Marci Rae Johnson's Blog

This week I'm back to real life after a week in Nashville with girlfriends (with plenty of downtime to read whilst sitting out in the sun!), so likely I will be reading less this week. I will find some time, though! I've got five books going at once right now, all in different genres and/or formats, which is pretty typical for me. 

The book I'm most likely to finish this week is Other People's Houses, by Abbi Waxman. I love this author, especially her book The Bookish Life of Nina Hill—but I have to say, I'm struggling to get through this one. It's focused on the day-to-day lives of a group of wealthy moms, and I'm finding it a big boring. (Also, I've had about enough of so many books focusing on wealthy people's lives.) That said, it still has plenty of funny moments, and I'm still appreciating the author's quirky and amusing writing style. Also it's the kind of light, easy-to-read book I appreciate for my bathtub reading time. 

I'm also reading an interesting graphic novel called The Worst Journey in the World , based on Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole in 1910. And I seem to have an obsession with living and/or traveling to extreme cold-climate locations (even though I hate cold weather) because I'm also reading Life on Svalbard , a memoir that includes beautiful photos of life on a remote island near the North Pole. Likely I am fascinated with remote places more so than the cold climate! 

For nonfiction I've got Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. While it was published in 2020, it's even more relevant now given our current political situation. I grew up evangelical, so I've read many books like this, and this one is now considered a classic in the genre so I thought I'd give it a go. 

I've also been reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman—which talks a lot about anti-productivity type things, which I love. However, I'm finding the book pretty repetitive, so I'm not sure I'll finish it. I bought it as an ebook through Bookshop.org, though, to try out their new ebook interface, and I'm liking it a lot! So goodbye to Kindle books and Amazon!

I always have an audiobook going too (which I get from Libby through my library), because it helps me settle down for sleep, and I've currently been going through the Little House on the Prairie series. I'm up to Little Town on the Prairie. I love the narrator of these, and it's a fascinating experience reading them as an adult and noticing things I would never have noticed as a kid—including how much of a racist against Native Americans Ma was!

"It's Monday, What Are You Reading," is a weekly activity hosted by The Book Date. Click here to participate! 

You can buy my new book through my publisher, or if you'd like a signed copy, leave a comment here and I'll make that happen. Here's what a few people have to say about the book.

Each poem in Questionable Baggage is an alert—the language bristles, constantly shifting from noun to noun, so that the reader’s eyes do not rest; peculiarities of the present world are examined closely, via a gaze that binds present absurdities to the deep past, so that the reader’s mind does not rest. Marci Rae Johnson has made a book as rich and alive with language as any contemporary book of poetry could hope to be.

—Shane McCrae

Compelled by the absurd—that’s one way to describe Marci Rae Johnson’s poetry. In Questionable Baggage we read about Jacuzzis washed into the sea, a minister walking on water before becoming lunch for crocodiles, products like Nutella and Skittles and Cheese Whiz, Tupperware and Pyrex, Viewmaster slides and My Little Pony. But there’s meaning in absurdity, which Johnson reveals in all of its ridiculous yet lyrical glory.

—Lynn Domina

Questionable Baggage is what happens when a poet has a wicked sense of humor and a wide-open heart. I’ve learned not to read Marci Rae Johnson’s poems in public unless I want to make a scene: when this book wasn’t making me laugh out loud, I was crying or sitting with my jaw dropped and goosebumps all over my arms. No matter what you’re expecting, these poems will surprise you. 

—Katie Manning, author of Hereverent and Tasty Other and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review

It's been a while, but I'm back now to share more poetry and book musings with you, as well as some pieces of art from my new venture: collaging. 

Here are a couple poems I've had published in journals online lately. Enjoy!

In Rock, Paper, Poem: "Two Promising Places to Live in the Northern Constellation, Lyra."

In Whale Road Review: "Supermassive Black Hole and Candidates."

In Minyan Review: "Viewmaster Slide, Noah and the Ark" and "Viewmaster Slide, Noah and the Ark II."

In The Curator: "Holy Unction with Suicidal Ideation," "Love & Inebriation."

