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.
Mercy Street
I used to have #FictionIsRelevant in my bio because, well, even something wildly “made up” reflects real life. So how appropriate (nay, #Relevant) that my library copy of Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh became available this week. The novel is about abortion (but like any good novel, is about so much more); the protagonist works at a clinic and another character is a creepy protestor and I think you get the gist. I whipped right through it.
Bright Lights, Big City
Let’s talk time capsules.
Passage West
While we were living in Ireland, I met a Taiwanese-American woman who was married to an Irish man. She had grown up some in Taiwan, but mostly in California and when she realized that I was also originally from the West Coast said something along the lines of, “People are different on the West Coast. It’s the whole ‘pioneering spirit’ that has evolved into innovation.”
On Homesickness
It’s a beautiful spring day in Boston. Finally! Finally? Everywhere I’ve lived, the air feels different and the seasons emerge differently, yet except for North Carolina — where we lived for five years — spring has never been an “early” season. So I don’t know why it continually surprises me when it shows itself so “late.”
Good Company
I’m reading a new genre
Plainsong
Plainsong by Kent Haruf is the book I chose for my book club. “Happy ending needed!” was the charge. Not sure I delivered according to those specifications in the way people wanted…
The Bone People
Why do you pick the books that you do? Let me tell you about why I checked out The Bone People by Keri Hulme. In early January, I read an obituary of Hulme because the NYT identified her in the headline as New Zealand’s first Booker winner. (The Bone People won in 1985.)
So Much Nonfiction in 2022?
2022’s been shaping up to be my year of nonfiction. Normally I’d read maybe TWO nonfiction books a year, tops. But here I am clocking in at 5 so far. Wowee! In case you’re a fan of nonfiction, here’s what I’ve read:
Tinkers
Tinkers by Paul Harding: A quiet, poetic, and pensive book that reminded (and assured?) me that these qualities can still “win” even in a world that prizes brashness, boastfulness, and rigid opinion. (I mean, it really did win…it won the Pulitzer in 2010.)
Jonny Appleseed
Whew.
Mother Daughter Widow Wife and The Life to Come
Someone asked me the other day how I select the books I read. I had to think about that, actually. Because truthfully, it’s just sort of a whim thing. I’m a greedy book acquirer, thanks to the library, so I’m often trying to read many books at once.
Wrap Me Up in a Complicated Blardigan: On Oh William! and Transcendent Kingdom
The Boston Globe Magazine’s January 23 cover story was “30 Great Comfort Foods”; the cover was festooned with a tantalizing picture of chicken and waffles from Brassica Kitchen + Cafe in Jamaica Plain, a fairly gentrified and artsy neighborhood in Boston that nonetheless still tries to cling to a working class/relatable vibe. Here’s the lead blurb to this compilation, which includes delicacies from honey-glazed biscuits, to ramen, to nine-hour French onion soup: “When temperatures drop and New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside, we all need something to warm our souls.
Transcendent Kingdom
When’s the last time you started a book in one place and finished it in another? I don’t mean like the couch and then your bed; more like two totally different geographic locations. Or maybe I should just say “settings” because perhaps the act of reading a book can be like its own story in and of itself.
Swamplandia!
“Domestic fiction,” but make it on a swampy Florida island with a family of alligator wrestlers. Geek Love (Katherine Dunn) x Everything Under (Daisy Johnson) x a teeny tiny smidge of Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens). Swamplandia! by Karen Russell.
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.
