Bookin' It in 2023

The year 2023 was the most difficult year of my life, for a number of reasons.  I found it nearly impossible to focus on reading for pleasure, but I was able to finish the following four books.

1. The Apology by Eve Ensler
   
2. The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel  
3. Look Again: A Memoir by Elizabeth A. Trembley
4. Practicing to Walk Like a Heron: Poems by Jack Ridl 

Quote of the Day

(My mother) was (ambivalent about my success).  I was revealing intimate stuff about her life.  But that was how I communicated with her.  There was no other way to talk to her except by writing a book.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Alison Bechdel Misses Feeling Special"

Quote of the Day

By looking inward deeply I'm trying to get outside myself and connect with other people.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Drawn from Life: The world of Alison Bechdel."

Quote of the Day

I came out by reading books, not by having actual experiences with other people.  I had this very formative moment: I was browsing in my college bookstore and I found this book called Word Is Out.  It was a book about a documentary film that had been made which was interviews with a whole bunch of gay men and lesbians.  I think it was made in the late '70s.  I was spellbound by this book and as I was reading it, I had this simultaneous realization that, "Oh my God, I am one of these people in this book," and also that it was OK.  Just like that, I accepted it in myself.  I didn't have any long period of struggle.  I had this great opportunity because of the moment, the generational moment, when I came out.  It was OK to be gay in 1980.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad's Secrecy By Being Out And Open”

Quote of the Day

In many ways my life, my professional career has been a reaction to my father's life, his life of secrecy.  I threw myself into the gay community, into this life as a lesbian cartoonist, deciding I was going to be a professional lesbian.  In a way, that was all my way of healing myself.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad's Secrecy By Being Out And Open”

Quote of the Day

Whatever we say, we're always talking about ourselves.

-- Alison Bechdel

Bookin' It in 2013

I set another personal best this year -- reading the following 24 books in '13. The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1.    Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse

2.    The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

3.    Seriously...I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres

4.    Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

5.    Who Farted Wrong?: Illustrated Weight Loss for the Mind by Syd Butler

6.    Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

7.    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

8.    Society's Child by Janis Ian

9.    Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

10. Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott

11. Spit and Passion by Cristy C. Road

12. What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell

13. You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness by Heather Sellers

14. Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

15. American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics by Dan Savage

16. Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins

17. Mentor: A Memoir by Tom Grimes

18. nakedpastor101: Cartoons by David Hayward

19. Six Years With God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple by Jeannie Mills

20. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry

21.  The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy by Robert Leleux

22.  A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master" by Rachel Held Evans

23. The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin 

24. Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott