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.
A Little Life
I’m about 10 years late to the party, but now I’ve joined the party, and here’s what’s on my mind…
O Caledonia
I read O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker, and, well I think the main thing I need to say about this is that teenage protagonist Janet is maybe, probably, definitely, for sure an Enneagram 4 (but notch it waaaay up to 11 — or more).
Stolen
“Good things come to those who wait” — always true?
Challenge Accepted
From Newsletter Issue No. 17:
I like a new year — I think most people do, yes?
Emergency
The short stories in Kathleen Alcott’s debut collection Emergency are like the sorts of people who seem to exude way too much cool and bravado but then you have a conversation with them and you’re like, “Ok, I guess you’re maybe a normal person with typical self-conscious neuroses too.” But then once in a while their sense of coolness peeks through the whole aw-shucks routine and you wonder if it’s all really a charade after all.
The End of Drum-Time
One day while writing I fell down this massive rabbit hole and came across something called discrete emotion theory, which posits that everyone — regardless of culture or geography — has the same set of basic emotions. There are exceptions and nuances, though…mostly having to do with language, which is how I circled into this whole thing in the first place.
The Queen of Dirt Island
So, the cover art for The Queen of Dirt Island is deceiving. Yes, we all know not to judge a book by its cover, but … what, huh? I’m a huge fan of Donal Ryan, and when I collected this copy from the library I wondered if he had abruptly taken a treacly, romantic, sentimental turn. In fact, his writing — subject matter, prose, narrative style — has not transformed for the “worse”; it’s actually so great (and contemporary, as much of the book takes place in the 90s as opposed to the 40s vibe that the cover boasts) that I couldn’t get Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird out of my head.
Prophet Song
Have you ever had an intensely negative visceral reaction to a book?
I wouldn’t normally say publicly if I did, but Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (which just won the Booker) is my answer.
Kantika
I’ve always been fascinated by my family’s history — the lore, the movement from one place to another, the individuals whose quirks (either good or bad) become mythologized in some broad-brush kind of way. There’s nothing particularly dramatic or unusual about my history, but family stories are usually the first kinds that we hear as a child, so we internalize and memorize them and grant them a bit of tidy morality lesson. Maybe you’re this way too?
North Woods
A bit of …
Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders);
The Overstory (Richard Powers);
Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell);
Her Perfect Symmetry (Audrey Niffenegger);
Swann (Carol Shields)…
Let Us Descend
And this is why Oprah is the queen. I mean, Jesmyn Ward is the queen. But they’re both the queens for different, but linked, reasons.
The Caretaker
In 2019, I set out to read one Shakespeare play a month. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of the Bard (like, at all), but it had been a long time since I had immersed myself in literature that made me work the way that older literature demands. Untangling those assemblages of words kept me focused. It was a fun little undertaking…I may do something similar in 2024. (Suggestions?)
Wellness
I’ve been trying to think of how to describe books like Wellness by Nathan Hill. The first thing that comes to mind is that novels like this are ones that I “gobble up.” They are “smart” and “literary” and often on the longer side. But they aren’t overly taxing. They are generally page-turners, and sometimes you can skim a tiny bit in parts. There are dramatic inflection points, but you know that the author spent a lot of time trying to figure out where best to place them because often these novels involve time shifting. In general, these “gobble up” books span a few generations of a family’s history even if “family dynamics” is not the main focus of the plot. (Wellness is essentially a look at the psychology of love using a middle-aged marriage as its foil.) The authors’ ability to create spot-on characters drawing from contemporary tropes, nuances, and cultural references without stooping to stereotyping is A+. They’re just really, really well-written stories.
I Meant It Once
Anastasia Krupnik grew up and now she’s about 10 different characters experiencing a quarter-life crisis in I Meant it Once, the debut short story collection from Kate Doyle. I mean, not really (that would be fun, though!), but Doyle’s prose and the dialogue she gives her characters project the same sort of determination-tempered-with-a-large-dash-of-doubt that seems to always encumber our beloved Anastasia.
The Premonition
If you know me in person, have followed me for a bit, or know what I’ve been spending time writing about (homesickness), it will be no surprise why I adored The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto, published in 1988 in Japan and recently translated to English.
Salvage the Bones
Reading Salvage the Bones was like going back to high school. Indeed, a quick search shows me that it is, in fact, taught in secondary schools.
As soon as I hit my stride in the book — and learned the above — I wondered if the book had been challenged/banned. Another search shows me that I get to smugly say: KNEW IT. As a parent, I am truly, truly baffled by this. I would have loved for my kids to have read Salvage the Bones in high school. Here’s why…
The Wren, The Wren
R.E.M.’s album Green came out when I was in 7th grade — that was my “entry point” to the band. I nearly wore out my tape, lovingly dubbed by a friend, except there were all these whispers about it being a commercial sellout, but what did I know? I think it’s common to have a sweet affinity for the “thing” that introduces us to an artist, musician, writer. Often, we explore the back catalogue and then abhor anything that comes after our own particular entry point. It took me a long time to appreciate that Out of Time is, actually, a brilliant album. (Despite Shiny Happy People, which you know we all secretly love…)
Night Watch
With any crisis where one might feel somewhat removed, it takes a lot of self-imposed effort to (attempt to) understand what it’s really “like” to be in the center of it — whether that be due to time (a historical event) or location or any other seeming lack of connection with events. I find that bothersome (and I mean that about myself as well), but I suppose that’s human nature. We covet, crave, and glom on to what we know and what is familiar. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
Old God’s Time
On the back of Old God’s Time, Sebastian Barry’s 11th novel, a blurb by Robert Gottlieb reads, “Barry’s novels give us lives, not plots…Every one of his novels is luminous. Not one of them sounds like anyone else.” Yup, yup on that “lives, not plots” commentary — and actually, I wrote about this very idea many years ago for The Curator after reading my first Barry novel. (It was Annie Dunne, purchased at the Dublin Writers Museum … here’s the piece.) These days, I’m more often than not drawn to “plot-less” books — books that mine emotion and motivation instead of relying on “and here’s what happened next” storytelling. But, as laid bare in that essay, I initially found reading a novel like that kind of jarring.
All We Shall Know
I love Donal Ryan’s work and can’t wait to read his latest, The Queen of Dirt Island. I lived in Ireland when The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December were published, and these will always be among my favorite books partly for the reason that they will transport me back to a specific era, a specific setting, a specific feeling…always. To me, they beckon like a gentle call of “remember this?” even though the setting, place, and politics aren’t really mine to claim.
