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.
Jonny Appleseed
Whew.
Little Free Libraries Beneath the Surface
I posted on my stories the other day that during a long walk in a neighborhood near where we used to live in Charlotte, NC, I passed at least 7 Little Free Libraries.
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.
Bus Stop by Donald Justice
Bus Stop by Donald Justice…
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.
Baghdad Book Fair
Here’s an article from a December issue of The Boston Sunday Globe. (Originally printed in the NYT.) Despite all the headlines that catch our eye (and that, well, appear in newspapers like the one I read this in), “There is a big gap between the people in the street and political elite…People in the street are not that interested in what happens in politics,” according to Maysoon al-Demluji, a former deputy minister of culture. That might be a bit of an overstatement, but she’s speaking at the Baghdad International Book Fair; her point is that this is the kind of place where “real life” in Iraq happens.
Spines Out
Days later, I’m still chuckling at this reply to one of my stories. Profile pic not covered to not protect the men-in-fedora hater.
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.
Viet Thanh Nguyen: “A Disturbing Book Changed My Life”
“Book banning” is not new, but in the past year or so, challenges to books have popped up in headlines with more frequency. The latest, of course, is a school board in Tennessee removing Maus by Art Spiegelman from classrooms. But let’s see…we also have school district north of Seattle removing To Kill a Mockingbird from its required reading list and a mom in Texas has a fixation with a passing reference to anal sex in Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez.
Hannah Coulter
“Our story is the story of our place…” Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry.
Case in Point: Framingham School Libraries
“Students in Framingham are checking out more books from the library: Here’s why.” This MetroWest Daily News article popped up online yesterday. Framingham borders the town where I live.
Dr. Richard Macksey’s Viral Yet Non-Existent Library
Ok, we all know Instagram loooooves this kind of image, but before you blindly double tap, read on!
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.
‘Planets in My Head, Philosophy’
‘Planets in My Head, Philosophy.’ Yinka Shonibare.
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.
Powell’s and “Downtown”
“How will brick-and-mortar stores fare in a time of continued fear over a deadly, airborne plague? What happens to city life when sidewalks are strewn with the rain-soaked belongings of people who can no longer afford rent?”
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.
