The Reader
A new Major Arcana card for my 2026 Tarot
This year I plan on adding to my TBR pile with more books. Having spent 2025 doing much of my reading online, I realized I missed the feel of a good book. I’ve been part of numerous book clubs including Malarkey and Stanchion, but unfortunately have been woefully behind in my reading.
This year my goal is to stem the flow of literature that enters my abode by reading and releasing each work so that others may share in the experience.
What is a writer, without the reader? On this platform, I am connecting to a myriad of writers with a wonderful esprit de corps. I love sharing my work and reading about the writing process of my fellow writers. Yet, before I took to creative writing in 2020, I was an avid reader. The woman in me who got lost in a good book has since found her attention span lessened as she turned to micro and flash to satiate her predilection for prose.
Well The Reader is back, baby, and hungry for your words!
My first book of the year, “Mother Karma” was in keeping with my limited attention span as it is a wonderous story told in flash.
I was so moved by this novella and its relationship to tales from the Ramayana told in my youth that it prompted my first-ever book review.
These next reads were freshly delivered. You would think I would take some of the books already on my growing TBR pile, but these newly minted beauties are calling to me now.
As you can tell from the bookmark, I am almost done reading François Bereaud’s “A Question of Family” and am thoroughly enjoying how he wove stories, some I had read in initially other lit magazines, into a cohesive portrait of a family in all their imperfections.
I will soon foray into my poetic side. There is something soothing and warm at the thought of reading “Cajun South Brown Folk,” poems by Shome Dasgupta, that embraces the Bengali and Cajun way of life. It is these intimate revelations of blended experiences that call to me. I never had a chance to read them in my youth, if they existed at all. I am happy they exist now.
Perhaps the overarching theme of my choices thus far is family. January’s snowy days have me hankering for more time with the people I love, and if I cannot be with them, I will embrace literary families as I once did as a child. I read what I could to make sense of why my family was so different from the ones in my neighborhood. I read to realize that I was not alone. It’s why I still love to read.
Happy reading my friends. Love and light to you all.
This made me tear up a bit, Nina—thank you so much for such kind words and for mentioning Cajun South Brown Folk, and for your encouragement. Too generous, my friend ❤️