Late Summer Bookshelf

September 21, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

May & June Reads

June 21, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

More good ones!

I am only a little embarrassed to say I picked up WALKING PRACTICE by Dolki Min because of the cover. I bought it and read it because it’s raunchy and dark and totally bizarre and every once in a while I love to just go somewhere super weird with a read and think with satisfaction, as I close the book upon finishing it, Man, I would have never come up with a story like that.

My friend passed along I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED by Jeannette McCurdy around and I found myself reading it—I kid you not— at the playground on Mother’s Day. I KNOW! I made sure to hide the cover from onlookers. It’s as compulsively readable as everyone says. I was particularly moved by the early chapters about her young childhood before she got into being a child/teen star and all the messiness that came with. She does such a good job capturing the mindset of a tiny kid so desperate to please.

My dad loaned me ERASURE by Percival Everett and I’m so glad he did! A real gets-you-thinking-about-art-and-publishing kind of novel. The main character felt so real to me, just writing this right now had me thinking, Hm I wonder what he’s up to right now? as if he were a real person I’ve met before. The kind of book that makes you feel smarter after reading, like you’re absorbing someone else’s intelligence through reading osmosis.

Made a real 180 and dipped into Book 4 of Sarah J Maas’ series for A COURT OF FROST AND STARLIGHT. It was so feel-good compared to the other books in the series it felt almost like a Hallmark Xmas movie interlude, BUT then I read her afterward about how when she was writing this manuscript her father had a serious health scare and she gave birth so she really just needed to write something a little more gentle and hopeful and I thought Hells yeah Sarah J Maas, you write whatever you want, you KNOW we are all here for it. You better believe I’m going to finish the series next month and get Book 5.

I saved THE GUEST by Emma Cline for a whirlwind trip Steven and I took to Italy. (I officiated our friends’ wedding in Tuscany and yes it was as dreamy as it sounds, though it also HAILED for an hour right after the ceremony?!) I knew I would want to devour it given the nerve-wracking premise and I absolutely did. It’s summer reading at its finest. Fancy Hamptons? Check. A shady past? Check. A totally unlikeable main character who keeps making worse and worse choices but magically keeps your readerly attention? Check!

I also bought Samantha Irby’s latest book QUIETLY HOSTILE at the airport bookstore because I knew I’d want some laughs, and laughs I got. Man, she just cracks. Me. UP. I will read anything she writes. Anything! Send me your grocery lists Irby!

I read LITTLE EYES by Samantha Schweblin in the 25 hours it took us to get home from Italy. (1 boat, 2 trains, 1 tram, 2 planes, 1 shuttle, and 1 three-hour long drive!) It’s creepy in a kind of Black Mirror-ish way aka showing you how different make make tender and/or terrifying choices with the same technology.

YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang is a publishing world thriller, a genre I didn’t even know I needed! I absolutely ripped through this one. I love when delusional narrators lie to themselves and I love freaky tales of plagiarism. This one felt so particular to this era of book making right now. It makes me want to read Kuang’s other previously published books and see what else she’s nailed on the head.

April Reads

May 08, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

Read four goodies this month.

THE CHINESE GROOVE by Kathryn Ma was so charming and funny. Loved the narrator. Loved the themes of immigration and expectation and family. One of those books that can feel light and amusing while also having some emotional heft.

I listened to DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEADS by Olga Torkarczuk and highly recommend the experience! Hearing the narrator’s voice made all of her observations about rural life, aging, sexism, and more hit home that much more intimately. It was delightfully eerie and ultimately went somewhere I didn’t expect but found quite satisfying.

WOMEN TALKING by Miriam Toews was harrowing and fascinating. It felt like a play in the best way. I went down the rabbit hole and watched the movie then read a bunch of articles the premise is based on (an isolated Mennonite community experiences mass sexual violence) and it was intense to say the least.

It’s when a while since I settle down with a big fat epic and CLOUD CUKCOO LAND by Anthony Doer definitely scratched that itch. Very impressed that he managed so many storylines and kept them each so interesting and (ultimately) connected. A book lover’s book.

March Reads

April 21, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

My March reads were all over the map in topic and style.

American Redeux by Ariel Aberg Riger.JPG

Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.JPG

You Were Always Mine By Jo Piazza and Christine Pride.JPG

Walk The Vanished Earth by Erin Swan.JPG

AMERICA REDUX: VISUAL STORIES FROM OUR DYNAMIC HISTORY by Artist Resident Ariel Aberg-Riger is a gold star BANGER. Like Howard Zinn and Maira Kalman had a book-baby but better. It’s gorgeous and brilliant, will make you question everything you think you’ve understood about this history. Every American should read it, no hyperbole.

I had the distinct honor of first reading YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Spruceton Valley neighbor and all around hilarious and talented gal Jo Piazza & Christine Pride back when it was still a Word Doc work-in-progress. Like their previous novel together, this one tackles super complex relationships and race, this time centering on the fate of an abandoned baby.

I had to hop on the LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus train and see what the fuss was all about and let me tell you, it’s a delightful ride. Feminism meets chemistry meets cooking meets a brilliant dog.

WALK THE VANISHED EARTH by Erin Swan (which was edited by a Spruceton Inn Artist Resident!) is a post apocalyptic space epic spanning hundreds of years with multiple story lines that come together in a verrrrry satisfying way. Now I want someone to turn it into a tv mini series I can watch!

Omg guys, TAMPA by Alissa Nutting is NOT for the faint of heart! A cheery but absolutely gruesome novel about a 20-something middle school teacher and the 14 year old students she tries to seduce. It’s still haunting me. But I’m here for anything Nutting writes.

February Reads

March 13, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

February was a good one for my bookshelf!

