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 is Grounding
Until we moved, we were daily newspaper subscribers — meaning actual, physical papers. (We’ll get back to it!) I have a hard time keeping up digitally (we have a handful of digital news subs) partly for the reasons that Cal Newport discussed in a newsletter about unplugging (for a bit) after you vote: “I suggest you switch to a slower pace of media consumption. Don’t laugh at this suggestion, because I’m actually serious: consider picking up the occasional old-fashioned printed newspaper (free from algorithmic optimization and click-bait curation) at your local coffee shop or library to check in, all at once, on anything major going on in the world.” Personally, I like to see the news laid out in one place, not click around on some rabbit trail.
More wisdom-seeking
A plaque in the vestibule of Bowdoin College’s former library:
“Books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.” This is from John Milton’s “Areopagitica,” which (I’ve learned) is one of the standard-bearer prose polemics (basically a speech/argument — which I’ve also learned) in defense of free speech. It was written in 1644, but of course like other persuasive writings packed with wisdom, lives on. For better or for worse, there’s not much new under the sun, right?
Reading as Work
Writer Mireille Silcoff has done just as the NYT Opinion headline says — bribed her 12-year-old daughter with $100 to read The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han — and I mostly do not have a problem with that. (I know you — or she — didn’t ask, but oh well.) Silcoff admits right off the bat that the payoff is “excessive” (it is) and that she felt like a “parenting failure” when she acknowledged that her daughter didn’t read for pleasure (she’s not).
Who’s a Critic?
Latest pet interest = criticism. As in literary criticism, not me rolling my eyes at that weird thing you said. (Am I projecting on myself??) It started with me re-discovering the work of Stanley Fish, whose book Is There a Text in this Class? helped provide the framework for my masters thesis so long ago. I then read Claire Dederer’s much-lauded Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, an exploration of how to reconcile liking good art created by people who have done really not-good things (i.e. Woody Allen) that partly — and perceptively — shifts into how Dederer approaches her career as a critic. (In a nutshell, “…a never-ending flow of judgement, which nestles together with subjectivity.”)
Yaa Gyasi in Charlotte
The other week, I got to see Yaa Gyasi at the closing event for a NEA Big Read event, coordinated by the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. Hooray for a new friend who knew about it and invited me! (Too bad I didn’t know about the initiative until the end of it and too bad that I never finished Homegoing when my book club in Dublin read it just as we were preparing to move back to the US. Guess life got busy, but I will rectify that soon especially now that I have a signed copy…)
Wandering Stars
“I think most sequels are bad.” This is what a character in Tommy Orange’s new novel, Wandering Stars, says. This character — like other characters in the second half of this book — was originally introduced to readers in Orange’s much-lauded debut, There There. So that’s kind of interesting since Wandering Stars is a sequel of sorts. But Wandering Stars is also a prequel in that we get three generations of history — and “explanation,” if you will — of these characters in the first half of Orange’s second novel. On a surface level, this is Orange’s attempt at making sense of addiction and why some people might fall under its curse. But specifically, he’s tracing a trail from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to a family of “urban Indians” in Oakland. He is offering up detailed origin stories for Jacquie, Orvil, Opal, as well as Loother and Lony — all from There There.
What Phones are Doing to Reading
Here’s an article that popped up in my inbox: “What Phones are Doing to Reading.” For much of the piece, writer Jay Caspian Kang reiterates what we already know. We are too used to scrolling and too used to seeking the “knowledge” of an algorithm, and in general, these qualities make us abandon books more readily if we’re not engaged straight away and they also cause us to want to skim and tap — “a quick calcification of muscle memory,” he writes.
The Rabbit hOle
Today, April 2, is International Children’s Book Day…which I would not have known if I didn’t follow Katie Couric on Instagram. So thank you, Katie. (Btw, she shared that one of her favorite books written for children is Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. If you saw my post from the other day, you may recall that the assumed genesis of this title caused a wee rift between me and my childhood BFF. I am happy to report, though, that 40 years later, all is well and she and I met up for an enjoyable dinner in Seattle a few months ago. I guess it’s true that time heals all wounds, even those caused by a jump-roping know-it-all, i.e. me.)
Connecting With Tommy Orange
I read There There by Tommy Orange soon after it was released in 2018. If you’re not familiar, Orange’s novel about “Urban Indians” in Oakland was a Pulitzer finalist and a National Book Award longlister. The historical Occupation of Alcatraz, a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz by 89 Native Americans from 1969-1971, plays a large role. (This was new history to me.) It’s richly layered, cleverly derivative — the novel’s title comes from the Gertrude Stein line “There is no there there” — and made me want to learn more about urban-based Native populations.
