December 2021 in Books: What I'm Reading

THIS MORNING I read "Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes" (1922) from The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter. Published reluctantly when the author-and-illustrator was losing her eyesight, she gently rewrites famous rhymes like "This Little Piggy."

"We have a little garden"
Illustration of Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes
by Beatrix Potter

She also illustrates a poem from her friend Louie Choyce:

We love our little garden
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
Or blighted blossom there.

[Tip: You can find the entire book on Wikisource. ]

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Turning to adult literature of the 21st century:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett felt like a page-turner after a while. Set in the 1950s through 1990s, if I remember correctly, it follows two twin women who were born in the segregation-era United States.

I enjoyed the back and forth between the different generations of Vignes women.

My only gripe? At times I wished I were reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, or another 20th century author instead; sometimes a 21st century perspective blurs the experiences of the 20th too much.

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In a predictable coincidence, the Jimmy Carter biography His Very Best sheds another light on racism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

His campaign to become Governor of Georgia profited greatly by what a few people ca. 2016 have called 'racial anxiety.'

But Carter upended expectations when, in his inaugural speech, he declared his support of racial integration.

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In between I have been reading more of Assia Djebar's Les femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement.

Then I have begun reading Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue. Set during the recession of 2008-2009,  its main characters are a family of Cameroonian immigrants to the United States.

In an audiobook recording, I'm also listening to Cherie Dimaline's Empire of Wild. Published in 2020, it is a novel about a Métis community in Canada, in which a wife looks for her lost husband.

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This past week, Barack Obama has posted his end-of-year lists of his favourite songs, books and films of 2021. A few authors are old-timers, like Jonathan Franzen, Colson Whitehead, and Kazuo Ishiguro; others are relative newcomers like Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Dawnie Walton. The lyrics of a few of the songs are also worth looking at, in their own literary right.