BIG SWISS by Jen Beagin. What happens when a 40-something year old woman calls off her ten year engagement, moves into a 1700’s farmhouse in Hudson that’s very literally falling apart, gets a job as a transcriber for the one sex and relationship therapist in town, then uses what she knows from these supposedly anonymous sessions to befriend one of those clients? Well, if Jen Beagin writes it, it’s dark, horny, hilarious magic, that’s what.

IF I SURVIVE YOU by Jonathan Escoffery. Such a tender read about a kid growing up in Miami with this Jamaican born parents and the visceral pain of feeling misunderstood and like there’s nowhere you fully belong. Weeks later I’m still thinking about the characters, wondering what they’re doing “now”.

OLGA DIES DREAMING by Xochitl Gonzales. I came for the gentrifying Brooklyn storyline, I stayed for the lesson in Puerto Rican politics, and I stayed up late blowing through pages for the interpersonal dramas of a high end wedding planner’s journey of self-discovery along side her politician brother.

REALLY GOOD, ACTUALLY by Monica Heisey. Didn’t think a book about young divorce could be this funny!

BLACK CAKE by Charmaine Wilkerson. Listened to this one during all my drives this month and was totally hooked by the family secrets, intergenerational drama, and Caribbean history.

ELEMENTS OF SURPRISE by Vera Tobin. At her reading at the The Golden Notebook, Jen Beagin said this very brainy, technical book booked helped her write BIG SWISS so obviously I had to give it a go.

THE DAYS OF AFREKETE by Asali Solomon. One of those books that makes you think about how time moves slowly then so suddenly, about how easy it is to wake up and look around and wonder, “Who have I become?” A book full of such yearning, asking questions about bisexuality, Black displacement in Philly, and what wealth does and doesn’t do to your heart.

EMBASSY WIFE by Katie Crouch. A satirical but juicy look at the embassy scene in Nairobi. It gave me real flashbacks to my Fulbright time in Mali— the hierarchies of “ex-pats”, locals’ views on the Peace Corps, and just how damn hot it was all the time.

THE PACHINKO PARLOR by Elisa Shea Dusapin. Moody, anxious, terribly lonely. A young Korean woman who’s grown up in Switzerland visits her Korean-born grandparents who’ve lived in Japan for the past fifty years running a Pachinko parlor to prepare them to visit Korea for the first time since they left.

BODYWORK by Melissa Febos. Listened to this one for book club and it birthed a really rad convo about the slippery nature of “truth” in any kind of personal narrative, about the sidelining of female memoir as “navel gazing”, and the dangers and beauty of auto-art as therapy.

January Bookshelf

February 07, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

I popped into a lot of short story collections this month: THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION edited by Rebecca Roanhorse, SEVEN EMPTY HOUSES by Samanta Schwerin, and GET IN TROUBLE by Kelly Link. All of them were spooky in their own ways which was, I guess, what I was in the mood for to kick the year off?? * shrugs *

I also read a super smart, gorgeous essay collection: THE CRANE WIFE by CJ Hauser. That title essay in particular is real banger.

As for the novels—

FIRE SEASON by Leyna Krow reminded me of Anna North’s OUTLAWED in a good way. Think Wild West with a tiny dash of magic.

I haven’t read a good old fashioned historical fiction in ages so THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Maggie O’Farrell really hit the spot. The language was delicious and it did such a good job of being way more than a spunky-princess-can’t-abide-by-the-suffocating-reality-of-court-life story. Be sure to read the afterword.

SOURDOUGH by Robin Sloan was cheery and spunky (just like his other one, MR. PENUMBRA’S 24 HOUR BOOKSTORE). Made me miss Steven’s sourdough baking! (We were on the road without his starter.)

And MILK FED by Melissa Broder was absolutely bananas and brilliant and bizarrely erotic. Who knew mother-daughter relationships, Judaism, disordered eating, and frozen yogurt could be so sexy?? Melissa Border. That’s who. (Have you read her other one THE PIECES yet? Also filed under “bananas and brilliant and bizarrely erotic”.)

2022 Reads

January 03, 2023 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

I never used to keep lists of what I’ve read, but now that I put my reads up in my Instagram Stories I’ve got a whole photo diary of ‘em! Swapping book recs with folks there is my favorite part of that whole stinkin app right now. DM’ing with authors too. I love to be able to send instantaneous fan mail.

Big shout out to my friends/fam who wrote some truly stellar non-fiction this year: DIRTBAG, MASSACHUSETTS by Isaac Fitzgerald, BAD SEX by Nona Willis Arnowitz, UNSETTLING by Elizabeth Weinberg, and HYSTERICAL by Elissa Bassist. I’m so proud of all of you!

More big shout outs to this year’s reads by our Spruceton Inn Artist Residents! ESSENTIAL LABOR, by Angela Garbes, THE RED ZONE by Chloe Caldwell, THAT’S DEBATABLE by Jen Doll, AND YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF by Sari Botton, KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Miller, SELF CARE by Leigh Stein, WE DO WHAT WE DO IN THE DARK by Michelle Hart, and SELF-PORTRAIT WITH NOTHING by Aimee Potwokta.

And a little extra love to DAWN OF EVERYTHING (David Graeber and David Wengrow) for completely rearranging how I view human history, to THE EMPLOYEES (Olga Ravn) for being so wonderfully weird, NEW ANIMAL (Ella Baxter) for lingering with me long after I finished reading, THE RABBIT HUTCH (Tess Gunty) for making me take out a pencil and underline all those absolutely perfect descriptions, and THE COURT OF ROSES AND THORNS (Sarah J. Maas) for reminding me the sexy genre reads can be such great fun.

Now, off this laptop and back to my latest read in front of the wood stove!

Bookshelf: Fall Book Binge

November 24, 2021 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf, I Love Lamp

This fall I went on a complete book binge. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. There are worse habits of course… but I absolutely ignored the children on occasion as I finished a chapter. (Oops!)

I’ve kept a better record on Instagram and love the little virtual book club DM convos I have going on there. That’s where all these pics are from.

