Books I’m Reading….

Some of my favourites this month….

Raising Hare - Chloe Dalton

One of my favourite memoirs this year. It’s a memoir literally about raising the leveret (baby hare) she finds on a walk during Covid. The memoir chronicles her struggles to keep the hare alive, while also keeping it wild, all of which cause her to pay exquisite attention to the countryside she’s fled to during the pandemic. It’s a love letter to the natural world, and a meditation on stillness. Quiet and beautiful, and deeply rooted in place

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma – Stephanie Foo

This was an incredible book. The first quarter of the book revolves around her childhood. Spoiler: It was hard. She ended up with C-PTSD. If you’re worried about being triggered, she gives permission to skip it. The rest of the book is a fascinating exploration of what’s wrong with her, and how she can heal. It’s a detailed, thoughtful exploration of the way in which trauma reshapes our brains. Stephanie does therapy. Research. Interviews experts in trauma recovery. Writes articles. Does more and different therapies. She builds a life for herself. I felt like I was with her every step of the way, her story is honest, compelling and relatable at every juncture.

Persephone’s Children: A Life in Fragments – Rowan McCandless

I know I’m late to this memoir, and I have no idea why, especially as it’s so very good. Rowan’s book is about navigating emotional trauma. She’s survived two abusive relationships, plus childhood hurts. She writes about race, and the difficulties of navigating two worlds.

But instead of reliving the hard experiences, her writing focuses on determining who she was before, how she can find herself again, and who she wants to be.

But for me, one of the sweetest aspects of this memoir, whose subtitle is “a life in fragments”, is that it’s told in a variety of experimental, hybrid styles. (And I love a good hermit crab essay!) Persephone’s Children contains braided essays, collage essays, hermit crab essays, starting with an abecedarian essay and including quizzes and crossword puzzles, legal contracts, writing prompts, a film scripts, and field guides. The timeline is non-linear, both in the individual essays and in the collection as a whole. But that just feels like part of the puzzle the reader is being invited into.