What I Read in January
The light is coming back for us.
It’s Candlemas in the Catholic church (as well as St. Brigid’s feast day and Imbolc), marking the official end of the Christmas/Epiphany season and the return of the light in the Northern hemisphere. I’ll take this to mean that I’m right on time for finally taking down the last of our Christmas decorations—the nativity set and some very crispy pine garland—this weekend.
I always find it funny that ten hours of daylight at the end of January feels wildly different from ten hours of daylight in November. The November daylight is dark and cozy makes you never want to leave your house again. The January/February daylight feels like “Wow, the kids are still playing outside at 5:30 p.m. It’s basically summer!” My houseplants are all perking up, sending out new leaves and demanding more water.
Honestly, I’m perking up and drinking more water.
This is what I mean when I say I love winter (not always a common sentiment in Minnesota). I adore those early nights packed full of candlelight and soup and your warmest pajamas because I know it’s a short-lived season. I also love these days where it’s still snowy and the cold lingers on, but the sun is starting to come back to us. November/December and January/February feel like two entirely different seasons to me.
Despite the very earliest inklings of spring to come (yes, yes, I know it will be a while), I’m still spending my evenings settled firmly by the fire with a dog or two at my feet and a book in my hands (or earbuds). Here’s what I read in January.
The Alloy of Law and Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson
These books are the first in the Era Two Mistborn series, commonly called the Wax and Wayne series after its main characters. The original Mistborn trilogy ended 300 years ago. All the time that’s passed has come with various technological advances, so Era Two takes place in a Wild West type of society, with big cities gaining inventions such as electricity and automobiles, and the outer Roughs remaining a place of relative lawlessness.
I’m enjoying this series so much more than the original Mistborn! The dialogue is snappy, the pacing is fast, and the characters are fun. It doesn’t feel as “epic” as Sanderson’s other books, but the tie-ins and expansion on the themes of the original Mistborn are phenomenal. The religion themes are particularly fascinating to dive into (in tandem with two grad school theology courses, no less).
Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey
The only nonfiction book to make my list this month was well worth reading! Tricia Hersey, also known as the Nap Bishop, is like if your stern but loving fairy godmother showed up to give you a sit-down about how she’s noticed you’re not taking care of yourself and how to do better.
This is decidedly not about the surface-level self-care that goes around on social media. Hersey’s vision of rest ties into faith, community, and clawing back your agency over your own body against the endless productivity culture of capitalism. She also ties the whole thing back to systemic racism and white supremacy. I know there are some folks who would pass by this book on that knowledge alone, but I’d encourage you to push through that discomfort and give it a try. Once you recognize all the ways these various ways social and economic systems are set up to extract everything they can from us—time, energy, health, attention—it’s impossible to go back to happily plugging away in a productivity-at-all-costs mindset.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Tainted Cup is a fantasy-mystery featuring a Holmes-and-Watson-esque duo and a fascinating magic system based in botany. Throw in deadly leviathans threatening the empire, a series of dramatic murders, and a government conspiracy, and you’d think this book would be an obvious winner.
I DNF-ed after nearly 150 pages. I love mystery and fantasy, but this book was just so slow. I can handle a sluggish plot if the characters are well-written. But the main character, Din, felt a bit blah. And I was actively annoyed by the Sherlock stand-in, Ana. I probably would have pushed through were I not in the middle of a semester with piles of reading, but alas, this was a case of the wrong book at the wrong time. However, this is a very popular book with a high star rating on Goodreads, so maybe it is the right book for you!
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
When I hear there’s a new Moriarty book out, I request it at the library without even looking at the back-cover copy. I always enjoy Moriarty’s books, but Here One Moment is by far my favorite of her more recent releases.
Told in her usual style of suspense mixed with humor and deeply nuanced characters, Moriarty introduces us to the woman who will become known as the Death Lady. The other characters meet the Death Lady on a plane—but there’s no need to worry, nothing goes wrong with the flight and all is well. Except that everyone on the flight has been told how and at what age they’re going to die.
Here One Moment is what I wanted The Immortalists to be when I read it years ago (don’t recommend, personally). Moriarty wonderfully captures how different types of people will respond to being told such shocking information, and she explores themes of determinism, choice, and what role we have to play in our own futures. If I have one critique, it’s that there are lots of points of view; sometimes it’s hard to remember what a character left off doing when we finally circle back to them. But overall, another win from this author.
What my kids have been reading
The 10-year-old is officially in her Harry Potter era. She wrapped up the seventh book over Christmas break and immediately started over again with book one. Since then, she has acquired various Harry Potter Lego sets, played Harry Potter video games, started knitting herself a Gryffindor beanie hat, and performed in a Harry Potter skit with her friends in the school talent show. When offered other books to try, she reports that “other books are so boring.” Welcome to your first book hangover, kid.
The 8-year-old, on the other hand, got stuck at the Quidditch World Cup in book four and doesn’t seem ready to move on yet. She blazed through the first half of the Series of Unfortunate Events books and is now rereading the Nancy Drew Clue Crew series.
The 6-year-old continues to grow in independent reading by paging through DogMan books and repeating all the various potty jokes that lie within. I remind myself that “reading is reading” multiple times a day.
The 3-year-old got a new collection of Piggie and Elephant books with a bookstore gift card and has had me reading them on repeat. They’re honestly some of my favorite books for read-alouds, so I’m not complaining!
What have you been reading to get through winter?
I feel like our reading lives are running slightly parallel these days, and completely on accident! I will be adding "Rest is Resistance" to my list ASAP.