I loved every single one of these, go read ‘em all! But the three I keep recommending are Outlawed by Anna North (feminist alternative-world Western!) Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (absolutely batshit, hilarious, dark look at early motherhood), and Gentrifier by Spruceton Inn Artist Resident Anne Elizabeth Moore (smart, funny, considered).

I also gussied up where all these books live and painted the bookshelves (for the third time since moving here, ayayayay that f*cking beadboard is SO TEDIOUS TO PAINT):

I’ve been craving more color recently, and eight years into living here we’re pretty past the let’s-just-paint-it-white-and-see-what-we’re-working-with-before-we-make-any-big-decisions phase. It’s Benjamin Moore Clearspring Green and I am verrrrrry pleased with how it came out! Naturally I’m now considering all the other colors we can paint all the other rooms now, but first, there are more books to be read!

Bookshelf: Reading While Reopening A Hotel

July 08, 2021 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

I did a LOT of reading while getting ready to reopen the Inn. It was a much needed escapist distraction amidst the ten thousand tasks. Here’s some of ‘em:

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting is a bizarre, disgusting, and funny thought experiment about technology, lust, loneliness and… dolphins? I love her short stories, and in some ways, parts of this novel actually felt like a few short stories smashed together. Turns out it also makes a great TV show too which was the best surprise to follow this up with!

Speaking of TV, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab totally read like TV. The French Revolution! Modern celebrity secrets! A deal with the devil! Really I’m just a sucker for all stories time-travel-ish so this hit an easy spot for me.

I read A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet in a day, maybe a day and half. It is SO readable, the language so fantastically precise. The disgust the adolescents feel for their parents for what they’ve done to the world at large through their greed and neglect, what they’ve done to their children because of it is just palpable. It lingered with me for weeks. I say this about a lot of books, but I highly recommend reading it without reading a summary first— it’s a real ride.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam was frustrating, and I think that was the point. He did such a good job of capturing the minutiae of family vacations, the selfishness and distrusting nature of most people, of what it’s like to be in a crisis as it unfolds. It spooked me.

The Houseguest & Other Stories by Amparo Davila is straight up spooky too. The stories have a very Shirley Jackson vibe— mid-century domestic, psychological horror. (Jackson and Davila wrote around the same time as well— Davila passed away at 92 years old last April.) “Fragment of a Diary” is now maybe one of my favorite short horror stories I’ve ever read. Also, THIS COVER AMIRIGHT?! So good.

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson is such poetry, such a real portrait of young love and the pain of feeling like you don’t belong where you are or perhaps anywhere at all. I will definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for more work by him.

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada was moody and odd and I was never quite sure if I could trust the narrator (which for the record is something I love in a book). It’s a slim read, and for how little time I spent with it, it’s lingered with me.

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams was clearly (unsurprisingly!) written by someone who is very taken with obscure words which, depending on your mood, can feel charming or tedious. The introduction made me fear the whole thing was going to be a little too twee for me, but the characters quickly become so nuanced and real and the novel comes together delightfully as much more than its premise.

Steven went to college with Kate Russo and they’re buddies so I was predisposed to root for her but boy did she deliver! Super Host is not a short book (360 pgs), but I read the whole dang thing in just over a day. So freaking readable. I knew I would be a sucker for any portrayal of the strangely intimate ins and outs of hospitality, but I had no idea I’d like reading about painting so much. (Btw can you believe she’s also a brilliant painter??)

I enjoyed Weather by Jenny Offill just as much as I enjoyed Dept. of Speculation. I am such a fan of her sparse but pointed writing, of how she can hold your attention while meandering through what feels like the muck of a very real life. I really wonder what her writing process is like.

Man I wish I could have read Circe by Madeline Miller when I was thirteen and obsessed with Greek gods! Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it as an adult, I absolutely did. Gods, spells, murder, sex, adventure! It felt like the classiest beach read ever.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee was epic and I so enjoyed settling into this family’s tale over a few generations. Big books like this are called “sweeping” a lot, but it really was in a great way. I learned so much about the Korean experience post WWII and in Japan that I embarrassingly knew so little about. I was sad when it was over and found myself wondering where the rest of the family wound up today, so real did they all feel to me by the end.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead was another epic—family! lady pilots! bootleggers! war! movie stars!—and I also enjoyed settling into the long haul of this one. There were times when I wasn’t sure how it could possibly end in a way that would feel satisfying without too neat, but I think she nailed it. I hope someone turns this into a movie or a mini series!

I dipped in and out of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, its non-traditional narrative feeling alternately inviting or alienating to me depending entirely on my mood. She’s got a real eye for people and their personal obsessions, and gosh did the whole thing make me miss travel while simultaneously not being too sentimental about it. I definitely want to read more of her work.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro was a fast and interesting read. Told from the point of view of a robot, you have to piece together for yourself alongside her what’s going on in the world around her which can be confusing, suspenseful, tender, and sad. Never Let Me Go is one of my favorite books ever, so anything else he writes will unfairly suffer by comparison for me, but I absolutely enjoyed this one.

OMG OMG OMG OMG No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood is hilarious and COMPLETELY F*CKING DEVASTATING. Goddamn she is such an astute observer of contemporary life, especially all the ridiculousness that is the Internet. I laughed so hard I cried multiple times, and then I just cried so hard so many times and honestly I’m crying right now just remembering it. I think I underlined something on every single page. It is SO. GOOD. I adored Priestdaddy and this book is very different but I adore it just as much, if not more. Read it! Read it now!

Tove Ditlevsens’ Copenhagen Trilogy was a DELIGHT despite being rather dark. I was so taken with her frankness, with her ability to remember and convey feelings from childhood and young adulthood with such precision. She was clearly a one-of-a-kind person and yet there was plenty that felt relatable. I reeeeally want to read her fiction now. Also, these covers are PERFECTION, aren’t they? And each book is so satisfyingly slim. I wanted to carry them everywhere with me when I was reading them.

