Some sentences about some books that I've read this year

Understudies by Ravi Mangla - reads like a more generous and less sprawly Mary Robison, which just means it's really funny w/out being impressed by itself.  Adults who have never learned how to be adults and crave watching others in order to know how to be themselves, a learning we all do forever.

Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan by Kazuaki Tanahashi- biography of Ryokan, but am convinced that this is actually a handbook for leaving society in order to be a wandering zen monk and live in mountain hermitages.  Some interesting discussions of Ryokan's calligraphy and why it's so good and spontaneous and raw, same as his poetry.

Together We Can Bury It by Kathy Fish - feel like the word "beautiful" is pretty much the only thing to say about these stories, even the dark or fearful ones, especially those ones.  All the stories here are seen through to their beautiful existences, the beautiful fact of their often horrible occurrence.

Hill William by Scott McClanahan - a reminder that we were all ten once and being ten meant being slightly insane and free and loving and stupid and wanting everything to be just perfectly everything, except in what I imagine to be a shitty "mountain town" like the one I lived in in east Tennessee for a year and had to escape from.

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard - a guy sick with himself and sick with society, culture, people, so sickened to the point of almost catatonia, almost unable to interact, even with himself, as though his sick thoughts are their own prison, and they are, until these little openings happen and his understanding of his sickness reveals his love of others.