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

Quote of the Day

But I discovered something else in writing this book, something even more graceful and vital than the elusive "perspective."  In all that darkness, there had been love.  What I'd felt all along was not a fantasy, not yet another misinterpretation.  I loved my parents.  I wasn't wrong about that.  And somehow, against all odds, my parents (especially my mother) were able to bring their versions of affection into our world, into our family, as well.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 353

Quote of the Day

My own perspective I do feel moved, even obligated, to share.  The discovery that deeply flawed love and deeply flawed vision can coexist has been life-changing for me, and I feel uniquely able to illuminate it.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 354

Quote of the Day

I think everyone has one day like this, and some people have more than one.  It's the day of the accident, the midlife crisis, the breakdown, the meltdown, the walkout, the sellout, the giving up, giving away, or giving in.  The day you stop drinking, or the day you start.  The day you know things will never be the same again.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 82

Quote of the Day

More than anything else, laying out the story of how I came to see has brought me clarity.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 353

Quote of the Day

I loved when books did this: when the book itself seemed to recognize who was reading it, and what would be best to reveal.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 338

Quote of the Day

Writing and face blindness required the same patience, the same commitment to slowness.  They forced a similar kind of willingness to hang out in frustration and ambivalence.  Failure rates were high in both camps.  In both, writing and recognizing, one had to hang back, leave spaces for the truth to emerge in its own time.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 326

Quote of the Day

Until you can explain a thing clearly to someone else, you don't really know it...

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 320

Quote of the Day

I knew now I'd tell everyone.  I'd tell them over and over for the rest of my life.  And the telling would get better and better.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 317

Quote of the Day

Telling turned out to be exactly like going off the high dive.  The first time was hell.  And then, soon, I was running for the ladder, scrambling up, eager to fling myself off, wondering what kind of special spin I could include, how I could make the telling, the falling, more beautiful, more fun, more creative, more interesting and effective.
 
-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 314

Quote of the Day

I was never going to know -- really know -- what my mother's life had been, what her illness had been, if she'd been diagnosed and kept it a secret -- any of it.  She would remain a mystery, and I had to let her go.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 283

Quote of the Day

I was proud of how I handled her now.  I pretended my mother was a near-extinct, exotic bird.  You had to be very subtle and cagey in your approach.  You had to hold out your hand and pretend you wanted anything other than for her to land there.  I loved the feel of her feathers, the glance of them on my palm, the whisper, and I worked for it.

-- Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 262

Heather Sellers:

I couldn't bear to think of my mother loving me but unable to face me, to stare into my eyes, to care for me emotionally, to offer me her face.  Like any daughter, as much as I wanted to separate from her, I wanted to be deeply connected to her, I wanted to redeem her, I wanted to protect her.  I wanted to love and to understand, in that order.

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 224

Heather Sellers:

For the first time in my life, I felt I could see all the versions of my mother at once.  For the first time, I recognized my mother and saw chaos for what it was: chaos.  It was something I knew, but not something I was in.  I felt clear and strong and calm.  I didn't need her to see me or know me; she wasn't going to be able to do that.  And I could see what needed to happen next.  I could hear Helder whispering in my ear: Sure, help her, do the good-daughter thing -- but do it for yourself and with no attachment to any outcome.  Nothing you do will hold.  Nothing will change.  You can live with a lack of clarity.

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 217

Heather Sellers:

Helder shook his head.  "The adult speaks.  The child who wants to please her mother, who never wants to do anything to make Mom unhappy, she has to be kept in the backseat.  She can't have the car keys."

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 191

Heather Sellers:

He looked at me, kind of checking me over, to see, I suspected, if I could handle the truth.  He cocked his head.  "You might not ever know -- you might not get a clear diagnosis regarding your mother.  You can still take a clear position."

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 191

Heather Sellers:

I could be kind to her, but I was done colluding.  I was starting a new life.

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, p. 120