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 Our Way to Better Taste
From Newsletter Issue No. 19:
In July, the New York Times published a comprehensive roundup of “The Best Books of the First Quarter of the 21st Century.” How were these titles agreed upon? Well, they were “voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Behind the Moon
There was a tidbit on a recent This American Life episode (the one titled “Lists!!!”) that described all the lists this woman keeps on her phone. They were more than the usual to-do lists that we probably all have. Instead, one of her ongoing lists was something along the lines of “Things I Do That are Off-Brand for Me.” It made me laugh. Partly because this was a much younger — and much more unattached — person than I and one of her “off brand” items was that she hadn’t kissed anyone famous. We like collecting good questions — ones that are fun to pull out with friends that might illuminate something we might not know about each other — and this is one we’ll add to the arsenal for sure because it raises some good sub-questions such as: Do I *have* a “brand”? But also, finding something off-brand about oneself is actually kind of hard! (We did finally come up with some tepid answers.)
