Hello!
A couple of years ago I saw a tweet where someone said that they try and start their New Year’s Resolutions a couple of weeks before the end of the year because by the time they become a bit bored of going to the gym or start itching for the vape, the first of December rolls around and the motivation they need kicks in again, making it easier to form a habit. So I guess you could say that’s what I’m doing here. One of the habits I want to foster in 2023 is to write more and share more about what I’m reading/watching/thinking about so here I am channelling my inner Carrie Bradshaw. Maybe 2022, the year of reboots (looking at you too, Gossip Girl) has made blogging cool again?
So, let’s consider this one Chapter Zero and I’ll start this whole thing in earnest come January. But first (in case someone other than my mother reads this) a bit about me: I’m Maryam, I am twenty five years old, I am a Virgo, my favourite colour is purple, I am a middle child (these are all fundamental facets of my personality btw), I have a penchant for parentheses (and alliteration), I love trivia and languages - as evidenced by my 365+ day duolingo streak (courtesy of the pre NY resolution hack of 2022), and I work in children’s publishing. I have a (now defunct) “bookstagram” account - curse you hackers and Mark Zuckerburg for making it mind-bogglingly difficult to re-login to an account when you no longer have access to an email address!!! So this newsletter, is an iteration, a continuation of sorts where you can read my half-baked takes on literature, film, television and just whatever I’ve been thinking about that month.
I am a naturally introspective person who always feels sentimental and reflective at this time of year so I’ve decided to make this a round-up chapter of sorts - talking about the books I’ve read this year and highlighting some of my favourite films and TV I’ve watched this year too.
My goal was to read fifty books this year, which did not happen. I have read thirty-three so far and maybe I’ll be able to squeeze a couple more in before the clocks strike midnight on the 31st but we’ll see. Fifty was an arbitrary and optimistic goal so I’m just glad that I’ve managed to read about ten more books than I did last year and with a more varied list. About a third of the books I read were non-fiction which is probably, somewhat embarrassingly, the most non-fic I’ve ever read and seven were translated into English from various foreign languages.
The full list is below for your perusal and judgement but without a doubt some of the best books I’ve read this year have been translated from Italian (Ferrante, di Pietrantonio, Moravio). I’ve really appreciated translated fiction this year and its ability to introduce me to completely new worlds of literature I had previously never considered. I also listened to a few audiobooks this year, a way of reading I had previously turned my nose up at, but I’ve stepped off my high horse and enjoy listening to a few but a good narrator is truly the key. A particularly successful audiobook for me was Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies which follows a woman who works as an interpreter at the ICC in the Hague, examining her relationships with her best friend, her married boyfriend and the war criminal she interprets for. 2022 also saw me read my first Toni Morrisson, having tried and failed to get into Beloved on more than one occasion, I instead delved into Sula and adored the rich and stirring exploration of friendship and mothers and daughters and Black womanhood. It is a book that fizzes with myth and magic and I’m sure I’ll revisit it in years to come.
Onyi Nwabineli’s debut novel Someday, Maybe instantly moved me when I read it. It followed British-Igbo Eve in the aftermath of grief after her husband’s suicide. I thought it conveyed the reality and rawness of mourning. As Eve looks back on the life she shared with her husband, Nwabineli weaves a sort of reversed, unconventional tragic love story which I felt was really well-crafted. I also discovered some excellent non-fiction in the form of memoirs and autobiographical essays, reading some stunning, heart wrenching and at times darkly-comic books from Jennette McCurdy, Michelle Zauner, Thomas Bernhard, Audre Lorde and Joan Didion.
As for the films I’ve enjoyed this year, I have a Letterboxd account if you’re interested for the full breakdown but at the beginning of the year I did a bit of a dive into Wes Anderson’s oeuvre as Moonrise Kingdom is one of my favourite movies and I now also have a particular soft spot for The Royal Tenenbaums and Darjeeling Limited (an orientalist’s wet dream I know but the portrayal of siblinghood is beautiful and perfect imo). As for new releases, Nope and The Woman King were absolute standouts for me. I’m a Jordan Peele girly anyways and Keke Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya and Steven Yeun all together on the big screen was almost too much for me to handle and The Woman King is the reason why one of my 2023 goals is to get hench so enough said.
I found that I watched movies in a bit of a thematic way this year and three of the films I especially enjoyed were all about nannying (I guess these spoke to me because I was briefly an au pair in a previous life) Saint Frances, Oscar-winning Roma and Ilo Ilo all explored what it meant to care for children that were not your own in America, Mexico and Singapore respectively. I find the sort of tension between being paid to care for, look after and essentially love a child while ultimately being an outsider in their home so interesting and I think it makes for great watching when it’s well done like it is in these three films. I also finally put my big girl pants on and got a MUBI subscription where I watched some visually stunning films like The Worst Person in the World, You Will Die at Twenty and The Last Black Man in San Francisco all three of which were a feast for the eyes.
Looking ahead at the next 12 months I would love to read more Black feminist non-fiction particularly titles from Lola Olufemi and Akwugo Emejulu that are currently staring at me accusingly from my book shelf as I hang my head in shame. I want to continue to read more in translation and read more African authors from around the continent. Maybe I’ll even combine the two and read some francophone writing from West Africa. If anyone has any recs please do send them my way!
2022 Books I Read
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore (1994)
The French Exit by Patrick DeWitt (2018)
Our Women on the Ground:Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World edited by Zahra Hankir (2019)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante trans. Anne Goldstein (2011)
Luster by Raven Leilani (2020)
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)
Wittgenstein’s Nephew by Thomas Bernhard trans. David McLintock (1982)
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (2015)
Sula by Toni Morrison (1973)
All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donaghue (2021)
The Gifts That Bind us by Caroline O’Donaghue (2022)
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (1993)
Bluets by Maggie Nelson (2009)
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (1979)
Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel (2021)
East Side Voices: Essays celebrating East and Southeast Asian identity in Britain edited by Helena Lee (2022)
A Certain Smile by Francoise Sagan trans. Heather Lloyd (1954)
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (2019)
Real Life by Brandon Tyler (2020)
A Girl Returned by Donatella di Pietrantonio trans. Anne Goldstein (2019)
A Sister’s Story by Donatella di Pietrantonio trans. Anne Goldstein (2022)
Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli (2022)
The Idiot by Elif Batuman (2017)
Olga by Bernhard Schlink trans. Charlotte Collins (2021)
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde (1980)
Daisy Miller by Henry James (1878)
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall (2020)
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021)
I’m Glad my Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (2022)
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020)
Border Nation by Leah Cowan (2021)
The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravio trans. Lydia Holland (1947)