Recent Reading: February 2023

February’s books were pretty varied, I think: some poetry, some older novels, some creative nonfiction, a couple novels in translation. I liked all of it and some of it I loved — nothing to complain about there.

Before I get into the books, let me plug the latest episode of One Bright Book, which was about Gwendolyn Brooks’s only novel Maud Martha. I loved the book and thought our discussion went in some interesting directions. For April we are discussing The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence — read along with us if you like!

And now, here’s February’s reading:

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015): This is my first poetry book of the year. It’s also my fourth Ross Gay book in two years, and while this is my least favorite of all of them, it’s still pretty great. If you’re interested in reading Gay, I’d start with Be Holding if you want poetry (I wrote about it here) and if you want essays, start with Inciting Joy and then go straight to Book of Delights (and then read Be Holding). Read Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude if you are like me and have become a Ross Gay superfan.

I love Gay for how he writes about joy and delight in very serious ways and how his books — even with their cheesy titles (sorry Ross) — are also about darkness and sorrow. The books are about living in a world that’s falling apart, and as my own sense of the world’s falling apart increases, I find this comforting and bracing. I wasn’t kidding when I said Gay makes me want to change my life; inspired by a mention in Inciting Joy, I read The Undercommons by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, and these books together have had me pondering relationships and community and teaching and structures of society, and … everything.

As for the poems in Catalog, they are chatty and informal, full of the natural world, with images that have lingered in my mind. The poems with figs in them are particularly great. There’s an unforgettable one involving bird shit. The poems are lovely and sensuous, with so much about bodies, trees, dirt, bees, grass. They are generous and beautiful, and, as always with Gay, about suffering as well as gratitude. They are so warm.