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.
Moon Tiger
Once in a while, I’ll come across a video of an over-the-top church service. The latest is a pastor making his “stage entrance” via makeshift rollercoaster. Okaaay! Welcome to the commodification of something sacred. “Commodifying” something is maybe just another way of saying “treating as a finite good” or perhaps “cheapening something into a more digestible state.”
The Fell
There’s a difference between isolation, “alone time,” and loneliness. Maybe they intersect a bit, but the distinct ways that we experience — and perhaps sometimes crave — solitude don’t really share qualities, beyond the obvious granular one, with each other.
“I want to find a book that will give me hope.”
I’m rounding out my bi-monthly volunteer shift at my local Habitat ReStore, where I shelve books in the adjacent used bookstore/cafe. Those words stream quietly — and maybe even apologetically — from someone who, I could tell, has been treated very unkindly by this world.
Pearl
I finished Siân Hughes’ Booker long-listed debut novel early this morning after getting about 3 hours of sleep (oy), and the slog sped up and her vision became clear.
Choice
“Make good choices!” is the de facto cry of parents. Which in one way is the same as my parents telling me to have a safe flight … of course we all know I have no choice in the matter. My point being: Telling your child to make a “good choice” really doesn’t actually do anything except make a parent feel better via a false sense of control because navigating “making good choices” is sort of this specter that hangs out in the ether throughout years and years of parenting. You hope that common sense just sort of rubs off on them as you model good choice-making, but it’s not like you can role-play or narrate every single situation that a child might encounter. (But of course we all know the general highlight reel…)
Ghost Wall
“Packs a punch.” “Good things come in small packages.” “Punches above its weight.” (Weird how ‘punch’ does double time when it comes to idioms about outsize force relative to size…guess we really do think of impact vis a vis mass?) Those are a handful of annoying phrases that one could use to describe a “small but mighty” (ugh) book. “Slim.” “Compact.” “Trim.” “Slender.” All ways that short novels are described. (No shame there — I’ve used them all.)
Obsessed With Home
Obsessions go hard, I guess. It’s not a shocker that I’m obsessed with the idea of home — and, specifically, that complex feeling of homesickness, which is its flipside I suppose. Matt and I are just about done emptying the house that will be undergoing a big ol’ renovation, and today I came across a box of all my old clips from the Tufts Observer. Here’s the first thing I ever wrote for the publication where I eventually creeped my way up to Editor-in-Chief. Color me surprised. (Not at all.) I didn’t know what I was writing, really; I just knew that my background and points of reference were a little different from the throngs of students mostly from NJ, NY, MA, and sometimes CT, so I guess I needed to get pen to paper to make sense of that somehow. The specter hanging over all this wondering via simplistic writing was my parents’ cross-country move to Washington, DC right before I wrote this. (ie Where is home?!?!)
Practice
What is it like to go through one’s day without analyzing every facet of one’s most basic routine? Darned if I know… (🫥)
Clear
The stories we make up about others, about circumstances, about ourselves, even, when we are in need of connection and comfort. That is, in sum, what Clear by Carys Davies is about.
Summerwater
I know everyone loves a gratitude journal. That’s great and all, but a gratitude journal doesn’t really do much for me. (Don’t misunderstand: I try to “practice gratitude” on the regular and of course am thankful for many, many things…I’m not a sociopathic lunatic, ok?)
Instead, at different points in my life, I’ve kept what I guess I’d call a “surprise journal.” (Can a stationery company please design an official version with that “surprise, surprise” lady on the cover?)
Recreating
I’m enjoying a Thai rice and tofu salad by myself. I think Matt would probably like it, but he is traveling so I see this as an opportunity to experiment with recipes from The Happy Pear, a pint-sized vegan restaurant in Greystones, Co Wicklow where I would often stop with my “hill walking” friends. “A lifetime ago,” we like to say. Meanwhile, Spotify’s Natalie Merchant playlist streams through the speaker. From recalling my “discovery” of 10,000 Maniacs in middle school to easing into the softer melodies of her solo career, my mind’s eye looks through a make-believe pinhole and sees a different me. But still the same…you know what I mean. It’s hard to hold hands with a 10- or 20- (or, yikes, 30-)-years-earlier version of oneself, much less give her a high five. But I’ll always try!
