some books

I feel like poems are full of language and we're all sort of full of language, like advertisements or news articles. And so I think a lot of poetry is concentrating that. It's sort of like an espresso shot of language.

Jane Shi has a new book of poetry, echolalia echolalia.

These are edge-dwelling times.

I'm currently reading If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie. I loved the first of her books I read, The Enchanted Life, and I have Hagitude on hold next.

The last time I went to XOXO, I read and finished Deep Work by Cal Newport on the bus down to Portland. This time, it was Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin keeping me company on the train.

I haven't been reading much this year. Here's a list of books I've borrowed from the library, but not finished:

• The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith
• Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
• Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
• Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz
• The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
• Consumed by Aja Barber
• Butts by Heather Radke
• Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
• Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté
• Endurance by Alfred Lansing
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feller
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe
• It's On Me by Sara Kuburic
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis
• The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

You can see in this list my attempts to read fiction again, my return again and again to self-help, and that I am not immune to David Tennant and Michael Sheen's on-screen chemistry. Some of these books I'll borrow again. Some were just terrible, but I'm a completionist at heart—not of books, but lists. If you're not enjoying a book, give up. You have my permission. Sometimes, it's just not the right time.