Memos from the Middle

Just a Bookworm

“Was I a weird kid?” My mom giggled a little before she responded.

“No. You were just a bookworm and quiet.”

I’d remembered that about me, too, and how uneasy it made my dad.

“Go outside and play for a while,” he’d say as I’d turn a page. His eyes were pleading with me to do anything other than hole up in some corner with a book. Sometimes I’d take my book with me outside and sit on the porch. Even then I was able to drown out the noise of kids playing and drift into the pages. Dad would sometimes meet me on the porch and question if I were all right. I was, but I was convinced he thought I was strange for finding so much pleasure by myself in the worlds spread across my lap.

When I quit my job as a principal, the first thing I did was order books. I’d decided that in the month between leaving one job and starting the next I would read for pleasure. I read voraciously as a principal, but it was mostly work related. I missed fiction and stories. I missed being whisked away to some other place and time. I missed meeting new people between paperbacked covers.

I probably read 20 books between July and December. Some were new, but many were books I remembered adoring at some other less harried time in my life. I felt giddy and began to slide back toward the me I liked most. So when January came around and I began to contemplate resolutions, I decided to make one that made me happy. I was tired to making “commitments” that would make me feel guilty about not keeping them or be a grind to carry out. I wanted something fun for me and exciting.

I resolved to read about a book a week. I told myself it was fine if I finished more or less. It would not matter if I had physical books, ebooks, or audiobooks. I just wanted to get lost routinely and document the journey of rediscovering my first love.

So here I am at the end of the sixth week of 2024, and so far so good! I have read six books and have enjoyed them all, and just in case you need a good book to read, here are my first six (in order of completion) of the year:

1. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019) – historical fiction but based on a true story; also a Pulitzer Prize winning novel
2. Nigger by Dick Gregory (1964) – autobiography; this is hands down the best book I’ve read so far this year
3. Black No More by George Schuyler (1931) – satire; I literally laughed out loud several times while reading this one
4. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (2018) – historical fiction; let’s just say Civil War Era zombies and black female heroines; this one even had my husband engrossed because I listened to the audiobook at night while he played video games
5. In Search of a Salve: Memoir of a Sex Addict by K E Garland (2023) – memoir; I felt this one the most deeply and saw much of myself and women I know in it
6. Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem by Kevin DeYoung (2013) – Christian non-fiction; several “Amen” moments as I read this one

If you have any book you think I should read, please let me know! But please, no books about education!