I promise myself, in 2022, (Not a resolution, mind you. A promise…) I will focus on one book at a time. And wham. I find myself in the middle of FIVE books.

I start the year strong. I read Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence. I read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, based on a recommendation from the main character in The Sentence. I watch Hitchcock’s 1940 version of Rebecca. I do one thing at a time. I am good. (Erdrich does the meanest thing possible at the end of The Sentence. She gives an extensive list of books to read, based on the recommendation of the main character, Tookie. Tookie works in a bookstore and is very well read. Now I must read all of those books. It’s terrible.)

The one of five I start first is a book-mail gift from a former co-worker and Marinuska book club attendee. I receive an unexpected, padded envelope from her and open it to find the last book I saw her reading, right before I left Denver. Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss is a collection of essays by Margaret Renkl (illustrated by her brother Billy Renkl). Renkl writes about her relationship to nature and animals as present in current day life in Nashville, while interspersing stories from her childhood in Alabama.

One essay about an old dog, told from the dog’s perspective when his humans leave for the day, unravels me in a way that makes me put the book down for quite a bit. It is common with me and books of essays or short stories to stretch out their reading. I almost always have at least one on the nightstand for when I’m in between books.

I find myself getting ready for a flight from Denver to Bismarck and need a new book, so I do what any other avid reader does and get myself three. I download The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid on audio. This is an accident because I thought I requested the e-book from the library, but it was the audio version. I do that from time to time. I don't love listening to books because it's hard for me to concentrate but after waiting for a few months, I'm not going to wait any longer. I recently read Jenkins Reid’s Malibu Rising and enjoyed it so I decide listening to Evelyn Hugo will be ok. I am bit skeptical because the main theme of famous actress hiring an unknown writer to write her tell-all biography sounds so much like one of my favorite books ever, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (read this if you haven’t!). I think this did taint my experience but overall, I enjoyed Evelyn Hugo.

I also download two library books, one non-fiction and one poetry collection. Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water is by Kazim Ali, whose autobiographical poetry book Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities was introduced to me in a Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop class, I attempt to read sitting belly up at the airport bar, over a coffee and breakfast sandwich. I stop reading because it’s making me too teary. I no longer apologize for crying but leaking emotions out of my eyes, alone at the airport bar, is where I draw the line.

In Northern Light, Ali returns to a small town of his youth, a Canadian town called Jenpeg. Jenpeg was constructed for the purpose of building a hydroelectric dam in Manitoba. Once the dam was complete, the town was torn down. As an adult, Ali stumbled upon startling information on the environmental effects of the dam and the local Pimicikamak community. He decides to visit the area even though the town of his youth is dismantled. The story of the people in the community is at time heartbreaking, at times hopeful and yet always giving and kind. It’s also a story of Ali, searching for the meaning of place and being. Soul-searchingly trying to answer the age-old question, “Where are you from.” I highly recommend both Bright Felon and Northern Light.

The last one is a poetry collection called The January Children. It reads like a memoir, another story of finding one’s place in a postcolonial world. The author, Safia Elhillo, was born in Sudan while it was occupied by the British. She addresses some of the poems to the late Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez, which I found very endearing way to share the culture of her youth. These poems could be read casually over a week or devoured in one sitting, which is what I did. I can't wait to read her upcoming novel, Home is Not a Country.

I am proud to say I am currently reading only two books! I am rereading The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. It's my book club's January pick. And I am reading Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King, a short story collection. I will keep reminding myself of Adam Grant's words of wisdom and work on quality over quantity.