Though the pandemic has been a period of creative dryness for me, I wrote a large amount of poems last year, and a few have come out recently in literary journals.

http://crr.trevecca.edu/article/blessed-are-the-distracted-for-yours

https://theotherjournal.com/2020/04/02/water-fire-midatlantic-ridge/

https://theotherjournal.com/2020/03/30/thusness/

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/poetry/we-are-all-summer-leaves

http://www.whaleroadreview.com/johnson-4/

https://www.curatormagazine.com/author/marci-rae-johnson/

https://www.valpo.edu/valparaiso-poetry-review/2020/05/18/marci-rae-johnson-dunbar-castle-east-lothian-scotland/

A day late, but I'm still recovering from the reading marathon Saturday. I read for 17 hours (with a lot of little breaks), finished 3 books, and read a total of 611 pages in 7 different books. I've slowed down with my reading significantly this week, to catch up on other work, but here are the books I'm currently into:
The Idiot, by Elif BatumanShrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, by Lindy WestBeauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Beauty Hurts Girls and Women, Renee EngelnA Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L'Engle (audiobook)The Animators, by Kayla Rae WhitakerI'm listening to the Madeleine book with my kids as we drive -- they really gotten into audiobooks in the car this year! We've done the entire Chronicles of Narnia, much of the Wrinkle in Time series, and a couple Harry Potter books. I'm not sure where we will go next. Any suggestions?

If you'd like to participate in It's Monday, What Are You Reading? Click here.

Today I'm participating in Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon. I've lost track of how many years I've been doing this. It's one of my favorite things!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Western Illinois.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? The Lost Book of the Grail, by Charlie Lovett. A literary mystery!

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Homemade ricotta cheese with homemade olive oil and rosemary crackers.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I'm a poet, editor, and college English teacher.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? Today I actually got up early enough to start right at the beginning, and that's a first.

[image error] [image error] I finished a lot of books last week, mostly because I participated in the 24 in 48 readathon last weekend. I'd never done this readathon before, and it was a lot of fun! You try to read 24 hours over the course of Saturday and Sunday. I only made it to 15 1/2 hours, but that still felt like a luxurious amount of reading time! Here's a list of the books I finished last week.
Here I Am, Jonathan Safran FoerMan's Search for Meaning, Victor FranklSmall Great Things, Jodi PicoultPinning the Bird to the Wall, poems by Devon Miller-DugganThe Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis (on audio with my kids)Loner, Teddy WayneThe Guest Room, Chris BohjalianAll of these books were good reads, except I didn't care for the novel Loner. None of the characters in this book were likeable, so it was hard to care about them, and the novel really didn't have any redemptive qualities, which is something I like to see in novels. Rather, the people were pretty awful, and stayed awful. Man's Search for Meaning was a particular good and helpful book. I think everyone should read this one!

This week, as usual I have a big pile of books I've started, and without a readathon coming up, I'm sure it will take me awhile to finish them. Here's my list of current books.
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi CoatesWhy Write? Mark EdmundsonRiverine: A Memoir from Anywhere But Here, Angela PalmADHD Nation, Alan SchwarzPurity, Jonathan FranzenOutlaw Christian, Jacqueline Bussie. If you'd like to participate in It's Monday, What Are You Reading? Click here.

[image error] [image error]My TBR list is well over three hundred books now, but in an attempt to narrow down what I'd like to read first, I've made a TBR list for 2017. I'm not listing every single book I will probably read this year, since I like to leave room for books I find randomly by browsing the library. Here is my list. What is your list?

