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.
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.)
We Need Some Wendell Berry About Now
Lordy, I feel like we all need some Wendell Berry about now.
Unlikely Animals
I didn’t know that Annie Hartnett was a philosophy major, but I learned that after reading her bio today.
The Ten Year Affair
The Guardian recently published a piece about tropes. You know, the prescribed templates that are staples of romance, a genre I don’t read but I’m clued in enough to understand the gist.
Trust Exercise
When I interviewed my niece for my homesick project, I asked her what homesickness feels like. Among other things, I loved that she very specifically said, “I feel it in my sternum.” Because there’s a real physicality to emotion, right? See: pit in stomach, butterflies in chest, etc.
The Material
A+++ and 100% to this clever and skewering novel about a Stand-Up MFA program. (Haha)
Near Flesh
What does it mean to have something published posthumously? (I mean, I know what it means, but what does it MEAN. [Know what I mean?])
State of Wonder: A Posture for a New Year
When you scan the books scattered among the shelves for something
— you haven’t yet read
— isn’t anything like this collection of autofiction* that all at once became ready to pick up at the library and is now accumulating on your side of the bed
Mrs. Dalloway
The 2020s are so weird and there is absolutely no denying that. But when Matt and I watched Ken Burns’ documentary on prohibition a few years ago, all I kept thinking was that the 1920s seemed pretty weird too.
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 Correspondent
Last year, I posted about the novel Summerwater and how I felt like Sarah Moss employed the theme of “surprise.” (And also that I on occasion have kept a “surprise” journal.) Here’s what has turned into one of the most ~surprising~ novels of 2025. I was first introduced to The Correspondent by Virginia Evans from my friend because she had been given a copy soon after it was published by someone who is mentioned in the acknowledgements. (Hi, Margaret Ann, if you see this.)
The Road to Tender Hearts
Ok, The Road to Tender Hearts is a BOP. A book that’s a bop?
The Wall
[Some scribbled notes…the kind that get my brain going when I’m trying to figure out what I want to say:]
We Do Not Part
We Do Not Part: A fixation on hands and touch and how we can mend and create but also pierce and cut … and maybe, too, a declaration that idleness (“idle hands” and all that) can prevent something from being revealed.
Nostalgia v Memory (and The Whistling Season)
“The Rembrandt light of memory, finicky and magical and faithful at the same time, as the cheaper tint of nostalgia never is.” — The Whistling Season (Ivan Doig)
Three Days in June
Curling up in stripy pajamas and polka dot socks to finish the Anne Tyler book that you started on the plane home the other day and soaking in the simple (but not, like, “simple” as in one-dimensional) stories of normal people who Tyler has made up (of course…because it’s fiction) but nonetheless…
Imaginary Museums
This is Shel Silverstein for adults. But not like “for adults” with an “only” tagged at the end.
Great Expectations
“It’s never good to be a fanatic,” said my teacher. I have no recollection of the context; pretty sure she was directing us in a Gilbert & Sullivan production, so maybe she didn’t want us to get fanatical about gondoliers.
Heart Be at Peace
I’ve been thinking about what it means to not just live — but to cultivate, and maybe even cultivate with aplomb (!) — a small life. Which mine is. And I suspect that applies to the great majority of us.
The Emperor of Gladness
I suppose the main thing I took away from The Emperor of Gladness — Ocean Vuong’s second novel, the one that Oprah selected for her book club — is that sometimes the people we are meant to be the closest to are actually the farthest from us.
