Books are Mothers Milk

I read to you three times or four every day as I / Nursed this next beauty

Independently owned Port Townsend Bookstore this week. Image by Dr. Anna Marie Wolf

I grew up in tiny spaces crowded with five siblings, friends, and pets. Our Pulali cabin and ramshackle farmhouse in Des Moines were lined floor to ceiling with books. Tucked into bunks or around the table, we read plays, books, and poems out loud.

Libraries were our salvation. Every week, Mother drove us the hour to Port Townsend, where the original library still stands beside a more modern one. The tiny Des Moines library was housed in an ancient wooden building. At six, I vowed to read every book on the shelves.

I recently found a long poem my mother wrote for my twenty-second birthday. She lamented that I felt my parents didn’t love me, and that perhaps she became pregnant again too soon, giving birth when I was fourteen months old. She writes, “I read to you three times or four every day as I / Nursed this next beauty.”

Not surprisingly, my first word was “book.”

I’ve been an avid reader ever since. I read only books on paper; no screens or audio books. My husband and I often read the same authors and discuss them at length, our marital book club.

Here are some recent favorites:

Solito by Javier Zamora – A harrowing journey of a nine-year-old future poet whose grandfather entrusts him to a coyote (someone to shepherd him across the border) for the dangerous trip from El Salvador to the United States to join his parents. The coyote soon abandons the child, and strangers take him into their group. The trip is supposed to take less than two weeks but stretches into months. Young Javier endures terrifying escapades in cities, villages, on a river, across the desert, and is turned back at the border twice before he joins his parents. They had not seen their son in four years, and the U.S. is not what young Javier expected.

A Feather to the Breath of God / What Are You Going Through? / Sempre Susan and everything by Sigrid Nunez - A beautiful voice, and a masterful storyteller. Whether it’s about growing up in a housing project in the 50s and 60s with a Chinese Panamanian father and a German mother, or an unnamed narrator who agrees to keep a dying friend company, her stories encompass all kinds of sadness but are never grim.

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot - A young Scottish woman with an alcohol addiction flees to her childhood home to seek solace in solitude and nature. Adapted into a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan.

This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright - Another powerful recovery story.

Fight Night / Women Talking / All My Puny Sorrows / and everything by Miriam Toews. A Canadian treasure. Explorations of trauma through the lens of comic catharsis. Women Talking was optioned by Frances McDormand and adapted into a movie about women struggling with what to do after they were drugged and raped in a Mennonite community.

The Secret to Superhuman Strength / Fun Home / Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel. Brilliant, incisive, and erudite graphic memoirs about coming of age, coming out, and discovering and analyzing deep family secrets. She rearranges what a graphic memoir can do. Goes deep into the history and practice of psychology. Fun Home was adapted into a hit Broadway musical.

Hamnet / The Marriage Portrait / and everything by Irish writer Maggie O’Farrell - Incredible historical fiction. Hamnet helps understand Shakespeare and his time. The Marriage Portrait, based on historical events of Renaissance Italy, is also a joy. Her non-fiction is equally powerful.

Homegoing / Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi – Brilliant works by this Ghanaian American novelist.

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras - Growing up in Colombia amid violence and corruption and barely escaping.

In Love by Amy Bloom - When Bloom’s husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the couple seeks death with dignity in Switzerland. It’s a race against time, as he must be sufficiently aware to give consent in the final days. Sweet and terrifying, it’s about unquestioned love, respect, and an honorable death.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - Sweeping 816-page epic of Black life from the time of slavery to the present.

Educated by Tara Westoff - Breaking free of a poor, restrictive family, a young girl finds her voice through the pursuit of education.

The Vanishing Half / Mothers by Brit Bennett – The first two novels by a brilliant young talent plumbing the intricacies and challenges of Black life.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King - Lily King owns the tale of a struggling writer scraping along serving food, told with air and lift and humor.

The Handyman by Carolyn See - An aspiring young artist is at a loss for what to paint, so he becomes a handyman while navigating SoCal situations that are funny even if the participants don’t see the irony. It’s visual, weird, and real. I recommend all ten of Carolyn See’s books.