Bookshelf: More Pandemic Reading

February 05, 2021 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

A few more titles from my pandemic reading… I could have sworn I’ve read more since I last posted, like some more nonfiction in particular, but perhaps I am just remembering obsessively reading the news??

Coventry by Rachel Cusk is a collection of essays and they are DELIGHTFUL. She makes such astute observations about people and can convey a sense of place with deceptively simple seeming descriptions.

I was nervous the entire time I read The Pleasing Hour by Lily King because I was once a nanny and this whole situation gets so inappropriate! Her writing is compelling to read though.

I meant to savor Kate Baer’s poems from her collection What Kind of Woman one by one, but I devoured them all in one go while standing at the kitchen table then again later that night in bed! They’re funny and sweet and tender and melancholy. I want to give every mother I know a copy of this book.

I cannot BELIEVE I waited so long to read The Sellout by Paul Beatty! It’s a goddamn work of magic to write something this funny about racism, classism, and slavery.

I often like to pick up books I know nothing about which is how I wound up reading Severance by Ling Ma— a book about an airborne pandemic— during an airborne pandemic. Oops! Can’t say I’d recommend that exact scenario to anyone else, but all in all I would recommend the book!

Milkman by Anna Burns has such a unique voice and I loved it for that. The whole thing is totally bizarre in the best way. If you’re into the first ten pages, you’ll be into the rest of the book.

How To Live Safely In A Sciencefictional Universe by Charles Yu has such a breezy, easy to read voice. Like every book about time-travel, there were inevitably moments where I was like, “But waiiiiit a minute, what…?” . But that comes with the territory of ‘sciencefictional universes’ I think! Definitely recommend.

I haven’t actually finished Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum yet because I am saaaaavoring it and each story really deserves its own moment. The ones I have read are intense and particular and she’s got such a talent for capturing the inner workings of real a variety of people. Now is when I also confess that Shun-Lien Bynum was my 7th grade English teacher and she was, quite simply, THE BEST. No hyperbole! She was one of those dream teachers from a cheesy teen movie, all smart and funny and cool but still relatable. And she took all of us and our pubescent agonies and ecstasies so seriously which was such a gift. She left my school to get her MFA at Iowa and write books and I feel so lucky that I got to experience her kindness and insight as a student and that I still get to now as a reader.

I read Summer by Ali Smith slowly and reluctantly because it’s the fourth and final book of this quartet that I’ve enjoyed so much. Each of the books touch upon current events and seem to have been published so quickly after being written— this was the first novel I’ve read that addressed this pandemic and honestly it felt a little spooky to read a fictionalized account of it already, but hats off to Smith for being able to process something this intense while still living it!

Unclean Jobs For Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting CRACKED ME UP and grossed me out and completely entertained me. I had no idea what would come next and it was just the best feeling. Her work feels like the weird love child of Ottessa Moshfegh, Karen Russel, and George Saunders while obviously being entirely her own thing. I HIIIIIIIGHLY recommend it! Her novel Made For Love is next on my to-read list.

I read Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill in a single day and adored it. Like Cusk, she’s such an astute observer of people and her writing can seem so simple at first glance but man, it packs a punch. The whole experience made me think about how bogged down with backstory some books can become and how a really good writer like Offill can make you completely believe in a character without knowing that much about their appearance or biography.

The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal is quick and charming and stuck with me long after I finished reading it. It’s a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own but was a staff pick at one of my favorite bookstores (what’s up Community Bookstore in Brooklyn?? I love you!). It’s made me think a lot about why we make art and legacy.

The Difference Between Novels and Banana Bread

November 30, 2020 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

The winds are howling with sideways sleet and the lights are flickering so today is probably not the day for a trail adventure—

Instead we built a fort and I blew up balloons so I could sneak a few essays in from Zadie Smith’s “Intimations”.

I’m amazed when people can write about an experience they are still in with such clarity, but can’t say I’m surprised that Zadie Smith is one of the people who is able to do that!

Bookshelf: Reading During a Pandemic

August 18, 2020 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

When we first closed Inn operations back in March, like most people, all I read was the news. Obsessively, compulsively. I looked for answers and explanations and some kind of a timeline I could peg my business life to. As the #BlackLivesMatter movement exploded I followed along just as hungrily for information and ways to help, for perspectives that would crack my own open. I’ve also been writing. All of which is to say that my book reading has been erratic and impulsive and fitful. I’ve started and set down more books in the past few months that I ever had before. But with me the entire time has been Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.

I started it approximately 1,000 years ago and am still reading it because it is approximately 1,000 pages long. I’m not joking. About the page count that is. Look at this EFFING TOME:

The actual page count is 988 and honestly, if I’d written it and gotten that close to 1,000 I’d probably be like, “Hold up, I’ve totally got twelve more pages in me. Brb.”

It’s an audacious book. Not just because it’s long, but because the whole thing is basically one sentence. That’s right, no paragraphs, no chapters. And it’s all the interior monologue/ stream of consciousness of a woman in Ohio going about her day with her kids and her catering business.

I vacillate between loving it (the genius! the insight! I feel so seen! I should read more things that challenge me like this!) and despising it (the tedium! how dare she make me read this much nonsense!). On balance, I am enjoying it enough to be fully committed to finishing it.

Stray: a Memoir by Stephanie Danler is brutal and brilliant and I’m not just saying that because I got to know her a little when she was one of our Artist Residents at the Inn back in 2015. It’s a look at her tumultuous relationships with her alcoholic mother, drug addicted and mostly absent father, and a married boyfriend she refers to only as the Monster, but it’s also so much more. It’s poetry for one. I just love her way with language. It’s the kind of book I had to read with a pencil in hand because certain passages could NOT just sit there NOT underlined.

