What I read in January
Re-reading The Argonauts, Demon Copperhead (finally), a friendship memoir, and more...
Why does the first month of the year always feel like the longest one? Yes, it’s still January. It gets dark before 5pm, it’s suddenly the type of cold that hurts your teeth, everyone is somewhat under the weather, and, weirdly there’s a lot of pressure to improve your life. Personally I’ve been staying in a lot reading, eating cheese tortellini, and watching Scorsese movies. Partly because it’s too cold to go out but mostly because I’m pregnant.
I will say, one perk of being pregnant in January is that half of my friends are doing Dry January and I’m not the only one ordering Shirley Temples at the bar. I hadn’t had a Shirley Temple in 20 years and let me remind you—they are fun! I had a revelation that Shirley Temples are the dirty martini of zero-proof drinks because they also come with a little snack (maraschino cherry instead of a lil skewer of olives) and when you were a kid you felt like a total badass drinking one, the same way adults feel (let’s be honest) about drinking martinis. If you are avoiding alcohol right now, my neighbor Dorothy makes the best non-alcoholic wine I’ve had. It genuinely tastes like (very good) wine, just without the hangover. I’m obsessed.
Anyway that’s the context for my first read of the year. My brother Rye gave me Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts for Christmas—such a thoughtful gift because it’s about becoming a mother and maintaining your own identity through all of it. It’s one of my top 10 favorite books ever. I read it in 2016 not long after it came out and I was blown away—mostly by the descriptions of desire, sexuality, and finding yourself. I was 23 when I first read it and had just met Julian. I was newly, madly in love and this genius writer Maggie Nelson somehow captured feelings that were exploding within me.
I’d been wanting to revisit The Argonauts for its newfound relevancy to this stage of my life. It was the first book I opened in 2024. Reading it again eight years later, Nelson continues to articulate things I’ve been feeling more eloquently and perfectly than I could ever express. Nelson’s writing about her experience of pregnancy is visceral—there’s no sugarcoating here and some of it made me wince—but the delicate, hard-to-put-into-words thing that she captures best is the effervescent joy for this miraculous unknown.
My recommendation this month: re-read a book that you loved at another time in your life. I promise you’ll get more out of it than you imagine. I love re-reading books. Some people never read books twice because they think it’s a waste of time. That’s like never re-ordering the shrimp tacos at Colonia Verde because “you’ve had them before” or changing the channel if you see a Harry Potter movie is on TV because “you’ve already seen it.” (Wrong answers, both.) Just trust me that it’ll be worth it—and tell me what you end up re-reading!
This month I also read some new (to me) books that totally ruled. Here’s what I read:
A literary exploration of what it means to be queer, in love, a mother, and above all, a person
What more can I say about The Argonauts? It’s a really special, poetic, perspective-altering book. I’ve never read anything like it. Part-memoir, part-philosophy, total brilliance. It’s gorgeous and wise and it will make you feel free.
Winner of my heart—and last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Despite all the buzz, it took me a while to get around to Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, but once I started it I barely put it down. Exactly the all-engrossing, page-turning tornado I wanted to finish out dreary January. I can’t remember the last time I rooted for a character like this. It’s about a boy born into the worst circumstances—poverty, foster care, addiction, you name it—and his journey to adulthood, a celebration of imperfect humanity and resilience. This novel received tons of accolades (Pulitzer Prize, Oprah’s Book Club, longstanding New York Times bestseller) and deserves them all. What a triumph, what a ride!
The debut novel by the author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait
Back in 2000—before literary stardom and numerous writing awards and an acclaimed stage adaptation of her gorgeous novel Hamnet—Maggie O’Farrell published her debut novel: After You’d Gone. The interesting thing about O’Farrell is that her early books are mostly contemporary stories about relationships—when I think of O’Farrell I think of deeply researched historical fiction, not modern romances, so this came as a surprise to me. I’ve read a few of her early novels and this is my favorite by far. It’s a stunning debut with O’Farrell expertly moving through timelines and multiple perspectives to piece together a love story and an “accident” that may-or-may-not be a suicide attempt. I read it in one sitting and found myself astonished.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning friendship memoir that evokes Just Kids
When I think of friendship memoir, two of my all-time favorite books come to mind: Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Ann Patchett’s Truth & Beauty. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Stay True joins their ranks. Hua Hsu (whose day job is staff writer for The New Yorker) writes about being the child of Taiwanese immigrants and growing up in the Bay Area amid ‘zines, MTV, and Nirvana. But the heart of the story is when he goes to college at Berkeley and becomes best friends with a guy named Ken, who, before they graduate, is killed in a random carjacking. Hsu really captures the intensity of friendships in college, the messy intimacy of becoming adults together, and what it’s like when a group of barely-grown college kids have to deal with a real tragedy.
I’ll read anything Claire Keegan writes and so should you
So Late in the Day is made up of three brilliant short stories. In sparse words, Keegan evokes men and women who are drowning in desperation of their own making. It’s glorious and hideous and you won’t be able to look away. The writing is just exquisite. If you are a Keegan completist, these stories might be familiar to you: one was previously published in the New Yorker and the other two come from previous Keegan story collections. Personally, I’ll take all the Keegan I can get.
READING LIST
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell
Stay True by Hua Hsu
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
Happy reading!
Love,
Ali