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.
The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
Today is #WorldReadAloudDay. And reading aloud is not just for kids, you know. As for me and my house, perhaps my husband and I will read from The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon after our exciting trip to Home Depot this evening. Very meta, with a new kitchen faucet on the side for good measure.
Hannah Coulter
“Our story is the story of our place…” Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry.
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
“The man could…talk about the irony of it all, of people being given power because they were good at shouting against the enslaving things of Europe, and of the same people using the same power for chasing after the same enslaving things.” – Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born
Station Eleven
Station Eleven was published in 2014, so I’m wondering what all the pre-2020 readers thought of this, Emily St. John Mandel’s “pandemic novel.” I can’t stop thinking about it. Not just because of the mentions of contagion, incubation periods, symptoms, and quarantine that are all so eerily familiar. Those phrases will resonate with a post-2020 reader in a different, more concrete way.
Oh William!
Required reading for all introspective individuals — those who often wonder what things “mean” — and those who love them. Which I hope is everyone at one point or another.
The Midnight Library
I’ve just finished The Midnight Library by Matt Haig for my Class of 94 book club. (Friends, do you think we need an official name?!) Haig, despite authoring bestsellers many times over (The Midnight Library is a Good Morning America pick), is the recipient of mountains of criticism that he’s too schlocky or self-help-ish.
The Paper Palace and The Nest
Two novels taking place in the Northeast. Stereotypes: intact. Shabby “chic” family compounds, seemingly erudite New Yorkers who jostle to be a part of a scene, breezy yet overly confident in *everything.*
A Calling for Charlie Barnes
Why, in fiction, do women have the corner on: being neurotic, desperately seeking one’s purpose, and/or flirtations with malaise? Carol Shields upended that narrative with Larry’s Party, and Joshua Ferris has done it also with A Calling for Charlie Barnes.
The Neighbor’s Secret
Here’s why this book — so different than what I normally read — caught my eye. The Neighbor’s Secret by L. Alison Heller was featured as a recent NYT Group Text “book club” pick, and I was taken in because a neighborhood book club acts as the grounding “institution” for the subtly catty yet loud and proud I-just-want-to-raise-good-and-kind-humans crowd of mamas. (🥴) I suspected some blink-or-you’ll-miss-it sarcasm would abound...and I was right.
Brothers on Three
I recently read something, somewhere (#precise) about the book Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation on Montana by journalist Abe Streep. So I checked it out from the library. And then I read it, and now I am recommending it to you.
Bewilderment
Is Richard Powers’ entire MO to gently prod readers to flip life on its side so we can learn to approach our investigation of it differently? Bewilderment is only the second novel of his that I’ve read, but it seems fitting to (almost) end out 2021 with his latest — an Oprah pick, btw — after jumpstarting this crazy year reading The Overstory with my husband. I guess I’ll have to read more Richard Powers to find out.
Rising Out of Hatred
Gearing up to discuss this one tomorrow with a handful of high school classmates. Yes, I read Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow over Thanksgiving break, which feels inappropriate for some reason, i.e. it’s not exactly a sweet or #blessed tale.
Matrix
Everyone’s raving about Matrix by Lauren Groff (I mean, this book sure roared in with a bang, right?), and here I am googling “psychology of preference” and scouring an old NPR transcript of an interview with Ira Flatow, Yale professor of psychology and author of How Pleasure Works. (In other words, why we like certain things.)
Harlem Shuffle and Real Estate
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is a heist novel. But heist stories are not my thing, so I’m billing this as a novel about real estate. Because it partly is. And because I read it in tandem with Real Estate, the third installment of Deborah Levy’s “A Living Autobiography” series.
A Long Petal of the Sea
Once again, another wonderful book club meeting with alumnae from my high school. This time, we ranged from the Classes of 1948 to 2004. (I think I got that right.)
The Wolf Border and The Electric Michelangelo
Two totally different novels by the same author. One about wolves, one about tattoos. (Duh, of course I’m simplifying.) Highly recommend both, but for some reason Wolves > Tattoos for me?
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.)
Burnt Sugar
How do you feel about book blurbs?
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.”