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis is Coe wins Best Title of anything I’ve read recently. Though it could also be called Never Forget George Washington Personally Enslaved People, and that was probably my favorite aspect of the book— Coe’s refusal to gloss over or try to contextualize in any positive way the fact that he did that.

I really enjoyed Creature by Amina Cain, so I was very excited for Indelicacy. It was dreamy and strange, which is just what I was hoping for. The kind of book where halfway through you’re like, wait, what era is this even taking place? It’s about class and friendship and the language is just so precise and delicious.

I’ve come to realize that it’s usually a mistake for me to read a short story collection all in one go. It’s like going to a party and eating loads of finger foods and on your way home you find yourself full but somehow still hungry for one big meal, do you know what I mean? So I’ve been pacing myself through Karen Russel’s Orange World and I’m so glad because the space I’ve made between each story allows them to grow and linger in wonderful ways. I just love how unabashedly STRANGE they are. The Prospectors and The Tornado Auction have been my favorite.

I’ve followed both these gals on Instagram for a while and right when the Pandemic first hit I bought The Upside of Being Down by Jen Gotch and This Will Only Hurt A Little by Busy Philipps and read them back to back and it felt like hanging out with very gossip-y, self-help-y, girlfriends of a kind. At times I felt a little stuck in the muck of their middle school memories, and the chatty tones back to back was too much for me by the end but 100% my fault for reading them together. Just as I finished them, Jen Gotch stepped down from her company for inexcusably racist behavior which was a reminder that even folks who are doing “good work” in one area (ie mental health) can be failing terribly on another front. On the flip side, I have very much admired just how much Busy Philipps has stepped up her political activism and used her celebrity to amplify other voices of the BLM movement in particular.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer is about a middle aged man who travels around the world rather than accept an invitation to his ex-boyfriend’s wedding. It was funny and escapist and smart. The kind of thing that feels deceptively light when you’re reading it— what someone might undersell as a “guilty pleasure” just because it’s pleasurable.

I am on team I Love Anything By Rachel Cusk. I waited to read A Life’s Work because it’s about early motherhood and I was worried it would feel a little too on the nose for me but it was PERFECTION. Gosh she’s brilliant. And insightful. And such a clear writer. Another book I had to read with a pencil. Little Labors by Rivka Galchen has been my favorite book to send parents-to-be, but I’m gonna have to put this one in the mix now too for sure.

I’ve read all of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novels and been disturbed but engrossed by every one of them and Death In Her Hands was no different. I also personally love an unreliable narrator. Don’t really want to tell you more and spoil it.

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate delivered on being weird and was additionally pretty delightful. I found myself wondering if it’s the kind of manuscript that would have seen the light of day were it not written by a celebrity (surreal memoir told in very short chapters), but that ultimately didn’t make me enjoy it any less.

I F*CKING LOVED Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby and I think EVERYBODY SHOULD READ IT. Goddamnit she is funny. Like so funny I cried while laughing too many times to count. Just go read it. In fact, go read everything written by her.

I’m only realizing now as I wrap this post up that clearly I felt the need for some ‘familiar faces’ during these completely unfamiliar times. A solid SIX of these books are the second, third, or even fifth books I’ve read by these authors. There are worse ways to cope of course.

Bookshelf: Reading With A Newborn Again

December 23, 2019 by Casey Scieszka in Blog, Bookshelf

So I just did that girl-in-a-movie thing where I wrote a long blog post, it never autosaved (because that’s apparently no longer a Squarespace thing??), and my computer inexplicably crashed so I lost it all. It’s not exactly a high stakes problem but it still sucks. Especially because moments to write can feel few and far between with two kids, a business, a partner under lots of deadlines etc.

I refuse to surrender completely to the computer crash by giving up on the post entirely but I also just CANNOT dive into it all again so here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:

Reading with a baby around was alternately luxurious (Felix fast asleep in my arms as we lounged on the back patio, devouring hundreds of pages) and tedious (rereading the same page and half every night before bed for a week because sleeping less than three hours in a row for months on end really gets to your brain after a while). Here are some of my favorites from the past 6 months through it all:

The Other’s Gold by Elizabeth Ames. Sent as an Advanced Ready copy to me by a hotel guest in the industry which made me feel extra special and happy, I ate up this book in maybe a day and half right after we brought Felix home. Four girlfriends through college, early careers, starting families. Lots of drama, page turning.

How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell is WONDERFUL. So many good thoughts public space, our scattered attention. Timely, smart, and just the right amount of strange. Not TED Talk-y, and I mean that as a compliment.

I read Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino right after it was almost too much the-Internet-will-ruin-us-all back to back but ultimately an enjoyable pairing because the voices are so different. Odell’s is academic, Tolentino’s is more chatty, but this book is by no means a shallow dive. I read with a pencil and underlined entire passages on virtue signaling, the Internet’s insistence on imposing our identity onto everything, the “hustle” and “girl bosses”.. Both these books gave me the vocabulary to talk about otherwise amorphous things that had been bumming me out about modern life.

First I must confess that I paid probably twice as much to get the UK versions of Rachel Cusk’s Transit, Outline, and Kudos BUT THESE COVERS AMIRIGHT?? And the insides are just as beautiful! I didn’t read them all in a row— I think the lack of plot and unique voice would numb you if you did— but I loved them. So odd, so smart. She’s obviously been watching and listening to people closely for years.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson is a funny, quick memoir published in 1948 about moving her young family from NYC to rural Vermont. (Why would I ever like that, right?) I love that she’s now famous for her psychological horror (did you all read “The Lottery” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” in English class too?) but during her lifetime was known for her more “fluffy”, family-centric magazine writing. She’s got a keen eye for domestic and neighborly interactions and it serves her well in both genres.

Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli is absolutely as heartbreaking as I thought it would be given the subject matter (the deportation of kids, essentially) but also more beautifully and delicately rendered than I thought it would be. I think I cried twenty times and read barely ten pages before I donated to a nonprofit working to improve conditions on the border. It’s slim but powerful. Run, don’t walk. Then read her novel Story of My Teeth because that’s also amazing in a completely different way.

Inland by Tea Obrecht is a moody Western with a magical edge and… camels! In the wrong temperament, it can feel slow and overwritten and claustrophobic despite the literal expanse of what she’s describing. But like with her first book, once I surrendered, I found it beautiful and strange and haunting.

I am one of many who decided to reread Little Women by Louisa May Alcott before watching Gretta Gerwig’s latest film version of it and OMG IT IS SO LONG. Honestly, I don’t think I actually read the whole thing before. I probably started it back in 1994 before that movie version came out and jumped ship for more Nancy Drew instead. Sometimes it felt stiff, preachy, and predictable (oh Jo, you free sprit you!), other times it felt cozy and satisfying, and occasionally there’d be a lightning bolt of modernity— say, some astute observation about gender dynamics that still rings true today. Maybe one day I’ll actually watch the Gretta Gerwig film. Because as hard as it can be to find time to write, it’s even harder right now to find time to actually go to the movies.

Bookshelf: Late Winter Reads

April 01, 2019 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf, Blog

While my ideal reading situation is in a hammock on a summer day with a bowl of popcorn and a cold drink within reach, snuggled up by the wood stove in the winter isn’t half bad either. Here’s what I’ve been reading there lately:

Future Perfect: a Skeptic’s Search for an Honest Mystic by Victoria Loustalot. Modern psychics. Horoscopes. Trump. I snuck down to NYC for the launch of this one because it’s written by my pal Victoria and ate it up in basically one sitting on the bus ride home.

My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Brath Waite. First off, PERFECT TITLE, right? Moving on: Like most Americans, I read embarrassingly little by non-American authors so I was extra happy to realize that this book I’d been hearing about was written by a Nigerian woman and takes place there. Yes, it’s a super dark murder story on one level, but it’s also just a great window into daily life as a young working woman in Lagos and this one very particular family. Super quick chapters, totally binge-able voice.

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Her dad’s a Catholic priest, she’s a (frequently lewd) poet, she met her husband in a chat room at nineteen. She’s not really like anyone I’ve ever personally met or read before and I just LOVED THIS FREAKING BOOK SO MUCH. It’s a memoir mostly about the year or so she and her husband move back home to St. Louis with her family as they try to claw their way out of some medical debt. But it’s not one of those books you read for the plot. Rather, it’s her keen eye for humanizing detail, her sense of humor, and her (unsurprisingly) poetic turns of phrase. One of the only modern memoirs both Steven and I enjoyed equally.

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney. This one kept popping up in my media and was recommended by several friends. There’s some wonderful, wonderful writing in there, but in all honesty I personally have a hard time getting excited about an affair between a married actor and a much younger university student and I think that held me back from enjoying it as much as other folks.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson. It’s been almost two years since I read The Argonauts and this book came up in conversation at the bar with one of our Inn’s Artist Residents Aditi Natasha Kini who is SUCH a hoot and a talent I had to abide by any and every recommendation of hers immediately. It’s short, it’s dreamy, it’s supposedly about the color blue but about many, many other things at the same time. I also enjoyed it in mostly one sitting.

Eileen by Ottessa Mosfegh. Intrigued by the interview where she confessed that this book started out as a “joke” or mostly an exercise in attempting something mainstream that could make her money and a name, I first read My Year of Rest and Relaxation which both fascinated and almost bored me (a strange combo, I know! but a really strange book), then her novella Mr McGlue which generally speaking I liked more. Both were incredibly dark and full of characters you’d never want anything to do with in real life but Mosfegh has something going on that just keeps compelling me despite also alienating me. Eileen fit right in. A strange little window into one very particular woman in very particular circumstances.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. SO MANY good lines about writing and writers and writing students. You could only pen something this spiteful and loving of that community with decades of experience. Such clear prose, such insight about everything from city life to dog owning to suicide. I’m excited to read more by her.

A Tale for The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. I’ve been picking this one up and setting it down at bookstores for a few years now. I love a novel that weaves together two different stories, but I was intimidated by its length and subject matter (post-Tsunami Japan, teenage bullying). I brought it with me for my trip to Austin and really enjoyed having all that travel time to dig deep into it.

Like a Mother: a Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes. Finally! A book that goes beyond, “Your baby is the size of an eggplant and has eyelashes now!” The chapter on the placenta is worth it alone. Lots of great science and cultural critique in here. It could also be called We Know So Much More About Viagra Than We Do About Any Part of Labor Because the Medical Industry Worships Men. It’s the only pregnancy-centered book I find myself recommending left and right.

Bookshelf: Weird Winter Collection

December 13, 2018 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

I’ve been digging into an odd assortment of books lately.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson was recommended to me by a hotel guest and I found it completely charming. Easy to read but so thoughtful. It’s mostly about the relationship between a grandmother and a her 5-ish year old granddaughter. Full of insights that at first seem to simple and obvious but continue to resonate with you.

Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart was also pretty easy to read because he’s a compelling storyteller. That said, I found the main character—a self-obsessed finance exec on the down and out— to be wildly irritating. Which I’m sure is part of the point. But when I finished the book I did breathe a bit of a sigh of a relief to have him out of my life, haha! To anyone out there who hasn’t read any Shteyngart, I highly recommend starting with Super Sad True Love Story.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. The Poisonwood Bible is one of my absolute favorite books, so unfortunately I think every other book Kingsolver writes has a nearly impossible challenge of meeting those expectations. That said, I’m a sucker for books that take place in the same physical spot but over different periods of time, so I definitely enjoyed that element of this book. Like with Lake Success, I found most of the characters to be kind of irritating in all honesty. I also had limited patience for all the, “Oh Trump won’t win, he can’t!” talk in both this book and Unsheltered if only because I personally have a very hard time finding the dramatic irony entertaining at this point in time. We’re still too deep in this mess!

