Books Archives - Maggie InkMaggie Ink

The 2019 book and music mashup extravaganza

December 15, 2019

Remember those cologne machines in truck stop bathrooms where you could buy cheap imitations of the real thing? “If you like Obsession, you’ll love Desperate Measures.” “If you love Chanel No. 5, might as well try Channel 42.” “Love Polo Sport? Welp, here’s Fantasy Football.”

This post is like that, but in a good way. And when it’s over, you won’t smell like a quarter’s worth of sadness.

Here’s how it works: I’ve mashed together my favorite books that I read in 2019 (though not necessarily published this year) and my favorite 2019 songs. Each tune has some kind of tenuous connection with the book I paired it with, so if you like a book on this list, you’ll probably like the song too. And vice versa. So if you like Carmen Maria Machado, you’ll love Mallrat! Maybe.

Let’s get this party started!

Good Talk • Mira Jacob

A graphic novel-style memoir about American identity, race, sex, relationships, and raising a brown child in the Trump era, all told in conversations. Jacob goes to uncomfortable places and tackles the things we should be talking about but aren’t.

Mashed with: Truth Hurts • Lizzo

My Sister the Serial Killer • Oyinkan Braithwaite

A darkly funny novel about a young, beautiful Nigerian woman who can’t stop murdering her boyfriends and the exasperated but reliable sister who bails her out of trouble. Until the serial killer falls for the sister’s crush …

Mashed with: Glad He’s Gone • Tove Lo

Lost Children Archive • Valeria Luiselli

A fractured family on a road trip out west, set against the backdrop of an immigration crisis as children crossing the southern U.S. border are detained or dying in the desert. This novel was so stunning and gutting, I think I highlighted something on every page.

Mashed with: Texas Sun • Khruangbin & Leon Bridges

Red, White & Royal Blue • Casey McQuiston

A romance in which America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales. I was clawing my way through a particularly low point when a friend recommended this book. Turned out a fun, flirty, escapist read was exactly what I needed.

Mashed with: boyfriend • Ariana Grande

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls • T Kira Madden

A queer coming-of-age memoir in essays that instantly became one of my all-time favorite books. As soon as I finished, I went right back to the beginning and read it a second time to figure out how she did it.

Mashed with: Sister Sister • Palm Springsteen

Heavy • Kiese Laymon

I listened to Heavy, which is read by the author, and then I bought a print copy to hold in my hands and see the words on the page. This memoir is about the emotional and physical burden of growing up black in America, examining the secrets Laymon spent a lifetime avoiding.

Mashed with: Water Me Down • Vagabon

Once More We Saw Stars • Jayson Greene

Greene’s two-year-old daughter was sitting on a park bench in Manhattan when a brick fell from a nearby windowsill and killed her. This memoir opens with that incident and follows Greene and his wife through their journey of grief. I don’t know how he managed to craft such a wonder out of true horror, but I’m grateful he did.

Mashed with: Thank You • Quincy Mumford

In the Dream House • Carmen Maria Machado

In this memoir, Machado explores an abusive same-sex relationship through dozens of different lenses, like horror tropes, fairytales, and a devastating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure sequence. This book blew my figurative house down.

Mashed with: Groceries • Mallrat

Daisy Jones & the Six • Taylor Jenkins Reid

A romance written as an oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-ish band in the late seventies? God, just take my money already.

I devoured this book, and then I ripped through a bunch of other TJR books for good measure.

Mashed with: Van Horn • Saint Motel (which includes my favorite lyric of 2019: “Hold it steady, drill it in like you’re J. Paul Getty.”)

Kindred • Octavia Butler

Hi. I’m the one person who never read Octavia Butler before this year, and I don’t know what took me so long. This historical fiction/fantasy novel about an African-American woman in 1976 California who travels through time to antebellum Maryland is considered to be the first science fiction written by a black woman, and it’s a true classic.

Mashed with: Turn the Light • Karen O & Danger Mouse

Convenience Store Woman • Sayaka Murata

A slim novel about a woman who has no friends, no boyfriend, and no real life outside of the soothing structure of the convenience store where she has spent her entire career.

Mashed with: Class Historian • BRONCHO

The Book of Delights • Ross Gay

Ross Gay has written micro-essays about moments of delight. Some of them are guilty pleasures, some are natural joys, but most show how we are always just a few inches away from sorrow – and it can be a radical act to feel joy and gratitude in a sad world.

Speaking of guilty pleasures, I think I like Harry Styles now? And I definitely find joy in watermelon, my favorite food. So this song here is my Tune of Delights.