Just the Thing
It might come to pass that you are sitting in the Nordstrom Café in Bellevue Square on a Friday afternoon at 3 pm, eating a Green Goddess salad and reading a novel. You may be there because you just got off a plane but need to buy something before you attend a funeral the next day. It may also come to pass that you can’t focus on your book. At first you wonder if it’s because you feel awkward sitting by yourself in a restaurant, but then you realize that, no, that’s probably not the case because you’ve engaged in some iteration of this ever since grad school, but you had more props — notebooks, textbooks, highlighters. Then again, that probably looked more purposeful and this looks like a random woman sitting by herself at a non-traditional meal hour fumbling with both an overflowing salad and a paperback.
Keep Going!
“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.” This is one of those reading and writing quotes that gets bandied around — this one’s attributed to Salman Rushdie. From a writing perspective, yeah, that’s great inspiration and advice. From a reading perspective, eh…
“I Think in Terms of Emotions”
“I think in terms of emotions. And feelings. So sometimes what I say may not always be clear. But creatively, there’s a lot to be said for that way of thinking.” This quote is attributed to Brian Wilson, and I think this sentiment is true for many artists. There’s a documentary about the British band XTC where singer Andy Partridge describes his experience with synesthesia; in his case, his brain associates colors with certain numbers. Billie Eilish also perceives things this way: “[I have] a thing in [my] brain where [I] associate random stuff to everything. So for instance, every day of the week has a color, a number, a shape. Sometimes things have a smell that I can think of or a temperature or a texture.”
Why Baby Boomers Love the Kindle
Hey, it’s just a fun lil’ piece in the Wall Street Journal, so don’t shoot the messenger. But as a younger Gen X-er a few years shy of the Millennial cut-off, I do, indeed, prefer a tactile, paper book. You can scroll down to see some excerpts that I grabbed that also align with my preference/reasoning.
Therapeutic Novels?
Oh…no, no, nope. This headline caught my eye in today’s “Bookmarks” email from The Guardian. The School of Life, a “social media company that offers advice on life issues” founded by Alain de Botton, has a publishing arm and has now put forth its first “therapeutic novel.” It’s called A Voice of One’s Own (hello, Virginia Woolf?) and is about a 29-year-old woman’s mental health journey.
How Review-Bombing Can Tank a Book Before It’s Published
Penny for your thoughts?
Actually, no, I admit that I’m not interested in what the vast majority of readers think of a particular book. (Except perhaps for the utility of gauging cultural phenomena.)
Memory Circular Drive
Some 🌀 thoughts on reading…
Reading and Remembering With Annie Ernaux
Life has been so frenetic lately. Adult (gah…my youngest is nearly 18!) children coming and going, finishing school, starting their jobs. House on the market and all the hectic activity that comes with that. Work travels. Family visits. Lining up what seems like a bazillion interviews for this book I’m working on. (Yay!) All good stuff — life churning and chugging along.
I’m a Reader: Here’s My Response
From Newsletter Issue No. 14:
The other day, I came across a draft of my thesis for my masters program. I have a MA in Media Studies, and in 2003 — just a few months before I had my first child (timing is everything!) — I completed an ethnography of a group of children of immigration in one neighborhood in Charlotte, NC and how their media preferences were shaped. Because of guidance from my advisor, I used a framework from a book called Is There a Text in This Class? by the scholar Stanley Fish as a way to frame my own work. In academic circles, Fish is known as one of the main proponents of something called Reader-Response Criticism. The Cliff Notes version of RRC is that the main lens through which to view literature is the reader and his or her experience as opposed focusing on the author. In the introduction to Is There a Text in This Class? Fish writes…
The Library at Home
As we prepare to leave this house — and as we let prospective buyers through if they’ve heard about its future availability — Matt and I have spent many weekends organizing, purging, donating, scrubbing. Which of course included a massive tidy of some bookshelves. I know it’s likely I’ll be asked to “stage” them better — fewer books, more #decorativevases. Because as we all know (due to pox-on-society HGTV), the goal is to “remove” traces of oneself and one’s family from a home when it’s for sale. And since, in many ways, the books on our shelves tell my life’s story…out they go. But I can’t live like that in real life.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Amy’s Version
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Amy’s Version. Matt and I have been in Charlotte for a few weeks but have taken turns going back to Massachusetts on weekends. This weekend was my turn, and when I got up at 4 am on Friday to get to the airport, I saw that my flight was cancelled. Flying to Boston was going to be essentially impossible until Monday. Not helpful! After going through possible parent-less scenarios (could our son Uber to our house from his school, get our car, and criss-cross New England alone to these appointments at colleges?), we decided I would fly into a different airport and figure out the last part when I landed.
