It’s been a wonderful month for me reading-wise, and I’m excited to share some of the delicious things I’ve consumed over the last few weeks.
Here you’ll find two books that hit me directly in the heart: one a fiction masterpiece, the other a riveting memoir. Both are quite slim, and readers will be able to get through them fairly quickly. But don’t be fooled—both pack a giant punch that belies their size. Prepare for a range of emotions, and ultimately, a celebration of what it means to be human in moments both beautiful and devastating.
Happy (?) reading!
Go As a River
by Shelley Read
Read it if you’re interested in: Where the Crawdads Sing, the Colorado wilderness, 1940s America
"Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sodden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again and hoping for the best."
A young woman keeps her family’s peach farm running after the untimely death of her mother in rural 1940s Colorado. Her life is rote, full of mundane expectation, until she meets a young man that will change everything.
Short but intensely cogent, this book is so much more than meets the eye. One of the most deeply beautiful things I have read in some time, these words contained within are made to be savored, sentences returned to and devoured over again. Shelley Read, reminds us that despite dramatic differences in our circumstances, we are all more alike than we care to realize, that there is beauty to be found in pain, and that there is grace enough for all of us if only we care to find it.
Crying in H Mart
by Michelle Zeuner
Read it if you’re interested in: Korean culture, mother-daughter relationships, drool-inducing descriptions of food, memoirs
A memoir spanning two cultures and the profound relationship between a mother and her difficult daughter.
Korean-American musician Michelle Zauner writes evocatively about her mother’s untimely death, a heartbreaking story told through the lens of the meals they shared together. What a phenomenal job she does of capturing the intangibles that exist between mothers and daughters, the colossal love that exists in the most difficult moments. Her brilliant focus on meals and their luscious descriptions transports the reader in time and place, as mother and daughter bridge the tremendous gaps in their relationship by sharing a plate.
I adore books that make me cry, my Staff Recommends shelf at the Book Cellar is filled with them. I have Crying in H Mart on my TBR list.