I know we’re already a week into January, but I still wanted to blog the books I read in December. It was definitely a lighter month for reading, without the benefit of a reading retreat and with my focus on a big project (that I’ll be announcing soon). I also spent the final week of December in Georgia with family, and while a trip to the beach seems like an opportunity to read, when you’re sharing a house with five kids under the age of six, reading opportunities are rare.
Still, I managed to finish some noteworthy books last month.
After a year on my TBR pile, I finally got around to Cultish by Amanda Montell. I’ll admit that when I first attempted this book, I couldn’t get into it, but when I gave it a go last month, I devoured it in a few days. I love how Montell weaves traditional cults with explorations into MLMs and popular workout trends. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how language shapes our behavior (or who wants to understand the pull of culty groups).
I consider myself lucky to get my hands on my next book in December, Jenny Odell’s Saving Time. Odell is the author of one of my favorite books, How to Do Nothing, and when I heard she was working on a new book, I was more than a little excited. Technically, Saving Time doesn’t come out until March, but I was able to get a digital review copy. Like her previous book, Saving Time is a book to be savored, as it bounces between research and observations on the different ways we view and experience time. I’ll admit that I didn’t find this book as earth-shattering as How to Do Nothing, likely because it seems that Odell and I have similar reading tastes – I had read a number of the books she sites in Saving Time. But I’d still emphatically recommend this book, and I look forward to reading it again when it’s published and I can get my hands on a physical copy.
My final book of the month was a belated birthday present to myself. Ruth Asawa: All is Possible is a collection of essays and photographs from an exhibition of the same name held at David Zwirner Gallery in 2021, an exhibition that I saw and that blew my mind, not least of all because they displayed the doors from Asawa’s Noe Valley home, which Asawa carved herself. If you’re looking for a primer on Asawa’s truly incredible life, I’d start with the biography Everything She Touched. But this book is such a beautiful rumination on Asawa’s art and process that if you’re a fan of her work (which you should be) it’s definitely one to add to your collection.
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