10 things I read in 2015 that I can’t shake

I read a lot throughout the year, but much of it leaves my head the second I put the page down or close whatever tab I have open on my iPad. Huh, that was nice, I think, before opening up YouTube to watch a clip of Kristin Wiig impersonating Khaleesi from Game of Thrones that I have seen a thousand times.

But then there are those handful of things that leave a piece of themselves behind in my mind. The books and articles and essays that I want to push into the hands of everyone I know.

So, in no particular, order:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

This summer I read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History — and loved it. So I picked up The Goldfinch and finished it on Boxing Day this year. I’m putting The Goldfinch on this list not because I liked it better necessarily, but because The Goldfinch, with its meditation on the bond between timeless objects (in this case, a painting) and mortal people affected me so much that it goes on the very, very short list of books that have nudged the orbit of my life in some way after reading them.

The Lonely Death of George Bell by N. R. Kleinfield (NYT, October 17)

An incredibly moving essay that follows the death of one unknown man in New York, helping to paint a vivid picture of a life that would otherwise have simply faded away.

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s A Death in the Family, A Man in Love, and Boyhood Island

I hardly ever read an author’s books back-to-back, but I couldn’t stop with Knausgaard and read all three of these in a row. I have no idea why reading someone write about their life down to the smallest detail is so captivating, but it is. Perhaps it’s because he writes with such excrutiating honesty about himself, good and bad. There are six altogether in the series, but the last two have yet to be translated into English. Boyhood Island, in particular, which I read while lying on beaches in Vancouver, is a wonderful, hazy book about the pleasures and frustrations of childhood.

Aperture Magazine’s Queer issue

I was drawn to Aperture’s Queer issue for obvious reasons (nudey photos!) and was pleasantly surprised to find the writing inside to be just as sharp and interesting as the photos. The essay on queer zine culture is excellent.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

A poetic and urgent book about being a black man in America. Coates leaves behind the often ambiguous language we use when talking about issues of racism by rooting his dialogue securely within the physical body and the violence that has been done, and continues to be done, to black bodies.

The Fearful and the Frustrated by Evan Osnos (New Yorker, August 31)

Donald Trump was the most confusing thing to happen in 2015. This long essay digs into Trump’s appeal and the type of scary, racist white supremacist froth that he has whipped up in the United States. If you want to be terrified by the nonchalant way that some people openly and proudly voice hateful views then this essay is for you.

Jacobin Magazine

I subscribed to this magazine at the beginning of the year and have enjoyed it ever since. While some of the writing can seem copy-pasted from a worked-up student’s term paper, I’m happy that Jacobin, with its socialist viewpoint and sharp voice exists as a counterpoint the explosion of “lifestyle” Kinfolk-esque quarterlies that have become inescapable (especially if you have Instagram). The writing is smart and sweary and it’s packaged in a nice design to boot. You should subscribe, but they also publish a lot of content on their website. The city issue is the one that got me started.

Teach Yourself Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri (New Yorker, December 7)

A wonderful and beautiful little essay on discovering/remaking yourself through language. I have never read one of her books and now I want to go and read all of them.

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

This book is funny and cruel and awkward and I loved all of it. If you’ve ever made up a story about yourself to make yourself a more interesting person (so, basically all of us) you should read this book.

When You Give a Tree an E-mail Address by Adrienne Lafrance (CityLab, July 10)

A lot of shitty things went down in 2015, such that reading the news often became an exercise in trying not to cry all the time. But sometimes amazing and beautiful things happened as well. Like when the City of Melbourne gave their trees email addresses so people could report maintenance issues and instead people began writing to the trees. And then the trees wrote back.