After slogging a bit through those last two books I was like, gimme something I’ll binge read in a day. Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers it was. Loads of suspense, switching between points of view just when you started to find one character’s flaws suffocating, some interesting thoughts on the world of “self-care”. For some reason, Big Little Lies struck me as more plausible, but I still thoroughly enjoyed devouring this book in a day.

I’ve known about the Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel for years, and a reeeeally strange variety of people in my life love it. Most of whom read it at a pretty young age. It’s “prehistoric” fiction, looking a clan of Neanderthals who take in an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl. Lots of nature descriptions, lots of early religion. I haven’t finished it yet, but there’s apparently also a fair deal of prehistoric sex to come as well which was definitely what stuck with a lot of my friends, haha! So far it makes me want to eat beef jerky and go for long walks across grassy plains.

Bookshelf: Recent Book Binge

September 06, 2018 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

I have been on such a book binge recently, picking up books back to back to back to back. Some real gems too.

The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt. So bizarre. A real challenge at first because of how it's written (no quotations marks, the narrators interrupting themselves, very long and detailed excerpts about Greek and complex math and all kinds of esoteric subjects) but I'm glad I stuck with it. She must be the most particular and frankly, fucking brilliant person. I haven't read anything quite like this before.

The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits. So damn good. She's confessional but not cheap about it and the writing is deceptively simple but so spot on. She makes meaningful essays about seemingly mundane things look so easy and it all feels cohesive together. I have her debut novel coming in the mail any day now and I am so excited to read some of her fiction. I have such a huge literary crush on her right now.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. I feel very torn about this one! It both fascinated and bored me, which is also maybe part of the point?? About halfway in I finally read the summary thinking there had to be something more to the book than this wealthy, beautiful, young white woman literally sleeping her way through depression but… I think this is one of those reads that you are either personally in the mood for or not at all, a question of timing ultimately. All of this said I’m still so intrigued by Moshgegh’s writing and am definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for her other stuff and will by all means tell people to give this one a try!

There Are No Grown Ups by Pamela Druckerman. I'd picked this up rather dubiously, worried it would feel like one long ridiculous op-ed about how the French have better sex. And yes, there are many pages devoted to exactly that haha, but I also found myself pretty damn entertained. There's some shock value throughout, but some real tenderness too.

Little Labors by Rivka Galchen. I haven't finished it yet because it is so wonderful I am trying to make it last. Much like Julavits, Galchen is a fucking MASTER at showing you what seem like slivers of daily life but are actually windows into your entire life as a whole. On the surface, it's reflections mostly about early parenthood which is unsurprisingly extra meaningful to me right now. I highly recommend this one!

Bookshelf: Late Winter/Early Spring

May 20, 2018 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

Should we come up with a better term for "late winter/early spring"? Wring? Nope. Springter? WOW. Both of those are terrible. What I'm trying to say is for the past month, you wake up in the morning and never know if it's going to be snowflakes or daffodils or both.

Any weather is good reading weather though as far as I'm concerned, and here's what I've been devouring lately:

Winter by Ali Smith. I read Autumn a few months ago and was so excited when the second of the four book collection came out so quickly after. In all honesty I think I preferred Autumn, but don't get me wrong, Winter is absurd and lovely too. Lots of different points of view which is always a narrative fave of mine. A little less experimental in the language but still some satisfyingly unique voices. Maybe my only actual beef with is was that it was taking me a while to finish while winter outside was also taking its sweet time to wrap up too...

I Am Not Famous Anymore by Erin Dorney. Erin was one of the Inn's Artist Residents in 2016 and I have been SO EXCITED for this book to come out! She writes erasure poetry, which basically means taking existing texts of some kind, removing words, and creating poetry from what remains. In this book Erin used statements made by the oh so strange actor Shia LaBeouf. It is such a hilarious concept. And so well executed! I think the poems would be rad even if you didn't know the story behind them.

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. I'd seen this around and had been intrigued and decided to pick it up after another Artist Resident, Grant Snider, recommended it when he was here this winter for his Residency. It's fantastic. Such a good marriage of global and personal history, such compelling illustrations. I can't believe she didn't start painting and drawing until this late into her career!

Setting the Table by Danny Myer / Be Our Guest / The Customer Rules by Lee Cockerell / Front of the House by Jeff Benjamin. We have so many exciting things happening at the Inn right now in terms of expansion-- we've added a new nearly full-time employee, we put a new metal roof on the motel, we're finishing up the barn renovation-- all in time for the beginning of high season and so, I wanted to make sure that our service stays even more stellar than our physical property.

I read Setting The Table when I first started dreaming about opening a hotel of my own, and it was absolutely worth a reread. It all felt so theoretical the first time around, and now, almost five years in (!!!!!) I can finally relate to it specifically with my own experiences of when we've gone above and beyond for a guest or when we'd fallen short, what it's like hiring and managing people... I will forever be a fan of his idea that no matter how badly an interaction with a guest begins, you get to write the last chapter of that story. And that in fact, the stories that begin the worst are often the ones that folks will go on to tell their friends, so you better deliver a great ending!

Be Our Guest and The Customer Rules are both of the Walt Disney hospitality training family. Walt was not only a rad storyteller and visual artist, he was also an epic host who was so, SO good at building a world for guests using all of their senses to delight them. Some of it was kinda crazy corporate and conservative (women had to wear pantyhose until 2010??) but I definitely learned a thing or two. I like their phrase, "Everything speaks". Aka, every little detail of your space-- from the smell of the hand soap to the feel of the carpet under your shoes to the conditions of the baseboards-- all tell your guests something about your place, so make sure it's all saying what it you want it to.

