Get in, reader, we’re going shopping.
Hey friends,
This newsletter is a little late in coming for two reasons: one, because I make the rules and I’ve been traveling, and two: I’ve been working on incorporating something new into these newsletters that I’m really excited to share!
First, I want to say how much I love it when one of you tells me you bought a book that I recommended here. It makes me feel so good inside! I love that you’re reading and supporting authors with me! The one thing I don’t love supporting is Amazon, because IMO, independent bookstores are infinitely more worth giving your money to than Schmeff Schmezos.
So starting this month, all of the books I talk about in this newsletter (and all the previous ones!) will be linked to my Bookshop storefront, where you can buy the book directly from a local bookstore of your choosing! Also, as an affiliate, I receive 10% of each sale, which you can think of as a little recommendation tip jar. I’ll never make this newsletter paid, so if you want to support me, consider buying a book! Then you have my undying gratitude plus a book, which is a pretty sweet deal.
Okay, that took up all my intro space. How have you been? Have you been good? I’ve been good. March was good to me and good for the books, so let’s get into it.
Honorable Mention:
We Had to Remove This Post — Hanna Bervoets
Translated from the Dutch, this book fits right into the genre of “mentally ill girls decidedly not thriving in absurd situations” novels that I somehow always seem to be reading. The narrator works for an unnamed social media company as a content moderator, tasked with the truly horrendous job of reviewing flagged content and deciding what gets to stay up. It’s as sinister as you can imagine, and the story escalates when the narrator starts a relationship with one of the other women on her team. Unrelated (or is it?): I took Twitter off my phone this month and I do not miss it!
Shadow and Bone — Netflix/Leigh Bardugo
I finally started a new knitting project (socks) and got to work with Season 2 of Shadow and Bone on in the background. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone book trilogy and her Six of Crows duology, it’s set in the fantastical Grishaverse where a select group of people with magical abilities (Grisha) must fight a lethal, encroaching darkness called The Fold. It was just the kind of escapism I was looking for: a fantasy world where everyone is attractive and there’s just enough real danger that the hero’s ultimate triumph feels earned. I enjoyed the Crows’ storyline much more than Alina’s (Ben Barnes as the Darkling being the one exception) and hope they get greenlit for all the ragtag heist spinoffs their hearts desire.
A Modern Mephistopheles — Louisa May Alcott
I found this strange little volume at the BPL’s winter book sale and did a double take because surely this was not the same Louisa May Alcott of Little Women fame?? Indeed it is! Apparently, after Alcott had made enough money writing her famous moral novels, she started experimenting with darker tales such as this “modern” take on Faust, featuring a young poet willing to give up his freedom for fame. Gothic, romantic, and a little campy, I can see how this never became a classic to the same level as Alcott’s more famous work, but fun nonetheless to see an author explore other parts of their talent.
The Quiet Girl
Phillip has been on a months-long campaign to get me to cry at a movie, and when he wasn’t expecting it, it finally happened!. The film is almost completely in Irish and is adapted from Claire Keegan’s story Foster, which I first read in a castle in Ireland (truly!). It’s the story of a young girl who goes to stay with older, childless relatives while her mother has a new baby. Under their care, the girl blossoms, oblivious to the heaviness of a tragic secret that still lingers in the house. I loved the gentleness of this movie, how it soothed with its soft, sunny tones and birdsong, evoking the feeling of contentment one feels coming home after a long day spent outside, knowing you’ll sleep soundly because you are loved.
The Foundation:
Poems to Eat — Takuboku
A dear old friend recommended these poems to me from the other side of the world (hi Nina!), so I was delighted to find that my library had an absolutely gorgeous copy on reserve, complete with stunning woodcut prints interspersed between the pages. Written in the traditional Japanese tanka style, these collected poems touch on everything from work and love to sickness, ennui, and a nostalgic longing for other lives. Considered one of the first modern Japanese poets, Takuboku completed most of his work in the early 1900s before dying of tuberculosis in 1912 at the age of 26. Sadly, this book is not available on Bookshop, so I’ll use this opportunity to again champion my favorite library app: Libby!
