My Literature of Accompaniment

On September 23, 2015, I scrawled in my journal: 

Books completed so far since moving: 

1. H is for Hawk 

2. This Year in Jerusalem 

3. After Many Days

And since then, I have not stopped counting. I know people who read far more than I do, and others who read far less. But as the pandemic has given me more time to do one of the things I love most - disappear into a good story - I realized I was near a whole number and set myself a goal: 60 books by the end of August, my Philadelphia residency anniversary. Sixty books in five years would average a book a month, which, in my humble opinion, is awfully respectable. Seven books and over 28,000 cases of COVID-19 later, I reached my goal a month early. 

What some might consider an exercise of futility, pride, or boredom, I found to be one of growth and grounding. The last five years have been the most tumultuous of my life: seven jobs and countless other interviews and applications, heart ache and break and healing, finding and losing friends, three homes and eight roommates, an accident and a lawsuit, spiritual reckonings and deepenings, births and deaths. And through it all, books. Some months and years reading more, some reading less, but always reading. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," writes T.S. Eliot in his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I think of that so often, but my coffee spoons are words spreading across pages of paper in neat bindings. When I flip through my journal and look back at the past five years, when life so often felt like one step forward and two steps back, I can trace at least one through line of progress. I can measure out my life with books. 

Prose was my friend and ally as I navigated my new life in the city, providing questions, answers, challenges, escapes, and reasons to stay. I began to understand the crumbling of my long distance relationship while reading Emma. I got my first full-time job as I read the chatter of 15 year old girls in Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?  As previews started for my Philly stage debut in The Christians, I was in the mind of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. I lost my job, ended my relationship, and moved to a new house while reading about the heart-wrenching loss in What I Loved. As I endeavored into the scary world of dating a stranger for the first time, I devoured Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance.  All these people, places, and plots accompanied me as I spent my days wandering new neighborhoods, experiencing trials and joys expected and unexpected.

There were books I could have done without; books that took too long; books I never finished (uncounted). There were memoirs, short story collections, a graphic novel, fan fiction, a conspiracy theory, and religious commentaries. I ventured into non-fiction for the first time since school, and realized it could be beautifully written and interesting. There were books I lent to others, and books I borrowed. There were books I'd read before, and books I read again (like Persuasion for the 3rd and 4th time), and they always taught me something new, and I only grew to love them more. Book club books, The Rosenbach reading group books, new books, used books, small books, big books, classics and contemporaries. Books that made me want to go to France and books that made me never want to go to France.

Recently, books have complemented my life in uncanny ways. I finished Fulton Sheen's Three to Get Married a few weeks before I met my fiance. With so much time on my hands with the pandemic, I finally embarked into the 1,065 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, unexpectedly discovering it to be a thought-provoking mirror of the liturgical season in which I was reading it: the last few weeks of Lent (prison), the Resurrection at Easter (his escape), and the Ascension (his departure - "wait and hope!"). After spending months on and off with The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, I hit the last chunk of the book which happened to dive deep into the white supremacist history of America just when cities across the United States were protesting, rioting, and reckoning systemic racism in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.  Coincidence, fate, the will of God, or the connective thinking of a liberal arts education - whatever you want to call it, my life is measured out with books. 

When I started counting, I didn't know that I would have a friend die; that I would attend eight weddings, travel to Ireland or Quebec or the Bayou. I didn't know I would hike the Adirondacks with my dad, meet three new nephews and one niece, or pet a lamb on my brother's farm. I didn't know I'd attend my first country music concert, or a quizzo game that would change the course of my life forever. I didn't know I'd become Betsy Ross, or live through a global pandemic. I didn't even know how long - or if - I would stay in Philly. But here I am - five years, three homes, umpteen restaurants, two rock gyms, tens of thousands or maybe millions of steps, a license change, several unemployment checks, and sixty books later - still here. The next chapter will be quite different - engagement, marriage, another move - yet very much the same - friendship, feasting, and books. Many more books. Where will they take me? I don't know, but that's the fun of it. All I do know is, they will propel me forward, even when I'm falling back. Sixty-one must come after sixty. So I'll keep counting, keep turning the page, keep greeting each new chapter with curiosity and hope. I have a inkling, these next chapters might be the best ones yet. 

 

Mary McGinley · Books 2

Here are all 60 books I read the last five years. You might enjoy any or all of these books, but for the sake of ranking because why not, * = highly recommend; bold = favorites 

1. H is for Hawk* 
2. This Year in Jerusalem
3. After Many Days
4. The Vacationers
5. The Faraway Nearby*
6. Empress
7. A Picture is Worth...
8. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
9. Emma
10. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
11. Frankenstein
12. Everything is Illuminated
13. The Emotions God Gave You
14. Mr. Knightley’s Diary 
15. Persuasion
16. What I Loved
17. From the Kippah to the Cross
18. Modern Romance*
19. Rowan of Rin
20. Go Set a Watchman
21. Interred with their Bones
22. Liesl: A Memoir
23. Excellent Women*
24. Moments of Moments Past
25. Moments of Moments Present
26. Moments of Moments Future
27. Moments of Moments Infinite
28. Boston Jane
29. Moby Dick
30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
31. Persuasion (yes, again, and I recommend reading it twice! Well, 4 times if you are like me)
32. Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge*
33. The Cloister Walk
34. Princess Mary of Maryland
35. Shy Feet
36. Organic Manifesto*
37. Laudato Si
38. Papillon
39. Perfect State
40. Deus Caritas Est*
41. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society*
42. The Haunting of Hill House*
43. Manhattan Beach
44. Diary of a Provincial Lady*
45. Three to Get Married
46. French Lessons*
47. Portrait of a Woman in Silk
48. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth
49. The Library Book*
50. 1776
51. Dubliners
52. The Paradigm
53. Not Just Good but Beautiful
54. The Count of Monte Cristo
55. The Wandering Arm
56. The Secret Token
57. The Art of Sleeping Alone
58. The Toughest Indian in the World
59. I am an Emotional Creature
60. Another Brooklyn*