trait for the rest of our life? What then? What becomes possible if you knew that thing would never change? Other simple ideas that Burkeman shares that can be really helpful in staying consistent with your goals: Dan Harris' idea of 'day-ish' (it's not the end of the world if you miss a day); doing something for ten minutes is much better than not doing it at all; and, lastly, take a little pressure off the process by starting it a couple weeks into January. It's a long year, you don't need to have it all figured it out right from the get-go.

I put together my own annual review and goal-setting process cobbled together from things I've seen or done with clients in the past, and I did my review this year with my parents and now again with my siblings. That would be my addition to Burkeman's advice: engage in the process with someone you care about and whose support and opinions you value and respect. It has a way of drawing you closer to others. I'm sharing my document here for anyone who'd like to use it. If you do decide to use it, in light of Burkeman's gentle approach, adapt or discard freely. And let me know if you have any trouble accessing it.

​Botanists are disappearing – just when the world needs them most (The Conversation)

I'm reading Candice Millard's 'River of Doubt', an excellent book about Teddy Roosevelt's thrilling and near fatal trip down an Amazon tributary in the Brazilian jungle. A trip he embarked on after a humiliating presidential defeat in 1912. TR sought distraction (and renewed confidence) in the form of adventure, but he was also deeply curious about the natural world and dreamt of exploring the Amazon. He studied botany, geology, and anatomy, and collaborated closely with the American Museum of Natural History, even bringing back artifacts for the museum from his trip to Africa. And yet as unique a public figure as TR was, his interest and knowledge of botany and the natural world wasn't particularly rare among political leaders at the time (or with our founding fathers for that matter). I wrote recently about the history of the Poinsettia and its namesake, the first US ambassador to Mexico, who was an experienced botanist. Fast forward to today, however, and very few of us possess a relationship with the natural world in the way that once seemed commonplace. Researchers have a term they call 'plant blindness,' which describes our inability in daily life to sufficiently notice the nature surrounding us. It should be no surprise there's been a precipitous decline in people studying botany and in the amount of courses offered. This statistic is from the UK, but I would venture a guess the trend is similar in the US. Given the encroaching and ever-greater threat of climate change, this seems like a societal problem that universities shouldn't be relied on entirely to solve.

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Quotes & Musings

The late Anatole Broyard wrote in The New York Times many years ago about a friend of his who had recently retired from psychoanalytic practice. The friend turned to reading novels because he missed “all the details of being and doing.” “Tell me,” Broyard said, “what do you miss most? What did your patients give you that fiction doesn’t?” His friend thought a while (and we should note Broyard’s implicit catty criticism of fiction—he was one of the regular reviewers of it for The New York Times) and said:

Most of all, I miss incongruity. A psychoanalyst, or at least this one, is constantly refreshed, even sustained, by the gorgeous incongruities that people produce under stress. Such a wrench of perspective is a measure of our range, our suppleness. Occasionally a patient will go through the kind of abrupt self-transcendence that’s one of the glories of our species. Without transition, she’ll leap from the disgusting to the sublime, from the petty or mundane to the wildest shores of human sensibility.

-- Brian Kitely, 3am Epiphany​

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