The 2015 Book Project Archives - Page 5 of 5

Population: 485 is Michael Perry’s memoir about coming home a different person after being gone a long time. It’s a story about a small town, family ties, and being a redneck. It’s also a story about love, heartache, and finding your center.

Perry’s storytelling is all encompassing: he can tell a two-page joke that keeps you reading with such attention that you find yourself out of breath. And he can also render in words a moment so tender that your are in tears in a coffee shop without realizing it. Hilarious truths about life in a farming community lie on the page next to gut-wrenching sentences of loss. And he handles it all with a wordy grace that his appearance belies. I have had the privilege to hear Michael Perry speak twice: once at a conference and specifically to writers, and once to the small community of Beaver Dam; both times decked out in torn jeans, well-worn workboots, and various layers of Carhartt and flannel. He claims his humble roots with affection, while still acknowledging that the idyllic small town can be less than idyllic.

Favorite Quotes:

“The trouble is – and this is not a complaint, but a report – the world has our attention in a million ways it never did before, and we find it tougher and tougher to focus our loyalties. Tougher to know where to belong, or to want to belong.” – p. 123

“Life is a preservation project. Our instinct for preservation plays out in everything from the depth of our breaths to an affection for bricks. Even as we fail and cling, trying to bottle time, to save it, we live only through its expenditure. Memory is a means of possession, but eventually, the greatest gift is found in letting go.” – p. 178

“We spend this life looking for a center, a place where we can suspend without a wobble. The specific coordinates are elusive, scalable only by the heart… I took [this sign] for a sort of consecration, and was pleased to note that my heart felt steady.” – p. 202

What made this a good story? Perry is a true storyteller. He can do multiple genres justice on a single page. He treats his neighbors and friends with respect, but doesn’t mind sharing the more colorful bits and pieces of living life alongside them. And at the end, you love New Auburn almost as much as your own home town.

What could have made it a better story? Perry uses an awful lot of big words, and sometimes I think it is because he can – there’s no real reason. I consider myself an educated individual (I have a B.A. in history & English literature – words are kind of my thing), but even I found myself often back-tracking and re-reading to understand sentences at times. My only hesitation to recommend this to someone else is that they will find it a bit sesquipedalian (and yes, I had to look that one up).

What do you think? Have you read any of Michael Perry’s work? I know I want to read more after reading Population: 485.

I read this in 2014 as part of The Empty Shelf Challenge. I hope to have room in The 2015 Book Project for more of Perry’s work.

Last year, I took part in the Empty Shelf Challenge. Not only did I keep track of what I read, but it also forced me to jot down some thoughts about each book. It helped me decide if I would recommend them to someone else or not, and why. At the risk of sounding hokey, it also helped me to process my year. I remember what I did better because of taking note of what I was reading. It sounds silly, but I think other readers will identify with this: as a reader, I often process life events through the lens of a book:

What was I feeling when I read it? Did that feeling mirror my surroundings? Did I choose that book based on what was going on around me, to mimic or to offset life events? Was it meant to comfort or challenge me, or to allow me to escape for a moment?

These are all thoughts that I’ve had as I looked back on my reading year in 2014. Sometimes the answers are simple: I chose that book because a friend lent it to me, or it was the book with the soonest due date at the library. Other times, reading a certain book at a certain time feels more like a divine appointment: what I needed, right when I needed it. Last year, books like Bread and Wine and Daring Greatly were those kinds of books. And still other times, I wanted comfort. To wrap myself up in a story that I already knew was familiar and pleasant and to lose myself in the words. Books like Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet do that for me.

This year I want to be a little more intentional about what I read. I want to balance reading for information and reading for pleasure. And I also want to balance reading other novels with writing my own. So I’m devising a plan and calling it The 2015 Book Project. I’ll read four books per month, each from a different category.

The 2015 Book Project

The Four Books:

1. A Classic – I’m going to choose one from this list compiled by The Classics Club.

2. A “New” Release – A novel published within the last ten years (2005 forward).

3. A Nonfiction Book – Pretty self-explanatory.

4. A Book for the Soul – This will be anything that deals with the self: Christian nonfiction, self-improvement books, books about making art, etc. Books meant for reflection.

The Rules:

1. I will try my best to read 1 book per week, for a total of 4 per month. I will try not to read more than that, and instead focus extra time on writing.

2. I will not pick books that I have read before. It is always tempting to re-read my favorites over and over again. (This means no picking Jane Austen as a classic each month, Abbigail.)

3. I will write a short review of each during the month – either as a separate blog post, or when I wrap up the month and introduce the next month.

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If you want to join in, please do! You don’t have to read the same books as me – you can pick your own – it’s completely up to you. You can choose to read less, read more, or whatever! Make The 2015 Book Project your own.

Here’s what I will be reading in January:

1. Classic: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (a recommendation from reading friends)

2. New Release: Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (a recommendation from a coworker)

3. Nonfiction: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (a recommendation from everyone, everywhere in the creative world)

4: For The Soul: The Best Yes by Lysa Terkeurst (a recommendation from Michael Hyatt and a billion other people on the internet)

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Follow along and post your reads on social media using the hashtag #BookProj2015. I’ll be using it primarily on Instagram and Twitter. Maybe Tumblr, too.

Participating? Grab the button here, or borrow the full-size image at the top of the post:

What are you looking forward to reading in 2015? Do you have any suggestions for me? (as you can see, I take a lot of recommendations)