The Peabody Sisters / Margaret Fuller by Megan Marshall - Scrupulously researched portraits of women coming of age between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Marshall writes history with a novelist’s flair, creating vivid characters out of these historical figures most haven’t heard about. I’m enthralled by the parallels between women seeking a voice all those years ago and current gender roles in America. The women wanted to make art, but society told them they had to marry, bear children, and serve their husbands. Margaret Fuller made a solo wagon trip West and accurately predicted the destruction of indigenous people’s culture and lives by white America.

Is a River Alive? by Robert McFarlane – I can’t rave enough about this book focused on rivers in Ecuador, India, and Canada, each represented with heroes and heroines who devote their lives to protecting and salvaging ecosystems. McFarlane’s writing is so erudite that he includes a glossary in the back, and his acknowledgements continue, in tiny print, for pages. He seems to know everyone in the world. I love all his writing so much that I sometimes read it aloud. He was an “outside contender” for the Nobel in 2022 and 2024. May he win it soon.

Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama – I fell in love with Salama’s writing when the New Yorker published two pieces about Spanish-speaking immigrant communities. This young genius embedded himself with people who rarely, if ever, get to speak for themselves. I didn’t know until reading Stranger, which he started as a first-year college student research project, that he had to teach himself Spanish. When he finds a notebook of his grandfather’s life history, Salama heads off alone to explore his Argentinian, Syrian, and Iraqi Jewish roots.

Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests / To Speak for the Trees by Diana Beresford-Kroeger - Mark and I agree we’ll never experience forests the same after reading this amazing scientist, a role model for us all, still learning and teaching at eighty in Canada. Born in Ireland and orphaned young, she was taken in by relatives who introduced her to her ancient Celtic roots.

The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore - Based partly on the true story of a woman who, in 1855, flees an abusive marriage to travel West. She marries a doctor who also turns out to be abusive. Initially fearing and judging the Sioux, as she settles in their community, she develops closer bonds than she’s ever known.

Wild Forest Home, Stories of Conservation in the Pacific Northwest by Betsy L. Howell (Betsy Leialoha) – Each chapter focuses on Howell’s study of a specific species in various parts of the Northwest during her long career in the U.S. Forest Service, which also includes fighting fires. As a woman in a mostly male field, she loves being alone deep in the wilderness. She provides a detailed description of how heritage forests can be restored.

Memorial Days / Nine Parts of Desire, the Hidden Worlds of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks - We first read Memorial Days, this Australian-American’s latest book, about the sudden death of her husband. That made us seek out her first book, a Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of Islamic women, researched and written in her early thirties when she worked as a Middle Eastern correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. In most countries she visits, she adjusts to wearing head-to-toe coverings. In each, she is taken in by families whose women speak with her openly about their lives and beliefs.

Once we were Sisters by Sheila Kohler – A memoir of South African-born writer Kohler’s childhood with parents who loved each other madly while leaving their two daughters to be tended by servants and each other. Kohler explores her sister’s unexpected yet possibly preventable death.

When I Grow Up, the Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers / Einstein in Kafka Land by Ken Krimstein – A graphic narration of stories that somehow survived the Nazis, written by children for an essay competition. Krimstein chooses six to, at last, allow these young people to speak about their hopes and dreams. From our local library, I ordered the only other Krimstein, a fascinating account of another genius who barely escaped the Nazis and hung out for a while with Franz Kafka. Although I cannot say I’m any closer to understanding relativity, some may find this book helps them find the key to unlock the mystery. I also want to read Krimstein’s book about Hannah Arendt.

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout – A meandering mystery based on walks and talks with a man and woman married to others. I love everything by Elizabeth Strout.

Cold Crematorium, Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz by József Debreczeni – It took a long time for this book to be translated into English. The writer, a young Polish Jew and journalist, was rounded up, first having to leave behind his loved ones, home, and possessions, and eventually transported to Auschwitz, where the infamous “selections” took place. Some of his friends chose the line that led to the gas chambers. Debreczeni chose the other, which led him to one work camp after another. The purpose of the work camps was just as deadly – to kill the young men with incredibly brutal conditions. Most died. He barely survived the final camp and lay comatose until found by Russian liberators. I read this just as the United States sets up massive concentration camps, mentioned as possible work camps, for brown people torn from families, homes, and jobs. The reported conditions, designed to humiliate and kill, create a chilling parallel.

