2026 so far

What I've read in 2026

Mar 04, 2026

What happened at the New Orleans? I wrote a bit about my time in New Orleans in this piece. I went there to finish my first draft of the novel I’ve been working on, and instead found some much-needed peace after a tumultuous fall. I’ve slowed down my pace now to where it’s enjoyable instead of feeling like I’m attempting to accomplish something after experiencing some public losses.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading this year, which has been great. Here are the books I enjoyed reading in January:

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

Sula, Toni Morrison

Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem, bell hooks

Saint, Sierra Simone

The Trees, Percival Everett

Football, Chuck Klosterman

My fave was Sula. I wrote a bit about it in Monday’s newsletter:

I won’t claim to be a Morrison scholar. Before this year, I was only familiar with The Bluest Eye and the film Beloved. I resolved to read all of Morrison’s works this year, beginning with Sula, when I visited New Orleans for a weeks-long writing retreat in January. It took me a week to get through the book at first, rereading passages and notating the book, and consulting The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison. I don’t recall ever being moved by a book so much. When I reached the ending, and Nel realized that the love she most missed in her older age was not her husband’s, it was her friendship with Sula. When Nel sees leaves stirring in nearby trees, she calls out, “Sula? All that time, all that time I thought I was missing Jude. We was girls together. O Lord, Sula. Girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.”
I lost a best friend in October. A few years ago, Ted was in a surfing accident that paralyzed him. He was walking again within a year, defying the odds of doctors. We became even closer after that accident. He made me realize how important it is to cherish the time you have with the people in your life. To tell them you love them. I’m sad that I won’t have any more time with Teddy, but I have no regrets about the time we spent together. I always told him how much I cared about him. He always did the same. In the final moments of Sula, Nel regrets that she never told Sula how much she loved her before she died. But at Sula’s death, we, the readers, know that Sula’s final thoughts are of Nel. Upon dying, Sula thinks: “Well, I’ll be damned. It didn’t even hurt. Wait’ll I tell Nel.” Knowing that my friend’s final moments weren’t painful, that they ended on his own terms after five years of pain he couldn’t control, brought me peace in his loss. It brought peace to many of us, his family and friends, at his memorial in January, where many of the eulogies wrestled with Ted’s choice.
When I read the final page of Sula, I put the book down and cried. My intention for my trip to New Orleans was to finish the novel I’d begun after my apartment burned down in September. But I learned that the real reason I’d ended up in New Orleans was to grieve. Serendipitously, Sula opens with a quote from Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, a play written for his lover Frank Melo, who lived with him in New Orleans. Sorry for being into woo woo shit, but it felt as if I was meant to read this book at this particular time in my life. I read the book again the next day. Every time I mentioned reading it at a party, there was always someone excited to discuss how much it moved them, also. In a moment when illiteracy is the weapon of our oppressors, how inspiring it is to be able to discuss literature! At parties!

A personal goal of mine is to read all of Morrison’s works this year. I began the year with Playing in the Dark: Whitness and the Literary Imagination. I’m currently reading a first edition of Tar Baby that I tracked down at a used bookstore.