"What are you reading?"

Last time I talked to my mom she asked, “what are you reading?” twice during our conversation. Here’s the complete list, now, as I sit at my desk, having ridden my bike as dark came over Winnipeg…

I just finished Motherland by Elissa Altman. This evening I’ve been scrolling through the author’s Instagram, combing it for evidence of I don’t know what… love? survival?

I’m just about done A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, having cast aside (temporarily) Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Randall Jarrell’s Pictures From an Institution.

I picked up Wow No Thank You because I’d like to be funnier, but I’m not sure it’s working because serious books are taking over my desk, my time… Things like Homeland to Hinterland; The Changing Worlds of the Red River Metis in the Nineteenth Century or The Genealogy of the First Metis or Canada Post Offices 1755-1895, I mean, take your pick, they’re all very serious.

Motherland has this quote by Ursula K. Le Guin in The Lathe of Heaven: “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”