Lovely One – a Memoir by Ketanji Brown Jackson – The life story of a gifted child of loving parents and her early meeting and missed connections with her husband, a medical student, in a Harvard black studies class. She eventually joins a “white shoe” law firm and he attends medical school while they also raise two young daughters. I am grateful to learn about this amazing woman as we navigate the nightmare that is the current Supreme Court.

A Final Arc of Sky, a Memoir of Critical Care by Jennifer Culkin – The author spent twenty years as a critical care nurse for NICU babies, most sure to die. Then she joined a helicopter medical team attending to trauma victims and backcountry rescues. Culkin offers an inside look from the front lines of first responders attending to critical situations and how it impacts them and their relationships and health.

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents / The Warmth of Other Suns – the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabelle Wilkerson – Intimate stories of families and individuals seeking to make it in America’s black diaspora. These are epic books, covering generations, full of history and insight we rarely hear about. Wilkerson’s books should be required reading for anybody studying American history.

Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir by Mary L. Trump – Fascinating and sad story of Mary Trump’s upbringing in and near the home of her father, who died tragically young, and her uncle, Donald, now determined to destroy democracy.

Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho – The daughter of a white veteran and his Korean wife seeks to understand her mother’s schizophrenia through learning to cook Korean food. A former student told me about this book and how it helped her understand her mother. I would have never known my charming, brilliant young student was suffering so deeply at home.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. A book to read regularly. I wondered what Dr. Gawande is doing now that USAID, where he served as Assistant Administrator for Global Health, was eradicated. He has returned to Ariadne Labs, which he co-founded, as Distinguished Professor in Residence.

Dying by Cory Taylor - An Australian woman’s diary after she receives a terminal diagnosis. Similar to Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, which I also recommend.

The Copenhagen Trilogy – Tove Ditlevsen – My grandparents emigrated from Denmark to the United States in their late teens, so I wanted to read this trilogy I’d long avoided. It was as tragic and bleak as promised, yet I’m glad I stayed with it. After a horrifically abusive childhood, Ditlevsen managed to become a writer. Her physician husband injects her with drugs which eventually kill her.

Tell Me Everything - Story of a Private Investigation by Erica Krouse – Documentation of a complex rape coverup. Krouse thinks her informants “tell her everything” because her face exudes openness and trust. I think it’s because she’s probably an empath who deeply listens.

The Cougar Conundrum: Sharing the World with a Successful Predator by Mark Elbroch – I learned about Elbroch and Panthera after attending a presentation at our local community center by researchers studying black bear and cougar populations on the Olympic Peninsula. I stayed in touch, wrote an article about bears and cougars and how they’re not out to get people, and was invited to go on field work with the team. Now, sadly, the avian bird flu has killed rescued cougars at a nearby sanctuary, as well as several wild ones that were tagged. It’s a challenging time for Olympic cougars, and there’s no assurance they will survive. Compounding their plight and a lack of genetic diversity, freeways and development cut off access between the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges.

Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told by Jenny Diski – I fell in love with Diski when the London Review of Books published her essays as she slowly died from cancer. I was fascinated that Diski was taken in by Doris Lessing when she was a young teen, and pulled out my Lessing novels that featured just such a child.

Becoming by Michelle Obama – I delighted in learning about her supportive parents and extended family, initially reluctant connection with her future husband, turn from her own career to caring for their children, all expressed with brilliant grace.

Also recommended: Everything by Diana Athill, Anne Enright, Tessa Hadley; Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Stepping Westward: The Long Search for Home in the Pacific Northwest / Women of the Way, Discovering 2500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom by Sally Tisdale; Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; On Writers and Drinking: the Trip to Echo Spring / a Garden Against Time, In Search of a Common Paradise / The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing.

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Holistic veterinarian, friend, and neighbor Dr. Anna Maria Wolf takes photographs while hiking with her dog, riding her horse in the Olympic wilderness, or in the seaside community of Port Townsend