READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
In This House of Brede
Is a novel about a group of nuns in an enclosed monastery in England a bit dated? Well, yes…but I think that’s the point. Or maybe it’s not. I think the point is that Everything Old is New Again ™️. In This House of Brede, Rumer Godden’s 1969 book that was made into a film in 1975, explores life in the Western world around the time of Vatican II.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
I shared in my stories the other week that I’m trying to read more non-fiction, and that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot was where I was starting. (Now, cue the 7 fiction books that I’ve got lined up. I guess you can say that my intentions are good; execution is poor.)
The Cost of Living
I struggled with this one. I recently read about Deborah Levy’s new book Real Estate: A Living Autobiography, not realizing that it is a third installment in a series. But I learned all this after I decided to check out the second in the series — The Cost of Living. (I’ve got Real Estate on hold!)
I Couldn’t Love You More
I reserved this book at the library and it came in right away…but now it is due basically yesterday because someone else has put in on hold. I love thinking about the zipzapzing of books being shelved and shuttled from one branch to another. Who had this book before me? Did they like it? Is it someone similar to me…or is it, like, an 85-year-old man? And in the case of a *kind of* obscure book — meaning it’s not the latest hot new release that’s being made into a movie — I really, really wish I knew who was checking it out it too.
The Ninth Hour
I am often described as “so nice.” This is not meant as a weird humblebrag; I think it’s usually said when people don’t know me well. Or are surprised that someone isn’t a jerk? I suppose you could exchange “nice” for “polite” or even “sensitive.” Both are true to an extent…
Florida
Stories that explore “home” in the most visceral sense. (People living in your crawlspace … a young woman who lives in a station wagon … a tent city… a French farmhouse…) ✅
Burnt Sugar
How do you feel about book blurbs?
The Middlesteins
I finished up The White Lotus on HBO about a week ago. That’s about the same time I started The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg, so let’s hear it for Americans’ ability to find themselves in despondent situations despite incredible resources and relative wealth. That’s one of our “modern ails,” right?
Mountain Reads
The Sudbury Town Crier
“...I’m more of a ‘mountain person,’ so I’ve decided to coin the phrase ‘Mountain Reads.’ These books might still be relatively fun and breezy — I mean you’re presumably on vacation after all — but Mountain Reads require just the tiniest bit more effort than a traditional beach read.”
Sorrow and Bliss
Planning on tearing through Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason this weekend.
If You Kept a Record of Sins
This is a beautiful book.
Apeirogon
In college I took an art history class – for fun, I guess, since I don’t think it fulfilled any requirement. I traipsed over to the Museum of Fine Arts one Saturday with my friend Keith because I had to write a paper on Rothko. I did, and I managed to make it a 10-page paper. Not a BS paper, which I’m sure some would like to think. No, it was actually a magnificent afternoon at the MFA as Keith and I spent about an hour talking about just one solitary painting because nothing in this artist’s work is straightforward, despite surface simplicity. Rothko is tricky like that.
Pillow Platitudes: On The Overstory by Richard Powers & Instagram Influencers
The New York Times recently published an interesting Opinion piece called “The Empty Religions of Instagram: How did influencers become our moral authorities?” Well, I focused straight away because the type of influencers that this piece discusses – namely, Glennon Doyle – is my kryptonite. I, a middle-aged white mom, fall squarely in Glennon’s target demographic, yet my fascination with her and her ilk is more of the sideshow variety. This category mostly doesn’t appeal to me – and the questioning cycle of “why does this not appeal to me?” of course makes me feel completely out of sync with my peers – but it’s interesting watching her peddle self-help-with-an-edge while everyone seems to fall into lockstep. If I get too far down this rabbit hole, I (and my heart), get stuck in a cycle of cynicism.
The Years
Well, The Years by Annie Ernaux is a beautiful and thoughtful book that I nonetheless found very melancholy. “Pensive Amy” made her debut in January and might not go away until the snow does.
News of the World
Are we participants in the world, or just readers of it?
In the Dream House
Memoirs: I typically don’t read them, but I just finished one. Introducing…In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. (Introduction probably not needed for many of you bibliophiles.)
Labrador
When my brother and I have been back in our hometown together – which has happened, oh, maybe twice since our parents moved in 1995 – we say “This/that is so…weird” over and over. Which is, well, weird because there is nothing “weird” about where we’re from. (In fact, it’s kind of amazing!) What we are trying to articulate – albeit very poorly – is that nostalgia is a strange bugger. How does one make sense of one’s childhood memories? Not the concrete ones, but the “feelings” of: how your elementary school was or what it was like to take swim lessons. And the people, of course. Remember Mr. X? What about that family from Sweden who lived in the house across the street for 9 months? All those kids beaming from a class photo? You know how it goes. A stew of moments.
A Little More Human
A long time ago, my husband worked with someone who introduced him to the book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil. At the time it felt wild (sort of like how Tom Cruise pawing at his invisible swipe screen in Minority Report seemed ca-razy), but now a novel like A Little More Human, by Fiona Maazel (and published in 2017), doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. This book is part literary fiction and part…speculative fiction?
RAWTS: How It Began
Hi. I’m Amy’s husband, Matt. She says nice things about me here, but she rarely speaks of the dirty family secret: I don’t read.
Mirror, Shoulder, Signal
Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Danish writer Dorthe Nors. File under: Scandinavian literature can needle human emotion in a spectacular fashion – probably because it does so in an almost-but-not-quite dull manner. (One of the best books I’ve ever read is The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am by Norwegian author Kjersti Skomsvold.) I checked out the (few) 1-star reviews of this book after finishing, and as I predicted, they declared it “slow” and “meandering.” Well, I guess I’m a one-star gal because that’s what makes the novel work.