American Estrangement — Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
Some friends and I were thinking lately about who the greatest living/active short story writers of our time are, which made me realize how woefully not well-versed I am in modern short fiction. American Estrangement was one of my first steps toward remedying this predicament, and what I enjoyed most about the America of Sayrafiezadeh’s stories was that there was always something foreign about the mundane and something familiar in the strange. The stories range from speculative to introspective, exploring families, relationships, desires, and shames with humor and a fair, if sometimes harsh, sense of clarity. I read a lot of contemporary fiction, but this portrait of our country felt of the moment in a way that feels true and timely, and rare.
People We Meet on Vacation — Emily Henry
I’ve been saving Emily Henry for myself because I knew I’d love her and her books would feel like a treat for my tired brain. People We Meet on Vacation is a millennial spin on When Harry Met Sally, following two college best friends over a decade of sharing special summer trips and staunchly refusing to fall in love with each other—or at least admit it—for as long as possible. Poppy and Alex are charming, witty, colorful, and loveable people whose relationship you want to root for, but also, their mutual yearning is so addictive I wanted to stretch it out as long as possible. (It was Pisces season, okay? Give me a break.)
Solid Supports:
Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation — Camonghne Felix
This was a beautifully short audiobook that I listened to over the course of a few lunch breaks, and which reaffirmed my love for listening to writers read their own work. A deeply personal memoir, Felix herself narrates the story of her childhood trauma and the ways in which that trauma shaped her mental chemistry and her ability to love and experience love. Using dyscalculia (the term for a math-specific learning disability) as a metaphor for her difficulties in processing and navigating the rest of her life, Felix’s story is vulnerable, raw, and exceptionally brave. She also has a gorgeous reading voice, which combined with her lyrical writing style turns her trauma into poetry, taking the pain of loving and living and transforming it into something devastatingly beautiful.
Happy All the Time — Laurie Colwin
This recommendation came from my adoptive literary godmother, Jami Attenberg, and her wonderful newsletter, Craft Talk. Jami described this book as “a perfect scoop of ice cream with some chocolate sauce served in a vintage sterling silver dessert bowl,” and honestly, I can’t really top that. Happy All the Time is about two men who are cousins and best friends who fall in love with two vastly different women in New York City. Published in 1978, the book evokes a bygone era of Manhattan that feels golden and hazy around the edges (although that’s probably just the cigarette smoke). The characters were quirky and strange but not in ways that we wouldn’t still recognize in ourselves today, and most importantly, they loved and cared for each other even when they didn’t fully understand each other. If this book is ice cream, then it should be a magic kind that melts only as quickly as you want it to and can last you a whole rainy weekend, as necessary.
THE TIPPY TOP:
Homie — Danez Smith
For a long time, I was really insecure about my ability to competently discuss poetry because I never formally studied it in school and I don’t read or write it as often as I do prose. Listening to Smith read their own poems during my first week commuting to my new job reminded me that the purpose of poetry is not to analyze, but to experience. Smith’s poems are positively bursting with life and love: love for life, love for their friends, and love in a world that makes loving difficult but so immensely worth doing anyway. They are in turns intimate and informal, funny and solemn, joyous, earnest, and as an exploration of Black queer identity, unabashedly proud. The poems are also deeply rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s best friends, whose presence and absence is a recurring theme throughout this collection.
As a straight white listener, I was very aware that these poems were not explicitly written for me, and that their reclamation of derogatory language and their proud refutation of shame as a Black queer person speaks to an experience and a power that will never be mine. For this reason, I especially recommend listening to these poems if you can, not only because Smith’s reading voice is truly a gift, but also because in being a listener, we silence our own internal monologues and cede the agency of our reading experience back to the speaker. Listening allows Smith the opportunity to invite us into their world on their own terms, in their own words, and to share their experiences in the most authentic way. As a collection, Homie is one big love letter to community, and to vicariously experience that community through Smith’s fierce love—even if only for a couple of hours—is a privilege.
And that was March! Thanks for reading, and thanks especially for your patience as I got everything set up with the new Bookshop stuff. I promise April’s recap will be on time.
In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you’re reading, what you’re thinking, what you’re loving. I’m always around to chat.
Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine
Catherine Thoms 