The Turkish-born novelist Elif Shafak wrote this in October 2020: “Motherlands are castles made of glass…”

We saw The Head and the Heart last week. (Awesome show!) They didn’t play one of my favorites, and I can see it being a bit maudlin for a concert at an outdoor amphitheater anyway. It’s called “One Big Mystery” and is marked with “life’s one big mystery” as a repeated line. Simple stuff, but a true statement nonetheless.

My first job at a magazine included tasks like fact checking, proofing, as well as administrative minutiae such as taping an assortment of an editor’s handwritten taxi receipts to paper so that I could photocopy this collated masterpiece and then FAX it to someone in “corporate.” (🎶 It was the 90s. 🎶)

Just this morning, I explained to someone my “geographic trajectory” (let’s abbreviate it to “GT” to be cozy about it, although to be clear, I’m not referring to a cozy G&T), and it kind of blew her mind. Not because my GT — the “I’ve lived here” version of push-pins on a map — is so amazing or unique, but because she just had no idea. Basically: “How’d you end up here?” And further, “I’ve never been remotely near where you’re from.”

From Newsletter Issue No. 21:

About seven months ago, I was sitting in my parents’ living room and pounded out the following statement on my laptop…

What makes a book (meaning, the object itself) special?

Do you *exist* if no one knows about you? Well, of course you do; this “tree falls in the woods” thought experiment doesn’t really hold up because — at minimum — the vast majority of us are “known” to the government or whatever else powers-that-be by virtue of having an ID, property record/lease, an internet connection, etc. But of course “knowing about you” the way that I mean isn’t about facts necessarily. It’s about feeling. And I just finished The Good Life, the book that outlines and gives insight into the Harvard Study of Adult Development, i.e. “the world’s longest scientific study of happiness.”

In 2014, I wrote a blog post while on holiday in Portugal with my family. It was about a novel called The Lake by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto, and I used it to explore the idea of “place” and how we both shed and attract certain elements of places where we live. It was my first time in the Algarve, yet I recall being so struck by this jumbled, yet vivid, fusion of places that I had already experienced: The fishing boats reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, the dry pine needles of central Oregon, the unique red rocks on the Algarve beaches of landlocked Sedona (that one was surprising), and the overall European seaside vibe of an Italian vacation when I was a teenager. And, really, doesn’t the smell of sunblock provide intense recollection for pretty much everyone?

While I’m not necessarily convinced of the benefits [for me] of reading a novel that stars a thoughtful protagonist who has a hard time shaking her neuroses because she possesses the kind of mind that seeks “deep” over “simple” and therefore forces her to analyze situations to an agonizingly detailed degree … I know that I sincerely can’t quit ‘em.

A question after reading Real Americans by Rachel Khong: How often do you suspend disbelief while reading fiction? I don’t mean like “this guy is driving around with his zombie ex-girlfriend” (yes, I’m referring to I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore) or “these sea creatures are talking” (Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which I have not read yet, but would like to). Those novels are considered literary fiction — not sci-fi — so readers accept the impossible as sort of an artistic method (maybe akin to Picasso’s portraits?) instead of world-building fantasy. No, I guess I mean more like a novel that is trying to be realistic, but instead feels a tiny bit like a sitcom when it comes to the neatly tied-together details.

The guttural cries shot into my heart via my clenched intestines like a squishy and hard-won fist. All I can think of is my mom taking a can of Whole Peeled Tomatoes (while thinking how weird it is that this is the official name of this product) and squeezing them into the sauce, like a water balloon that bursts stains instead of refreshing water. Convulse, cry. Convulse, cry. I don’t mean to be dramatic — but it felt dramatic.

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 Fours by Miranda July: I met with 4 friends to talk about this one the other week. Was it a book club? I guess — we were meeting to discuss a book. There did happen to be wine + cheese (+ Amelie’s macarons thanks to @librarian.in.the.woods). We were all women. But somehow it felt different than what popular culture thinks of as a book club. This open group — not everyone knew each other — was an outgrowth of the trio that met at my place a couple of months ago with History of the Rain (Niall Williams) as our catalyst.

Here’s a text I received from my dad the other day. My parents are in the middle of a road trip to Northern California — a bit of a John Steinbeck pilgrimage. But they first travelled due west and stopped in Los Angeles, they city they moved to after they were married and also the city where I was born. They lived in a few rentals here and there before purchasing their first home, pictured. Yet I imagine each of the homes leading up to this house on stilts held daydreams…because daydreams don’t require ownership, just an imagination.

Have you noticed publications (Atlantic, NYT) touting the benefits of reading aloud? I’ve enjoyed seeing these headlines because the first community literary event I produced in 2019 was just that: a read-aloud. It was called Book Covers (like a cover band, but “cover readers”), and there was a theme and a panel discussion following the readings — which were done by prominent community members and authors — + a run sheet + a sound system + press releases etcetcetc.

