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.
Wellness
I’ve been trying to think of how to describe books like Wellness by Nathan Hill. The first thing that comes to mind is that novels like this are ones that I “gobble up.” They are “smart” and “literary” and often on the longer side. But they aren’t overly taxing. They are generally page-turners, and sometimes you can skim a tiny bit in parts. There are dramatic inflection points, but you know that the author spent a lot of time trying to figure out where best to place them because often these novels involve time shifting. In general, these “gobble up” books span a few generations of a family’s history even if “family dynamics” is not the main focus of the plot. (Wellness is essentially a look at the psychology of love using a middle-aged marriage as its foil.) The authors’ ability to create spot-on characters drawing from contemporary tropes, nuances, and cultural references without stooping to stereotyping is A+. They’re just really, really well-written stories.