Novels
1. Swing Time, Zadie Smith
2. Vivian Versus the Apocalypse, Katie Coyle
3. The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman
4. Dietland, Sarai Walker
5. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
6. Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler
7. Dinner with Edward, Isabel Vincent
8. Made for Love, Alyssa Nutting
9. A Separation, Katie Kitamura
10. Rabbit Cake, Annie Hartnett
11. Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel
12. Blind Submission, Debra Ginsberg
13. My Real Children, Jo Walton
14. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
15. The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic, Emily Croy Barker
16. St. Ursula's Girls Against the Atomic Bomb, Valerie Hurley
17. The Dollhouse, Fiona Davis
18. Loner, Teddy Wayne
19. The Bookshop on the Corner, Jenny Colgan
20. Meeting the English, Kate Clanchy
21. Gutenburg's Apprentice, Alix Christie
22. The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton
23. One True Loves, Taylor Jenkins Reid
24. The Rules of Love and Grammar, Mary Simses
25. Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, Julianna Baggot
26. My Grandmother Told Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Frederik Backman
27. Act of God, Jill Clement
28. I Am Radar, Reif Larsen
29. Charmed Particles, Chrissy Kolaya
30. Imperium, Christian Kracht

Nonfiction
1. Slow Reading, John Miedma
2. The Pleasure of Reading, Antonia Fraser et. al.
3. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. The Case of Sugar, Gary Taubes
5. Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, Manjula Martin
6. Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live, Peter Orner
7. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, Leonard Zeskind
8. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family Hitler's Berlin, Erik Larson
9. How Does That Make You Feel?: True Confessions from Both Sides of the Therapy Couch, Sherry Amatenstein
10. Wise Mind Living: Master Your Emotions, Transform Your Life, Erin Olivio
11. The Year of Reading Dangerously, Andy Miller
12. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books, Michael Dirda
13. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, Kevin Kruse

Poetry
1. The Multitude, Hannah Faith Notess
2. The Canopy, Patricia Clark
3. Tasty Other, Katie Manning

Memoir
1. Without a Map, Meredith Hall
2. Origins of the Universe and What It All Means, Carole Firstman
3. The Accidental Farmers, Tim Young
4. Lab Girl, Hope Jahren
5. Riverine: A Memoir from Anywhere but Here, Angela Palm
6. Avid Reader: A Life, Robert Gottlieb

[image error] [image error]Last week I finished three books: A Farm Dies Once a Year, by Arlo Crawford; Who Do You Love?, by Jennifer Weiner (on audiobook); and The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, by Anu Partanen. The Nordic Theory of Everything wasn't quite what I expected. I suppose I was hoping for a book that would show me, personally, how to live better through Nordic theories, but instead the book focused on government policies, all of which I am helpless to change. Yes, free or cheap daycare would be great, as would basically free health care, but I can't do anything about the high price of these things in America. So the book ended up being kind of depressing rather than uplifting, though it certainly sheds further light on problematic ways in which the American governments treats it citizens.

This week I'm still working on Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl and Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the Rules," by Jacqueline Bussie. These books are enlightening, and are best read in small doses so that you can take the time to ponder them. I'm also still working my way through Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I was very enthusiastic about this book for the first few hundred pages, but at this point I'm thinking Foer needed a better editor who would have advised him to cut the book by 100 pages or more. It's gotten tedious and repetitive, and the deep philosophizing of the characters is starting to seem pretentious. At this point, I'll be glad when the book is over! In the meantime, I've started the new Jodi Picoult book, Small Great Things. I always enjoy the suspenseful plots of Picoults books, and I've still got The Guest Room, by Chris Bohjalian on audio as well. This book is gripping, though quite disturbing as it delves into the sex slave trade.

If you'd like to participate in It's Monday, What Are You Reading? Click here.

[image error] [image error]As usual, I've got a lot of books going at once. I tend to work on multiple nonfiction books at once, though I can do only one novel at a time, unless one is an audiobook. Somehow I can keep track of two novel plots if one is an audiobook.

The paper novel I'm working on right now is Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've never read him before, but am enjoying this one so much that I want to read the other books he's written as well! On audio I've got The Guest Room, by Chris Bohjalian. I always enjoy Bohjalian's books, and the narrators are excellent, which is a must for a good audiobook experience.

For nonfiction I'm working on Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules," by Jacqueline Bussie, and The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, by Anu Partanen. Do you see a theme? I might be worried about the current political climate and where things are going from here!

If you'd like to participate in It's Monday, What Are You Reading? Click here.