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.
10:04
10:04 is a hard book to take a picture of because the cover art is a somewhat indecipherable/inverted dark image of Lower Manhattan with part of the electric power grid out. Also, it’s sporting a plastic library dust jacket. (If you saw all the pics where you could see me in the book’s reflection…) But if you viewed this book IRL, it would look essentially the same as what you’re seeing here — it’s not as if this image is some massive distortion. It’s the same even if you’re looking at it through a different lens.
Departure(s)
When it comes to the snooze button (which, have you noticed, is ginormous on the most updated iPhone OS?), here is my philosophy, at least with my own snooze button activity: The point is not so much to get more sleep; the point is to have an awareness that I am getting more sleep. I think that fundamentally, humans want to actively know that they are receiving or experiencing a benefit. Is being granted a bit of extra sleep without being alerted to it the same as actively choosing to get that extra time? I don’t think so. (Stay tuned for my exhilarating dispatches on my philosophy of laundry.)
Birthday Book Recs 35/50 : Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
Birthday Book Recs: 35/50
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
Bad, Bad Girl
I adored Bad, Bad Girl. And it’s not just because I adore Gish Jen. (I was gobsmacked when she agreed to participate in MetroWest Readers Fest. My fan tendencies were in overdrive and she was sooo lovely.)
The Extinction of Irena Rey
Knives Out, but it’s a group of translators trying to figure out where their author — a famous Polish writer named Irena Rey (“Our Author” in their parlance) — has disappeared to after they convene in a forest village between Poland and Belarus to translate her newest novel, Grey Eminence. The Extinction of Irena Rey is written by Jennifer Croft, primarily (until now?) known for her translation work — she won the Booker in 2018 for her English translation of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. I know of Croft because of her fab work of autofiction, Homesick, which she originally wrote in Spanish. The Extinction of Irena Rey is actually a novel in a novel; Croft has masterminded the story to be “written” by an Argentinian and then “translated” to English by an American. Got that?
The Years
Well, The Years by Annie Ernaux is a beautiful and thoughtful book that I nonetheless found very melancholy. “Pensive Amy” made her debut in January and might not go away until the snow does.