Mashed with: Watermelon Sugar • Harry Styles

Dreyer’s English • Benjamin Dreyer

This is a funny, clever grammar book that I tore through like a juicy novel.

I’ve paired it here with Goth Babe, which has been my favorite writing music lately.

Mashed with: Weekend Friend • Goth Babe

How to Stay Human in a Fucked-Up World • Tim Desmond

Finally a mindfulness book that doesn’t feel like it was written by a blissful, solitary monk on a mountaintop. This is real talk and real meditation exercises for the real (fucked-up) world.

I Feel Emotion • Operators

Of course I have more favorites that didn’t make it into this smashup. For the books I read this year, peep my Goodreads and to see other 2019 songs I loved, here’s my playlist.

Wanna see lists from previous years? Here’s 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.

NOTE: There are affiliate links in this post. So if you click through and buy something, it doesn’t change anything on your end; it just means Amazon gives me a few pennies, which I use to help pay for this site because I am happy to take their money.

The Great Best Books + Best Songs Mashup of 2018

December 1, 2018

This might be my favorite thing I do all year long: It’s a great, big mashup of the best books I enjoyed reading in 2018 (though not necessarily published this year), along with my favorite songs released this year. So if you like a song, you’ll probably like the book I’ve paired it with — and vice versa.

I always like making annual lists of my top books and favorite music as a way to reflect on what I’ve consumed and enjoyed during the year. But last year I smooshed the two lists together, and it changed the whole game. (You can see that here.)

I liked it enough to do it again. So here we go! You’re welcome.

There There • Tommy Orange + Arrows • Haux

A harrowing novel told through intersecting stories of urban Native Americans in Oakland, There There delves into the kind of trauma that endures through generations. I paired it with Arrows, a song of grief and many facets of heartache.

Circe • Madeline Miller + Baby • Bishop Briggs

Circe is a lesser god-turned-island witch who sleeps with inappropriate men, tames wild beasts, and makes questionable decisions for love — similar to the narrator in this Bishop Briggs song, who sings, “My baby’s got a fucked up head, doesn’t matter ’cause he’s so damn good in bed … yeah, he’s fucking crazy, but he’s still my baby.”

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine • Alan Lightman + New Birth in New England • Phosphorescent

Alan Lightman wrote some of my all-time favorite fiction, so I was already predisposed to enjoy this work of nonfiction, a lyrical meditation that explores the tension between our yearning for permanence and certainty. I’ve paired it with a song about getting older, significant life changes, and a literal birth.

Becoming • Michelle Obama + Better With You • Michl

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why Michelle Obama’s bestselling autobiography is worth reading. Here I’ve paired it with this Michl song for the line, “This house feels better with you.”

As in White House. I want her back in the White House. That house feels better with her.

Michelle, please come home.

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us • Hanif Abdurraqib + I Like It • Cardi B

I’ve raved about They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us to just about everyone, and I don’t think I ever do this book justice. Abdurraqib is a poet, so the prose is lyrical and precise, and his insightful essays blend pop culture and social justice, covering everything from a Carly Rae Jepsen concert to the shooting of Michael Brown, and everything in between. Each piece was a genuine surprise, and I never knew if I would end up crying or laughing.

I paired Abdurraqib’s collection with this pop confection, because it seems like the kind of thing he might write about someday. Also I’ve liked Cardi B ever since I read about her illegal butt filler injections, back when she was a stripper, because that’s the kind of dedication to craft that I admire.

Less • Andrew Sean Greer + Tieduprightnow • Parcels

Less, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year, is the story of an aging, failed novelist who receives an invitation to the wedding of his ex-boyfriend. Rather than confront his feelings, the novelist travels around the world and occupies his time in other ways, occasionally with other men.

Tieduprightnow is a perfect match, especially the chorus: “The one I need is tied up right now/So let’s just wait a while/The one I need is tied up right now/So let’s not draw the line …”

Call Me By Your Name • André Aciman + Back to You • Selena Gomez

A summer romance blossoms between a 17-year-old boy and an older scholar staying at his house. It’s a powerful story about intimacy, undeniable attraction, and what happens when passion is indulged. Plus a peach.

This pairs nicely with Back to You, a song of desire from the perspective of someone willing to make the same choices all over again: “I want to hold you when I’m not supposed to/when I’m lying close to someone else/You’re stuck in my head and I can’t get you out of it/If I could do it all again, I know I’d go back to you.”

