FF Editor Picks for 2021
Stuck on what to read as the new year begins? The Fare Forward editors recommend the best books they read in 2021. Look for them in your library, local bookstore, or that growing pile of unread books on your desk.
By the FF Editors
The Guest Cat by Takasi Hiraide
Sarah Clark, Editor-In-Chief
One of the best books I read this year was that most delightful of surprises, the genuine bookstore find. I acquired The Guest Cat by Takasi Hiraide at my local bookseller based on nothing but the title and the slimness of the volume and ended up picking it up one evening and reading it slowly over the course of the next several nights. The story is as charming as is advertised on the back cover: a childless couple who rent out the guest house of a much grander estate and “are not cat people” gradually welcome the titular cat, Chibi, who belongs to their neighbors, to inhabit their home and lives as much as she chooses. The writing from award-winning Japanese poet Hiraide is beautiful and melancholy. It manages to be as much about life and loss as about a cat—and completely without ruining its own effect with lessons or morals, too.
None of us are immune to suffering, and yet there are few sources that face the reality of it head on.
The Gravity of Joy by Angela Williams Gorrell
Moriah Hawkins, Managing Editor
Within the splashy covers of Angela Williams Gorrell’s The Gravity of Joy is a story that begins not in times of jubilation but in times of mourning. In the first third of the volume, we walk with Gorrell through the suicide of her cousin, the sudden death of her nephew due to cardiac arrest, and her father’s body succumbing to years of opioid addiction. All this takes place as Gorrell has been newly hired to teach on and research the topic of joy. How on earth, she wonders, is she going to do that? None of us are immune to suffering, and yet there are few sources that face the reality of it head on. In Christian circles particularly, deep pain and earth-shattering loss are often simply explained away with trite, saccharine prooftexts. Gorrell’s book takes seriously the omnipresence of despair and delivers the message, far from fluffy, that joy has a mysterious ability to radiate through our suffering if we can learn to yearn for it, recognize it, and give in to it.
Livingston’s surprising imagery, dreamy voice, and meticulous language is what I aspire to as a poet.
Queen of the Fall: A Memoir of Girls and Goddesses by Sonja Livingston
Whitney Rio-Ross, Poetry Editor
A female friend gave me Sonja Livingston’s Queen of the Fall as a gift, and reading the book felt like an act of fellowship with hundreds of women I’ve known. The collection of short lyric essays follows the arc of Livingston’s life, with each essay addressing distinct and interweaving topics. Using religious and mythological touchstones rendered both familiar and enchanting, Livingston explores universal feminine themes—feminism, sisterhood, fertility—while situating them in her individual experiences with poverty, the Catholic church, and a troubled family. Though the book is written as essays, it reads like poetry. Livingston’s surprising imagery, dreamy voice, and meticulous language is what I aspire to as a poet. I suggest reading Queen of the Fall as you should read the best poetry books—slowly, sinking into each essay’s depths, where you can commune with Livingston and all the other women you’ll find in her pages.
We all know what it’s like to yearn for something just out of reach.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Sara Holston, Editor
In the dark of the night it appears: Le Cirque de Reves. One evening in one city, the next morning halfway around the world, the Circus of Dreams offers just that. From the ever-burning cauldron of white fire at its center, to the Scented Jars that release patrons’ memories when opened, the Circus brings to life wonders from the depths of the imagination. But at its heart lies a dark secret; each new tent comprises the next move in a grand competition between two young magicians who were bound to each other and the game as children. The very existence of the Circus depends on the challenge, but as the contestants dream of escaping the game to a life together, there are many who have structured their own lives around their love of the Circus. The story itself is simple, but as it plays out in such a wistful and whimsical setting—vividly conjured by Erin Morgenstern’s prose—it paints a surprisingly resonant picture of longing. We all know what it’s like to yearn for something just out of reach. Though the narrative is understated next to its otherworldly setting, it tells a familiar story: seek, and you shall find—though perhaps not always the way you expected.
We are quietly invited to interrogate our own experience of memory and the way we build the narrative of a person’s life—our own and those whom we encounter along the way.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Jake Casale, Editor
Though it was released a decade ago, I came across The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes for the first time in a book club this year. The novel proceeds from a simple premise disguising philosophical weight. We follow an isolated retiree named Tony Webster as he recounts the arc of his life, tracing a complex web of old friendships and romantic entanglements. Barnes wields language in equal parts as a tool for misdirection and an ephemeral hint at unknown truth, keeping the reader tethered to Tony’s perceptions even as it increasingly becomes clear that he is a textbook unreliable narrator. Along for the ride, we are quietly invited to interrogate our own experience of memory and the way we build the narrative of a person’s life—our own and those whom we encounter along the way. Barnes finds a way to refresh this invitation countless times throughout The Sense of an Ending, creating a haunting meditation on the power and frailty of the human spirit.