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.”

I read a lot of Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter while in Italy — and even had it in my backpack during our day in Cinque Terre, where a lot of the novel takes place. (Why I didn’t pull it out and take some cool meta pic with the book in the foreground is beyond me…) I think a lot about buildings and structures that endure — maybe especially when they’re perched on a tenuous-looking precipice? — and I love ruminating on the repurposing of spaces. Case in point: Giunti Odeon, a former Renaissance palace in Florence that now houses a café/bookstore/cinema. …

“Human beings need recognition as much as they need food and water. No crueler punishment can be devised than to not see someone, to render them unimportant or invisible. ‘The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them,’ George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.’ To do that is to say: You don’t matter. You don’t exist.” This is from David Brooks’ book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. Whether or not you like Brooks, it’s fair to say he can address a topic with ease and clarity; I found this one — which zeros in on something I think about quite often — an excellent read.

But what happens when someone seems to be actively eschewing being known? Or, how about this: What if by hiding oneself away a person may actually be more known? Does visibility = being “known”? Or is it something more? …

What does it mean to live in a library? There’s sort of a cachet to co-habitating with so much art, culture, and knowledge, á la From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, isn’t there? In the 21-st century this would take the form of a quick-edit video posted to social media: “Come with me as I tour a library-turned-apartment!” Or “POV: You live in an old library.” (And then cue all the book-lovers responding with 😍😍😍 [🙄])

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.

Some real literary figures feature in Dayswork, a novel by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel (who are married to each other). Namely, Herman Melville, but also Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Lowell, literary critic Elizabeth Hardwick, and the still-living and Pulitzer-winning Melville biographer Hershel Parker (thinly veiled as “The Biographer”). They aren’t characters, exactly, as they play the historical figures that they actually are only through the lens of the protagonist’s internet deep dive as she becomes obsessed with Melville during the early days of the pandemic — that time when we were all sequestered inside with our computers as our only tethers to the outside world.

I’ve finished this book and it nonetheless remains a mystery to me — and that is probably why I love it so, so much.

My husband and I read a book together. (Wow, cool, cue massive applause.) This is of interest because Matt is pretty much a self-professed non-reader of books. But back in 2020, he declared he wanted to read an “Amy book” with me. It was awesome, and we read The Overstory by Richard Powers. Fast forward to 2024, and I said, “Let’s do that again!” I had started The Nix and was enjoying the breezy style. So I declared it so.

From Matt:

My boss at a college internship thought I was funny, and remarked that I should try standup comedy. I’m glad my ego didn’t take the bait. I’m the worst storyteller. Since then though, I’ve thought about how fun it would be if I were to jot down comical scenarios & observations that I’ve come across over the years in a notepad. I could workshop them with Amy, and have multiple hilarious bits at the ready when hanging with friends, or maybe even, one day, on stage. I never did that.

The blurb for or any quick synopsis of They Came Like Swallows — a tender book (almost, maybe, perhaps a novella?) by William Maxwell and first published in 1937 — will focus on Elizabeth (or Bess to her sister) as mother and wife and how her two sons, husband, and other family members and neighbors view her as “goodness” personified. That is true, and it’s a beautifully executed portrait of the nuances found in each of these relationships. The 1918 influenza informs the context. (So that feels kind of close, particularly when a character gripes about closed schools and churches.) …

More books like this — like Benediction, by Kent Haruf — please.
More books that:
* Rely on simplicity to convey complexity;
* Demonstrate the intricate connections and bonds that cause people to either lean toward each other or — at their worst — fractiously repel one another;
* Embody, well, embodiment. (I think “embody” is such an interesting word, just as I think “incorporate” is a fascinating word. What does it mean to have life’s truths played out via our physical bodies, our corporal selves?)

From Newsletter Issue No. 20:

“Reading deepens. Social media keeps you where you are. Reading makes your mind do work. You have to follow the plot, imagine what the ballroom looked like, figure the motivations of the characters—I understand what Gatsby wants! All this makes your brain and soul develop the habit of generous and imaginative thinking. Social media is passive. The pictures, reels and comments demand nothing, develop nothing. They give you sensations, but the sensations never get deeper. Social media gets you stuck in you. Reading is a rocket ship, new worlds.”  — Peggy Noonan

A book depository, a book wishing well, a land of forgotten books?

Here’s a supposedly click-bait-y article from The Atlantic — I mean, with Taylor Swift as the focal point, how can it not be? — that is actually a look at some of the pitfalls of the publishing industry as it stands today. And a booster of sorts for not just raiding your own books (both read and unread) but for checking out used bookstores as well.

Here’s Part 3 (of 4?) of a roundup of nonfiction I’ve read lately. Some of these I’ve read with an eye toward my own writing (style, subject, etc.), some were just for fun.