How to Get Into Our House and Where We Keep the Money • Panio Gianopoulos + The Heart is a Muscle • Gang of Youths

I’m Panio’s biggest fan, so I’ll read anything he writes. Truly. I once read an article he wrote about paying off student loans, even though my personal longterm repayment plan involves faking my own death, so that should tell you something. OF COURSE his achingly beautiful little package of stories ranks at the top of my list.

I paired it with Gang of Youth’s The Heart is a Muscle, because strengthening the heart feels like a good compliment to a book that examines many forms of love: relationships that exist within family, domestic chaos, fumbling for connection, a ridiculous Pomeranian.

But I just read through the lyrics again and realized this might be a Jesus song. Damn it.

Exit West • Mohsin Hamid + Holding On • Nightly

This is an exquisite story about migrants and immigration in which people travel to new countries via literal doors that act as portals, but at the heart of it is the love story of refugees Nadia and Saeed.

I’ve paired it with a sweet pop song about memory and the things we cling to as reminders of love.

Touch • Courtney Maum • Everybody Wants to Be Famous • Superorganism

Touch is a sharp, insightful novel that skewers high-tech, modern consumer culture, and it was one of my best reading experiences of the year. Not only did it make me laugh, but I thought about the characters for a long time after I finished the book. I’m pairing it with Everybody Wants to Be Famous, because that’s an obvious match for a satire about a culture based on likes.

Citizen: An American Lyric • Claudia Rankine + This is America • Childish Gambino

Citizen contains some of the most urgent, important writing I’ve ever read, and it dovetails so perfectly with this Childish Gambino song (and video) that looks at what it means to be a person of color in America.

Silence: In the Age of Noise • Erling Kagge • Nevermind • Dennis Lloyd

It might seem weird to pair a song with a book about finding space for silence in a busy an chaotic world. And it is weird, which is exactly why I placed it with a quiet, slow burn of a song called Nevermind.

Woman World • Aminder Dhaliwal + Make Me Feel • Janelle Monáe

Woman World is about a world without men, and I read it just after the Kavanaugh hearings, which made this charming comic even more of a delight. In Woman World, women rebuild society but better (the new flag is simply a picture of Beyoncé’s thighs) and study relics of the former world, like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

Woman World started as an Instagram comic, so the graphic novel version doesn’t have a strong storyline to pull the reader through the book. But the panels are so cute and funny, it makes for a quick, entertaining read anyway. I paired it with the great bisexual anthem of 2018, although any Janelle Monáe song would work.

Ohio • Stephen Markley + Wait By the River • Lord Huron

My experience of reading Ohio involved a lot of googling. First because the fictional town in this novel felt so real, I swore I had been there. And the characters — I knew them all.

Then I googled because I developed a deep, profound writer crush on author Stephen Markley. Every time I read a passage that I swore was the best thing I’ve ever read, it was followed by another greatest thing I’ve ever read.

Ohio is the story of four former classmates who converge one night in their hometown, a small rust belt town that has been gutted by the recession, opioids, and the loss of industry. It’s melancholy and perceptive, examining the Midwest through the compassionate lens of someone who’s been there.

I paired the book with this Lord Huron song about mistakes and second chances, which would resonate with any of the imperfect, disillusioned characters at the heart of this story. Also because “If I can’t change the weather, maybe I can change your mind” destroys me. Just like Markley’s writing.

Wonder Valley • Ivy Pochoda + One Trick Ponies • Kurt Vile

I actually just started this book, so I can’t say yet that it’s one of my favorite reads of the year — mostly I just wanted an excuse to post this Kurt Vile song, which sounds like the desert to me.

“Some are weird as hell, but we love ’em/ Some are one trick ponies but we embrace ’em.”

I’ll have another post soon with a few more favorite tunes from 2018; I just couldn’t make them work with any books. In the meantime, what did I miss? Tell me about the books and songs you loved this year.

2017 in summary

December 31, 2017

The world's cutest toddler, running along a beach

My focus word for 2017 was “abundance,” and I spent all year trying my darnedest to cultivate that.

And failing. I failed so hard, you guys. My failures were abundant.

Financially, it was one of my driest years since I started freelancing. There were long and seemingly endless spans of time where nothing was accepted or published, even though I wrote, pitched, queried, and followed up obsessively. At one point I read an article that advised writers to aim for 100 rejections per year, and I cackled like a mad woman in a Brontë novel — I was hitting about 100 rejections (or non-responses) per month.

It was depressing. It felt like I was trying to climb a mountain, and even though I was doing my part, I couldn’t quite get there. I researched the trail, I showed up in hiking boots, I carried all the right gear, I had the motivation and desire to put in the work. Then mere steps from the top, I toppled for whatever reason, forcing me to start all over again.