The Namesake
For some reason I thought that maybe I had already read The Namesake … until I started it (because I wasn’t 100% sure) and realized that nope, I had just seen the movie.
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).
Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain by Vesna Goldsworthy is like holding up a funhouse mirror to different cultures — in this case, an unnamed Soviet Bloc country and England. (But like the novel Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego, Goldsworthy in Iron Curtain occasionally inserts little factoids and artifacts from other countries, underpinning the fact that even down to the most basic of things — let’s throw out food shopping as an example — everywhere has its own “way.”) Everything looks worse — or a little crazy — when viewed from a different vantage point.
The Past
“She’d picked up this book about a doll’s house from the shelf in her room quite casually and fondly, remembering how she had liked it in her childhood, not at all expecting to be ambushed with overwhelming emotion. Every so often she looked up from the page and stared around her as if she hardly knew where she was — but she was at Kington, which was the beloved scene of her past anyway. So her glance through the panes of the old glass in the arched window, to the yellowing rough grass in the garden and the alders which grew along the stream, didn’t restore any equilibrium. It wasn’t only the recollection attached to the words she was reading — a memory of other readings — which moved her. The story itself, in its own words, tapped into deep reservoirs of feeling. The writer’s touch was very sure and true, unsentimental — one of the doll’s-house dolls died, burned up in a fire. The book seemed to open up for Alice a wholesome and simplifying way of seeing things which she had long ago lost or forgotten, and hadn’t hoped to find again.”
My Phantoms
I like reading about visual artists and their work and how capturing those elusive things like “light” and “shade” might be what makes a work…work. And how the work of a truly skilled person differs so greatly from the caricature-ish work of, well, me — or a child who reaches for a crayon to draw a house with a pitched roof, four windows, and curlicued smoke coming out of the chimney. What the non-artists among us put to paper might be how we see and interpret an object, but when set against the actual setting, the disconnect is clear.
Grit or Glamour? Your (Casting) Call: On Milkman and La La Land
The Oscars just passed. I didn’t watch, although I love the movies. That being said, I’m usually behind in my screenings, so let’s tie this in to the Oscars two years ago. Bright side: I’m talking about an extremely current book. You win some, you lose some.
Are You a Story or a Novel? Thoughts on The Only Story by Julian Barnes and the Stories We (choose to) Believe
There are three nearby coffee shops I frequent to get some work done. I like them all equally for different reasons – one has superior coffee, one has a nice array of breakfast sandwiches, and one seems to have a lot of moms and/or grandparents with toddlers. One of the above also has a group from a community organization that meets often. They are kind of loud and judgmental – and I love it and I hate it. I love it because it’s entertaining and I just can’t turn away (even though it looks like I’m just tapping away at my laptop). I hate it because they are just. so. damn. smug.
In Obvious News, Authors Want You to Read Their Books: Thoughts on The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Target bookshelves – they’re a bugaboo of mine. I won’t deny buying books at the bullseye bonanza and I also won’t deny that this quintessential American destination sometimes stocks good ones. But in a country that prides itself on individuality and choice, Target book sales promote just the opposite. Tell me: Where’s the fun in that?! (Well, it is indeed fun when you look for themes in the store’s offerings, as seen below…)
So, where do you get your books when you don’t want to read about what Target (or Reese or Oprah) wants you to read about?
Swaptions: When Target + Celebrities Infiltrate Your Library
I recently read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. You know you know this book – it’s everywhere. Target shelf? Check. A selection for Reese Witherspoon’s new “book club” via her nascent media enterprise Hello Sunshine? Why, yes. Set to be made into a movie by same company? Hello (sunshine)! But not at your library because 150 people have holds on it before you? Of course.
Reading rule of thumb: If it’s on the shelf at Target, there’s a very good chance it’s going to be off the shelf at your local library, i.e. 150 holds before your turn. If Reese Witherspoon or Oprah endorses it? Perhaps double that library hold number.
