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.
Reading + Pandemic = Travel? On Amy and Isabelle, Beyond Babylon, and Being Well-Read & Well-Traveled
I’ve never really bought the “reading is like traveling” argument. Reading is reading, and travel is travel, and never the twain shall meet. (Reading an Elin Hilderbrand book is just as good as actually being on Nantucket? Girl, please.) On Instagram, I occasionally tussle with the idea of why we read – and inevitably, someone brings up “travel.” I’m not saying that is not their experience, but it has never been mine.
Let's Get Real: Have You Thought of Fairytales Lately? On She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore
Yes, we’re 20 years late, but my husband and I have discovered The Sopranos. It’s taken a while (I mean, in digital-streaming, binge-watching parlance) for us to get to where we are – Season 5 – but it’s been an enjoyable ride so far. I’m still not sure that The Sopranos can top my all-time favorite show, The Americans, but that’s ok…not much can. (Sigh, I still miss it, and no, this is not the first time I’ve tied in a blog post to a television series.)
In a recent sub-sub-(sub)-plot, “Paulie Walnuts” – one of Tony Soprano’s underlings – moves his mother into a nursing home. Like many tight-knit communities, the Newark Italian-American community – particularly for those in their 80s, as Paulie’s mother is – demonstrates certain unwritten code as well as sneaky and pernicious ways of simultaneously projecting an air of inclusivity and deftly boxing out those who “lose” at the game of community hierarchy.
Measuring Up
About a year ago, my brother-in-law posed a question on Facebook: “Comedians judge each other by The Aristocrats joke. My dad judges chefs by their chicken parm. What unique yardsticks do you have?” In other words, by what metric do you judge something specific? I responded that despite the cliché, I do, in fact, judge a book by its cover. Incidentally, that’s how I ended up purchasing Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi. I’ll readily admit that if a book’s cover doesn’t register aesthetically for me, I’ll have to be convinced about its content. The converse, of course, is that I’ve been burned a time or two by books whose innards don’t match their eye-catching exteriors. By the way, I’m not alone in this fascination: Here’s a piece from The New Yorker about the ins and outs of cover design.