Just when I considered calling it quits, I attended the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop in magical Granada, Spain. It helped recharge my batteries on just about every level, from inspiring me to write new things and look at my work in a different way to satisfying my itchy feet and proving I can still travel solo.

Soon after, I placed some of my favorite pieces, like this essay for LitHub about Silent Book Club, a piece about wildflowers and making my own roots in the desert for Palm Springs Life (the online version is a little wonky with some repeated paragraphs, but you can see it here anyway), and a funny/sad essay about a rat for Mutha Magazine.

I also started hosting a radio show about books with Tod Goldberg. I received an acceptance from an outlet that has been on my byline bucket list for decades. I registered for the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop, because I want to find my way toward humor writing again. I read 51 books.

Other good things happened: A road trip to Vegas, a quick jaunt to Portland, a terrific visit with my sister. I reconnected with old friends and made some new ones. As a family, Jason, Everest, and I slept in a tipi under the stars in Pioneertown, hiked through a couple of Canada’s spectacular national parks, and explored Vancouver, now one of our favorite cities.

Also Everest turned 3, and he has grown into someone I genuinely love to hang out with. He’s funny and weird and makes me laugh until I wheeze. We have dance parties, take silly selfies, and haven’t found a trail yet that we don’t want to explore.

In November Everest and I hiked 30 miles together, and most of those were quiet morning jaunts, clambering over rocks, scraping up knees, and listening to birdsong. I cherish every one of those miles.

Now we’re ending on a high note. We just finished a family road trip that was just about as perfect as those things get. We started by seeing the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at The Broad in Los Angeles, and stayed the night in Solvang, a quirky Danish-themed town. Then we spent a few easy days at Morro Bay, listening to seals bark, running on the beach, and sipping hot cocoa as the sun sank.

Our last morning in Morro Bay is a memory that I hope lasts, as it seems to sum up the whole year for me. It’s Everest, barreling down the pastel beach, gathering sand dollars by the handful. He carries them to me, holds these urchins to his chest, makes careful piles of them. He tosses some into the ocean; the rest he tucks into the pockets of my old college sweatshirt.

This is abundance. My pockets hang heavy with sand and salt and shells, and my heart is so full it’s buoyant. I am sand dollar rich, and I have all the things that matter.

2017 Best books + best songs mashup

December 9, 2017

To mark the end of 2017, I mashed up my favorite songs of the year with the best books I read this year – kind of like a “Like that tune? Then you’ll love this book!” (This is not my idea, by the way. I saw @keyairruh do this on Twitter with pairings of albums and books, and I loved it.)

Some of the books and songs are paired because they are thematically similar or share the same sensibility. A few of the songs had lyrics that reminded me of the text. And some are mashed together just because they evoked similar feelings in me.

Keep in mind, I’ve been sick for one-going-on-two weeks and I’m delirious right now. So if these pairings don’t make sense, blame it on Flupocalypse 2017. But if the results are totally awesome, then it was me, all me.

Enjoy.

Split Stones • Maggie Rogers + Goodbye, Vitamin • Rachel Khong

Thirty-year-old Ruth, fresh from a breakup, quits her job and returns home to help her father, who is slipping into dementia. This is a beautiful story about devotion and what it means to be a family, and I found it almost painfully relatable.

Dreams • Beck + The Humans • Matt Haig

I won’t try to describe this novel because then you won’t read it. I’ll just say that it made me feel better about being a human, which is exactly what I needed this year.

Blow Your Mind (Mwah) • Dua Lipa + We Are Never Meeting in Real Life • Samantha Irby

An essay collection that made me laugh until I wheezed. I bought this for my flight home from Spain, and I have zero regrets.

Bike Dream • Rostam + A Separation • Katie Kitamura

A meditative and suspenseful novel about the end of a marriage and the things people never reveal to each other.

Havana • Camila Cabello (ft. Young Thug) + Best Women’s Travel Writing, Vol. 11* • Edited by Lavinia Spalding

*Full disclosure: This anthology contains one of my essays, so you can trust me when I say it was the best book of the year.

Also I had a hard time deciding between “Havana” and this song to illustrate it. I’m kind of obsessed with both of them.

In Undertow • Alvvays + Little Fires Everywhere • Celeste Ng

The book starts with a literal fire and works backward to explore the conflicts that set the community ablaze.

Green Light • Lorde + Catalina • Liska Jacobs

The dark, deeply resonant story of a woman’s downward spiral.

The Underside of Power • Algiers + Born a Crime • Trevor Noah

The harrowing life of a comic coming of age during the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Quiet • MILCK + The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage • Jared Yates Sexton

An honest and often disturbing look at the 2016 election.

