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.
Jane and Prudence
I checked out this novel — Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym — after reading about the late British novelist somewhere. It was entertaining — I think Pym is maybe regarded as a 20th-century Jane Austen, i.e. an author who liked to pierce uptight social norms? Jane and Prudence follows two friends as one (Jane) embarks on a new life after her husband, a clergyman, moves to a country congregation, and the other (Prudence) relishes in her mantle as city career gal. It was published in 1953. Busybody-ness reigns supreme, and it was an easy, delightful read.
All This Could Be Different
“We all have our truth of a place. There is no universal narrative of any city that is also real. Only marketing.” This is very true and this line was a great takeaway for me that I’ve tucked away to use elsewhere. I would say the same sentiment applies to books.
Jane Austen and the Pursuit of Status
Amanda Taub and Max Fisher write a column for the NYT called “The Interpreter,” which gives context and analysis allowing the reader to — ta da! — interpret current events. Occasionally, Taub does a dispatch called “What I’m Reading” and gives people some tips on (nonficition) books that provide more in-depth knowledge to stories that she’s reporting. For instance, in early August her “What I’m Reading” version of the column had the subhed “The seismic shifts of the 1960s are still reverberating in the Democratic Party”; in the body of the column, she gave some examples of books that helped illuminate this theme. (If you’re interested, they included The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson and Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965, by Eric Schickler.)
