the best books i read this year
in no particular order
& a quotation from each.
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, Franny Choi
Come in, I whisper
to the wailing in the attic, Come in to the thunder,
to any sound that’ll shake me from doom’s haze.
Journals, Susan Sontag
Grief cannot be converted into any other currency.
Monochords, Yannis Ritsos, tr. Paul Merchant
I saw you, and remembered poems.
A Map to the Door of No Return, Dionne Brand
What language would describe that loss of bearings or the sudden awful liability of one’s own body?
Women, Chloe Caldwell
In my memory it happens quickly—everything of hers in everything of mine. Fingers and tongue. Her palms on my back, her hands in my hair, her breath in my ear saying babybabybaby.
Quiver, Luke Johnson
You bad boy dumb boy you
never enough boy, you fed
the body what it craved
Trysting, Emmanuelle Pagano
Loving him means worrying about him. The air solidifies in my throat. My stomach is full of heavy objects.
Lie With Me, Philippe Besson
I say: I’ll follow you.
At that moment, I would have followed him anywhere, done anything he asked.
Patience and Sarah, Isabel Miller
How easy it was to wake that morning, when the world and my life in it were for the first time more interesting and beautiful than any dream I could lose by waking.