Happy Wasteland Day • Open Mike Eagle + The Hate U Give • Angie Thomas

A riveting YA book about a girl who witnesses the shooting death of her friend at the hands of a police officer.

Over Everything • Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile + The One-Eyed Man • Ron Currie

A grieving man devotes himself to radical honesty, which turns out to be equal parts hilarious and infuriating.

Supermodel • SZA + One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter • Scaachi Koul

An essay collection from one of my favorite fresh voices.

Shh Shh Shh • Boss Hog + What You Don’t Know • JoAnn Chaney

A thriller that kept me up all night long.

The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness • The National + The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir • Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

One of the most exquisite books I’ve ever read. It’s a masterful memoir about obsession and how scars can last for generations.

Feel It Still • Portugal, the Man + The Power • Naomi Alderman

I’m still high on this book, in which women suddenly gain the power to shock people with their hands, an exhilarating antidote to the news cycle.

What were your top books and songs this year? Do you have any good pairings for me?

Note: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase a book through my links, it’s no additional cost to you and Amazon will throw a few cents my way. It’s helps to keep the lights on around here, and I appreciate it. Thank you!

Great Books to Read During Bed Rest

September 4, 2017

One of my friends has a friend currently on bed rest, and she asked for some book recommendations to help make the time pass. My friend asked me for some suggestions.

It reminded me of how I passed the month of November 2008. I had just donated my bone marrow to a stranger, and the recovery was longer and more painful than I expected. (I would happily do it again, though.)

My friend Maria showed up to my condo with a brown grocery sack of novels, including the Undead paranormal romance series, about a woman named Elizabeth (Betsy) Taylor who loses her job, gets killed, and becomes queen of the vampires, all on the same day. Betsy is kind of like Alicia Silverstone in Clueless-meets-Pam from True Blood, and the books are every bit as addictive as drinking blood. Or so I’m told.

Maria also brought me a little series called Twilight. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

I loved these books with no regrets, even while others might scoff at them, because they brought me out of my body at a time I didn’t want to be in it. Each novel was highly engaging, page-turny, and exactly what I needed at that time — and I still think about all those stories fondly.

So trust me, I know what a joy it is to receive a huge stack of books during a time of forced rest. The ideal bed rest book is immersive, has quick action, and is compelling enough to transport the reader to some far-off place.

Here are the suggestions I gave my friend. If you have others, I’d love to hear them in the comments:

• The Sun is Also a Star – Nicola Yoon

This is a YA book about two tenagers who fall in love on a street in New York just hours before the girl’s family is about to be deported. The story is told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of different characters (not just the two teenagers, but the security guard at the court building, for instance), and it’s sweet without being sappy.

• Anything by Rainbow Rowell, because her stories are always sharp and funny and compulsively readable, particularly Eleanor & Park, and Attachments

• Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

This was less of an instructional self-help book and more of a memoir. Shonda is funny, her life experiences are relatable, and the book is a quick, inspiring read.

• What You Don’t Know – JoAnn Chaney

Into thrillers? I am not, and I loved every word of this one. My friend JoAnn wrote this twisted and gripping novel about a serial killer in Denver and the female reporter who gets a little too close to the story.

• Girl in the Dark – Anna Lyndsey

This is memoir that might be relatable for someone on bed rest. It’s about a woman who develops an allergy to light, so she is forced to stay in her house, only going outside on moonless nights.

• Kitchens of the Great Midwest – J. Ryan Stradal

A novel in connected stories about a Midwestern girl who becomes an acclaimed chef. J. Ryan is from the Midwest and he tells the story with so much warmth for the region and the cuisine.

• Love Me Anyway – Tiffany Hawk

This is another book written by a friend. It’s a novel about two young flight attendants experiencing the world, taking journeys, and coming of age at 35,000 feet.

• Yes, Please – Amy Poehler

Funny, of course. It’s Amy Poehler, and everything she does is gold. And the birth plan chapter still hits home for me.

• Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor

Follow Karou through the streets of Prague with this fanciful, mysterious novel. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious errands, she speaks many languages, and her hair actually grows out of her head blue. Who is she?

• The Uglies series – Scott Westerfeld

The Hunger Games meets that awful show The Swan in this series about a dystopian world in which every 16-year-old is required to have cosmetic surgery to become “pretty.” It’s chilling how such a beautiful world can become so ugly.

Full disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links. If you buy something through the link, you won’t pay any more, but I will get a small percentage that helps keep the lights on around here. Thank you!

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