Year in Review: 2020 Reading List

Since this blog is (mostly) about books and time travel, let’s take a minute to go back to a simpler time. A more innocent time. A time when I heralded the new year with all the enthusiasm of a woman who loves the roaring (19)20s and really wanted a good excuse to wear a flapper dress.

So, January.

Let’s go back to January.

I started off this year with an ambitious book list that covered 20 books from the Jazz Age. Some were classics I’d read before, some were books I’d been meaning to read for years. Then the pandemic hit, and, well…honestly, the list went out the window. As it should.

Truthfully, I’m grateful for every book I managed to read in 2020 simply because it gave me a chance to get out of my own head for a bit.

That said, I did read four of the twenty books on my list this year. Two were re-reads, two were new to me, and all four of them were fantastic! Let’s start with the re-reads: the classic Cheaper by the Dozen and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes, both by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. I’ve read both books several times before, mostly because I love the shenanigans that the twelve children (and their father) got into. As I read them again this year, I wondered how the Gilbreths might have handled the current COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote about it here: Therbligs in Quarantine.

I also read two classics of the Harlem Renaissance for the first time: Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset and Passing by Nella Larsen. I have yet to write a real review or publish a blog post on either of these books, although the stories have stayed with me and been on my mind quite a bit. Both Plum Bun and Passing featured women in the 1920s who were African-American and could “pass” as white, and the ways that their ability to “pass” affected their relationships, their work, their art…and, truly, every aspect of their lives. For me as a reader, it was a very personal experience to read and ponder these stories—written nearly a hundred years ago—while also listening to and pondering and grieving for the racial injustices that have occurred just this year alone. I have a million thoughts about the books and their writers (I totally went down a rabbit hole researching both Larsen and Fauset, their lives, and their other works). I plan to read more from both authors, probably starting with Quicksand by Nella Larsen.

As a whole, I’ll be glad to see the sun set on the very last day of 2020. It’s purely symbolic, of course—the things that made this year so difficult have nothing to do with the date on the calendar. There will need to be many, many changes in the year ahead: for health, for safety, for justice, for finding our footing after a long and tumultuous time. I hope for the best for all of us in 2021.

Happy New Year, friends.

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Therbligs in Quarantine

How Would a “Genius in the Art of Living” Shelter In Place?

When I wrote out my 2020 reading list, I had no idea that come mid-March I’d have plenty of reading time on my hands. I had hoped that reading 20 books from the Jazz Age would be a nice escape from “real life.” Kind of like the cocktail dress I wore for our Roaring Twenties New Year’s Party—fun for the afternoon, but nothing I would want to wear every day.

Then came COVID-19. Suddenly my reading list started to feel a little too much like reality.

This threat of illness is reminiscent of the 1920’s, too. The Spanish flu had swept through the nation as recently as 1918, only coming to an end in the summer of 1919 when those infected either developed immunities or died. Summers in the twenties would have also been overshadowed by the constant threat of polio, a disease that often struck children. Polio paralyzed or killed many Americans between the 1916 outbreak until a vaccine was released in 1955. To say nothing of measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, all contagious diseases prevalent in the 1920s that have disappeared—or nearly so—today.

So when I began my own shelter-in-place experience on March 14, 2020, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the familiar themes of contagion and quarantine sprinkled throughout my reading list. Two of the books I’ve read so far were actually re-reads for me: Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes, co-written by siblings Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. These memoirs recount their experiences growing up in the 1910s and 20s in a family of twelve children, headed by parents and efficiency experts Frank B. Gilbreth and Dr. Lillian Moller Gilbreth.

These past few months of quarantine, “efficiency” has been one of the last things on my mind. We are fortunate: our little family has stayed healthy so far during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both my husband and I have the ability to telework. The children have almost limitless time to use their imaginations and explore. While we shelter in place, we are living what the Gilbreths might have called “unavoidable delay.”

“Unavoidable delay” is one of the Therbligs, a term coined by the Gilbreths to describe the basic units of a worker’s motions when completing a task. Frank, Jr. and Ernestine give this example in Cheaper by the Dozen:

“Suppose a man goes into a bathroom and shaves. We’ll assume that his face is all lathered and that he is ready to pick up his razor. He knows where the razor is, but first he must locate it with his eye. That is “search”, the first Therblig. His eye finds it and comes to rest—that’s “find”, the second Therblig. Third comes “select”, the process of sliding the razor prior to the fourth Therblig, “grasp”. Fifth is “transport loaded”, bringing the razor up to his face, and sixth is “position”, getting the razor set on his face. There are eleven other Therbligs—the last one is “think”!”

— Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen

You can see how breaking down a complicated process by each task would be useful in a factory, where the Gilbreths often conducted their motion studies. Making even the simplest of processes simpler and easier to perform saves valuable time, allowing the workplace to be more productive and the workers less tired. What I love about the books is how the family applied these Therbligs in their home life, making the most of every minute.

In the first book, Cheaper By the Dozen, it’s the father of the family who seems to take the leading role. Frank B. Gilbreth, Sr., is portrayed as a charismatic, creative, highly-driven leader in the field of efficiency. He was the one that decided to buy victrolas for the childrens’ bathrooms so that they could listen to French and German language records while they got ready for the day. He painted models of the solar system and messages in Morse Code on the walls of the family’s summer home, keeping their minds active even while they were on vacation.

Given the general “unavoidable delay” of staying home for weeks on end, I imagine Frank Sr. would have used the opportunity to teach his children some quintessential skill. This was the Therblig I thought about the most, as the weeks of our state’s stay-at-home order turned in to months. I have to confess that I had a lot of ideas for how I could use this unexpected time at home. I could go back to baking my own bread! I could organize the craft supply closet! We could teach the kids to play piano!

Guess how many of these self-improvement projects have actually happened? None. Nada. Zilch.

And honestly, I think Lillian Gilbreth would have understood.

Although the memoirs are a funny, nostalgic read, the shadow of illness and tragedy touched the Gilbreths’ lives, too. While it isn’t directly addressed in the first book, a careful count during roll call reveals only eleven children. In Belles on Their Toes, a brief footnote explains that the second of the Gilbreth’s children, Mary, died of diphtheria at the age of five. Nevertheless, the family always referred to themselves as “the twelve,” phrasing I fully understand as a mother of three (two at home and one in heaven). It makes me wonder, too, about the scenes of illness that are recounted in the books—that time the children all caught whooping cough while traveling cross-country on a train, or when all the children needed their tonsils out. Maybe our current quarantine would have held an element of familiar anxiety for the Gilbreths, as it does for us.

The sudden loss of Frank, Sr. from heart disease marks the end of Cheaper By The Dozen, with Belles on Their Toes picking up the family’s story only days later. Lillian bravely travels overseas only days after her husband’s death to deliver lectures in his stead. It’s an important move: one that will lead to more respect for the field of motion study. She succeeds, and brilliantly. Lillian Gilbreth is now remembered as the “First Lady of Engineering.”

In Belles on Their Toes, Lillian shows us a different side of practicing efficiency. What strikes me about Lillian is her concern for the fatigue and well-being of the worker. It’s evident in how her children portray her in their books, as well as in her own published works. While her husband had excelled at creating systems that eliminated wasted time and movement, she focused on the individual performing each task.

Although large companies and factories had hired Lillian and Frank Sr. together to conduct motion studies, Lillian had to work extra hard to establish herself as a consultant in her own right after her husband’s death. She found that companies were much more willing to consider her expertise in the field of homemaking. Ironically, Lillian herself did not have much experience with cooking or housekeeping. The family employed a man named Tom, who held the role of cook, handyman, and housekeeper. Although he wasn’t an amazing chef, it was Tom and Tom alone who prepared the family’s meals. Still, since the field of home economics was where Lillian could find work as a motion study expert, that was where she went.

“If the only way to enter a man’s field was through the kitchen door, that’s the way she’d enter.”

— Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Belles on Their Toes

Much of Lillian’s approach to her household and her business was like this. Lillian held a doctorate in the field of psychology. She wanted to help housewives and working mothers spend less time on chores and cooking and find more free time to explore their hobbies—time she referred to as “happiness minutes.” Her practice wasn’t only about saving time—it was about increasing satisfaction and making a more well-balanced, enjoyable life. No wonder Lillian was also called a “genius in the art of living.”

This is where I find myself applying the Therbligs in our “new normal” of sheltering in place. I did come back to my idea of organizing the craft closet, but not for the sake of housekeeping. I’m doing it because we’re using our arts and crafts supplies much more often now, and it’s easier to make time for creativity when the scrapbook paper and stamps are easy to find. As a family, we’re learning that if we do school projects early, we have more time to paint and build and sew. I’m discovering how to keep up with emails and freelance work while also finding more time to be creative with my family. We’re turning away from frantic cleaning as a way to keep anxiety at bay and towards planning purposeful ways to make the world a better place, right now, right where we are.

Maybe that is the message the Gilbreths would have for us in 2020: not to pursue the principle of efficiency, but the art of living.

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Cheaper by the Dozen (Perennial Classics)

By Gilbreth, Frank B.

Belles on Their Toes

By Gilbreth, Frank B.

20 Jazz-Age Books to Read in 2020

So January 1st ushered in a new decade, and those of us who live and breathe Downton Abbey were 100% ready to welcome the Roaring (20)20’s. Some of us may have even been a little overexcited.

Me, for example. Nothing wrong with that—after all, “a little party never killed nobody.”

But there’s so much more to the 1920s than flapper dresses and champagne towers. At every extravagant, high-society party, there were servants working tirelessly below stairs. While Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table were using irreverent wit and wordplay to poke fun at social norms, others were finding a way to make their voices heard for the first time. The Harlem Renaissance was this incredible creative explosion of African-American art, music and literature that celebrated cultural identity at the same time that it called for social change. The Nineteenth Amendment was passed in the summer of 1920, and the decade saw women not only voting in America but running for public office—and writing about freedom and feminism, too. Society was experiencing huge changes in how it saw class and race and gender, and the books of the 1920’s explore it all.

In honor of the roaring twenties, I’ve put together a list of 20 books to read in 2020. Many of these are popular novels and poems written in the 1920s, while a few are works of historical fiction set during this time frame. I’m excited to cross some of these off my eternally long to-read list. Others will be fun to revisit now that I don’t have to read them for school (looking at you, Faulkner!)

1. Jazz by Toni Morrison

Jazz

By Toni Morrison

So not only is there a book by Toni Morrison I haven’t read (yet), but it’s historical fiction set in the jazz age. Clearly, I have to kick off my roaring twenties reading list with Jazz.

“What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?”

— Toni Morrison, Jazz

2. Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tales of the Jazz Age: Stories (Vintage Classics)

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The term “Jazz Age” was coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald, so it’s only fitting to read a collection of his short stories from the twenties. Bonus: this book includes one of his better-known stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

3. Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Cheaper by the Dozen (Perennial Classics)

By Frank B. Gilbreth

I first read Cheaper by the Dozen in sixth grade and liked it so much I’ve re-read it several times since then. Two of the twelve Gilbreth children recount their experiences growing up in the 1910s and 20s as the children of efficiency experts Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth.

4. Belles on Their Toes by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Belles on Their Toes

By Frank B. Gilbreth

The sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen follows the young adult lives and eventual marriages of the Gilbreth children during the Roaring Twenties. I like to read this immediately after Cheaper by the Dozen—the two books flow almost like a single, uninterrupted story.

5. Below Stairs by Margaret Powell

Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey"

By Margaret Powell

I’m a huge Downton Abbey fan, so when I read that Julian Fellowes was inspired by Margaret Powell’s memoir, I had to add it to my reading list! Powell started out as a kitchen maid—think Daisy from Downton Abbey—and I can’t wait to read her own account of what it was like to work in service in the 1920s.

6. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

By Kate Morton: The House at Riverton: A Novel

Paperback

The House at Riverton is another great book reminiscent of Downton Abbey and all the delicious upstairs/ downstairs drama. Kate Morton is a brilliant writer—her book The Forgotten Garden is another favorite of mine.

7. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics)

By Langston Hughes

Some poetry just sends chills down your spine, and Langston Hughes’ work is some of the best. I, Too and Mother to Son get me every time—I can’t turn the page until I’ve read it two or three times and really feel each line.

8. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Paris Wife

By Paula McLain

The Paris Wife has been on my to-read list for ages, so there’s no time like the present to finally dive in to the story! This is a work of historical fiction that explores Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson.

9. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition

By Ernest Hemingway

And speaking of Ernest Hemingway…his debut novel The Sun Also Rises made him the so-called “voice of the lost generation.” The story is largely based on his own experience traveling to Pamplona, Spain with Hadley and their friends to watch the bullfighting.

“You are all a lost generation.”

— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

10. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own

By Virginia Woolf

Technically, A Room of One’s Own is an essay, based off of two lectures Virginia Woolf gave on feminism and writing. I’ve read it a few dozen times and I’ll happily do it again: this essay talks about creating space for women to write, both literally and figuratively.

11. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon

By Dashiell Hammett

True confessions: this book is lifted straight off my list of “books I need to read before I let myself watch the movie.” Maybe I’ll plan a weekend to settle in with this book and then watch the Humphrey Bogart movie right after.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane

12. Complete Poems by Dorothy Parker

Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

By Dorothy Parker

I absolutely love Dorothy Parker (and she would have slayed social media, had Twitter been available back in the 1920s). I’ve already read quite a few of these poems so I’m especially excited to read a complete collection of her work.

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

— Dorothy Parker

13. Passing by Nella Larsen

Passing (Penguin Classics)

By Nella Larsen

Published in 1929, this novel follows the reacquaintance of two childhood friends—one who is deeply involved in her Black community and the culture of the Harlem Renaissance, and the other who chose to “pass” for white. Nella Larsen reportedly based the themes of the novel off of her own life: Nella was biracial and lived in both Black and white communities during her life.

14. Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

Save Me The Waltz (Handheld Classics)

By Zelda Fitzgerald

Even though F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbed his wife Zelda “the first American flapper” and used her (and her diary) as inspiration for his work, their marriage was not a happy partnership. The Fitzgerald’s partying eventually became self-destructive and they both suffered from illness and exhaustion. Save Me the Waltz was reportedly written by Zelda in only six weeks while being treated at Johns Hopkins for schizophrenia. The novel is largely based on Fitzgerald’s life and marriage throughout the Roaring Twenties—enough so that it greatly upset her husband when she sent it to his publisher.

15. The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories

By H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft was mostly published in pulp magazines during the 1920s, but he’s gone on to inspire generations of writers since then. He combined science fiction and his own mythos in The Call of Cthulu—something fresh and new, even if it was underappreciated in his own time. I haven’t read this in years, so it’s definitely time I pulled it back out!

16. Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset

Plum Bun: A Novel Without A Moral

By Jessie Redmon Fauset

Like Passing, Plum Bun depicts the life of a young African-American woman who moves to New York and decides to “pass” for white. The book is also about feminism—in New York, the main character struggles to pursue her often conflicting ambitions to marry and to become an artist.

17. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)

By Agatha Christie

Out of all the Agatha Christie mysteries, why did I choose this Hercule Poirot for my top 20 list? No spoilers, but…I do love a good plot twist.

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.”

— Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

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18. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Decline and Fall

By Evelyn Waugh

Fun fact for those of you who are name nerds like me: Evelyn Waugh’s first wife was also named Evelyn. They were known to their friends as He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn. At any rate, He-Evelyn Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall is definitely a must-read for any Roaring Twenties reading list.

19. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text

By William Faulkner

My opinion of The Sound and the Fury suffered while I was in school since it was used so often as an example of stream of consciousness writing. I’m giving it another shot this year—maybe when I’m reading it on my own terms, I’ll have a different experience with it.

20. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is the third book by the Fitzgeralds, and the second by Scott, to appear on this list, but I just can’t end 2020 without reading The Great Gatsby one more time. It’s a classic!

““Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!””

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

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There you have it: 20 books from the Jazz Age to read in 2020! What books would you add to the list?