A Year in Reading: A Shift in Perspective
December 09, 2024 at 01:30PM
Thoughtful stories for thoughtless times.
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Regular readers will notice that our annual “Best Of” series—now in its 13th year!—has undergone an evolution. We usually share our favorite reads across several categories, and per that tradition we’ll have some great lists for you next week. We wanted to try something different this year, something a little more personal. Starting today and for the remainder of the week, we’ll publish a Year in Reading reflection from each of the Longreads editors. Many pieces we’re highlighting appeared in installments of our Weekly Top 5. (You can sign up for our newsletter to receive our story recommendations and get notified of new features we publish.) Curation is at the foundation of what we do. But in taking a new approach, we wanted to do more than recommend great reading. We wanted to say more, to expand on the themes and threads that ran through the stories that moved us—the pieces we’ll remember well from 2024. We hope you enjoy! Thank you, as always, for reading.
—Carolyn, Cheri, Krista, Peter & Seyward
A Year in Reading: A Shift in Perspective
Reflecting on a year in reading is my kind of treasure hunt. I knew I had shared some incredible writing, so revisiting the stories that had moved me was like a much-anticipated visit with old friends. On sifting through my trove of editor’s picks, a few themes emerged—the wonder of insects and the environment among them—but two stood out.
Several stories revealed my fascination with the fascinated—those people deeply passionate about their craft, those for whom mastery is merely the starting point. Chicago Magazine published two incredible profiles that set my reading year off right. In “A Knife Forged in Fire,” Laurence Gonzales introduces us to former chef Sam Goldbroch, who was “swallowed up into the mysteries of metal and fire and force” in a never-ending quest to learn what makes a good knife. You must also read “The Ramen Lord” by Kevin Pang. It’s an immersive, savory portrait of Mike Satinover, a man with a single obsession: creating the perfect bowl of ramen. Moving from food to photography, I loved Wendell Brock’s profile of Paul Kwilecki, a man who spent four decades bearing witness to a single county in Georgia through the lens of his camera. You’ll find the prose and images equally moving in “The Only Home He Ever Knew” at The Bitter Southerner.
Turning to the page from the lens, “Glacial Longings” by Elizabeth Rush at Emergence Magazine is a beautiful excerpt adapted from The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth that highlights writing as a craft. Rush visits the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica and tests her writing skills by attempting to describe it in all its majesty. If this is the struggle, I am here for it: “Of course, my desire to listen to Thwaites, to recognize its animacy, did not immediately translate into an ability to do so. . . . I hadn’t imagined how profoundly apart this place would feel—how it would appear gigantic and fully formed, an entity all its own, well beyond the limits of human understanding and resistant to whatever language I might try to pin on it.”
In fact, Rush’s piece acts as a bridge of sorts: the perspective shift that she experiences is the second theme that I gravitated toward throughout the year. Two standout essays examine what happens when human memory fails after an accident or due to disease. In “I Lost My Life in 2006” for Salmagundi, Judith Hannah Weiss recounts recovering from a traumatic brain injury and having to relearn to walk and talk. “Before, the word ‘neuroscience’ meant something abstract, irrelevant,” she writes. “Not anymore. This time, it’s personal. Time and space collapse. Thoughts collapse. So do words.” Michael Aylwin’s second-person account of caring for his wife, Vanessa, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 49, confronts the disease’s excruciating toll on the patient, their primary carer, and their family while exposing well-meaning yet woefully inadequate government and community support. Prepare to be undone by “‘It Comes for Your Very Soul’: How Alzheimer’s Undid My Dazzling, Creative Wife in Her 40s” at The Guardian.
When worry and anxiety rear their ugly twin heads, Elissa Altman turns to cooking to cope: “The worse the news gets, the less I sleep and the more I cook.” Make time for “Forever Less of Beauty” at The Bitter Southerner to learn how Altman precipitates a perspective shift. My last “X” marks a spot at Panorama Journal, where we join Judith Sanders as she learns how to shop in Italy. In “Food Shopping in Rome” she visits the bakery, the chicken butcher, the fishmonger, and more, navigating purveyors and crowds, piecing together meals and practicing her Italian. Sanders wonders whether her shopping experience was truly authentic, but decides in the end—while savoring fresh food al fresco—that it doesn’t really matter. In this case, the pleasure was on her plate. Me? I’m looking forward to 2025 to begin my treasure hunt anew. —KS
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from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/12/09/a-year-in-reading-a-shift-in-perspective/
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