A Year in Reading: Chelsea Bieker
My own novel came out just as the lockdowns began, and my dreams with connecting with other writers I so admire, and readers in real life, were abruptly cancelled. Mid-March, as things unfolded in a strange haze like frenzy, I took one last trip to Powell’s Books on Hawthorne before they closed, and feverishly bought books as if I was headed, along with everyone else, on some strange panic-laden vacation. Only a few weeks of this probably, I thought, as I selected my then kindergartner a workbook. I chose my own stack (it would soon become obvious it was way too small) and headed out into a new world.
It is hard now, after so much has happened, to recall what I read before mid-march. January and February may as well have been their own year. I know I read. I loved by , and by . I read’s incredible novel . Was stuck on books about trauma stored in the body— by , and by . But I suppose I was more focused on writing essays to help promote my own book, floating through life in a state of awe looking at a year I was sure to be the best one yet.