Front of the House was more restaurant specific but helpful nonetheless because we are trying to bring it up a notch in our little bar. All in all this book made me mostly grateful that we didn't open a restaurant, haha!

For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri. I brought this one to Morocco with us (more on that trip in another post soon!) because I like to read fiction written by local authors when I'm visiting a place but OH MY GOD WHAT A FUCKING HEART BREAKER. It's an autobiographical novel (translated by Paul Bowles) that follows a young boy as he grows up under the terrible rage and abuse of his father and the grief of his mother who keeps loosing children and the general hardship in the streets of northern Morocco in the forties. If say, A Little Life wasn't sad enough for you, try this. Still, glad I read it.

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I was Ready by Meaghan O'Connell. I never would have bought a book about pregnancy and early motherhood right now for myself, but my mom had read it and when she finishes books she gives them away instantly like they're going to start rotting on her bedside or something, so I took it. Some people find comfort in other people's "unflinching" accounts of whatever they're also going through, but I often find that it kind of muddies my own experience because there are too many opportunities for direct comparison. All that said, I ate it up in just a few days and absolutely LOL’d in some parts!

My Family and Other Animals on grass.jpg

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. Oh my gosh this is one of the most charming books I have ever read! I actually haven't finished it yet because I have been savoring it, little by little, each evening, but I've been recommending it left and right. (After it was sent to me by another Resident Artist, Dasha Tolstikova-- thank you Dasha!) It's a hilarious account of a 10 year old boy who moves with his British family to the Greek island of Corfu for a year. Durrell would go on to become a famous zookeeper, naturalist, and conservationist so it's about half wacky family drama and half keen observation of flora and fauna. I've never read so many spot on similes about water and trees. His writing has fine tuned my eyes for spring.

Speaking of, it is suddenly gloriously sunny out after a stretch of gloom all day so I'm going to pop outside with this book right now!

Bookshelf: Reading With a Newborn

January 31, 2018 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

In the last few weeks of my pregnancy I read greedily. (See my picks here.) I was so afraid that I would never be able to read a book again. Ok, if not ever again then at least not uninterrupted again for a really long time, and not at the cost of taking a nap I desperately needed instead for a really long time, ya know?

I did most of my summer reading in the garden. *Sigh*

So I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out I could read with a newborn! I just had to read a little differently.

First off, physical books were just about impossible. Hardcovers in particular, because they're awkward and heavy and pointy and always trying to close themselves and in those first few weeks Amina felt so... delicate and breakable and nursing her was still a bit of a two handed dance each time. So I switched to ebooks on my phone and it was a GAME CHANGER.

Second, the only remotely sensible time to read was in the dark in the middle of the night while I was nursing and trying oh so hard to simply STAY THE F*CK AWAKE as she ate. So again, ebooks on my phone were the way to go.

So here is the pretty bizarre collection of books I read in the first month or so of Amina's life, as the rest of the world slept soundly around me:

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. This was required reading at my middle school for my brother but somehow not for me and I've always meant to give it a go. (He hated it, but I think we have literal exact opposite taste in books, so.) I wound up really enjoying how brief the chapters are, how much like poetry they read, and the fact that there isn't much of a through-narrative I had to keep track of. All very handy for blurry reading.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. I'd tried this two different times since it came out and was intrigued but just didn't have the patience for it. Figuring I had what felt like ALL the time in the world as I fed my adorable milk monster through the night, I was able to actually enjoy meandering through the history of a traditional English house. Really it should be called 10,000 Facts About English Sayings And Objects In Your House That You Can Share At Cocktail Parties. Or, People Really Weren't That Into Privacy Until Recently.

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. Ok, first I have to say that I CANNOT with the title and I CANNOT with the pose and the outfit on the cover. However, the inside? Hilarious! Oh so personable, with such an enjoyably sassy voice. It's a kinda fascinating window into that awkward time in someone's career right as they're starting to make it big but they're not there quiiite yet and there's no guarantee they will be and they're still living with Craiglist roommates but also going to the Oscars... By the time I finished I thought Damn, I want to be her friend. (You hear that Anna? Are you out there..?)

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae. Steven and I really liked Season 1 of her HBO show Insecure and so this seemed like a good idea. I probably shouldn't have read it right on the heels of Scrappy Little Nobody because I was getting a little awkward-storied-out. Which is totally my fault, not the fault of the book. So I'm going to officially recommend it because I did enjoy it despite that. Though my god, it sent me back to 6th grade in some really visceral and yes, awkward, ways.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. In an effort to tack away from funny-memoirs-written-by-accomplished-women and head back towards the land of tidbits-of-history where grey haired white men like Bill Bryson roam in sweater vests with snifters in hand as the elucidate you on this or that matter I chose this book. Which funnily enough was also required reading at my middle school. (Yes, I went to a pretty progressive school.) But OMFG THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES IS DARK AND SO F*CKED UP. I mean, I knew this. I knew this! And like I said, I'd already read some of it for school back in the day but my god. Everything awful is so much worse when you have a little baby! I think I probably cried my way through three chapters and then was like, F*ck it, this can't be good for me or Amina. She doesn't know I'm reading-- she doesn't really know anything right now-- but she can probably feel that I'm crying and that's not not exactly the cozy, welcome-to-the-world vibe I'm going for. So I'll have to finish this one another day.

Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres. Aggressive tack back towards funny-memoirs-written-by-accomplished-women gave me Ellen, because she always makes me giggle. And giggle I did! But this book basically felt like her stand up. And I only really like to watch stand up for like half an hour at a time, maybe once a month, so again, this was another kind silly choice on my part. So I actually never finished this one either but it so happened that by then Amina was no longer eating for such insanely long stretches in the middle of the night and so, I could suddenly stay awake without needing to read.

All of which meant I could finally return to reading physical books at other times of the day again! So I jumped back into Ali's Smith Autumn, deciding to start from the beginning again and gosh I loved it. LOVED IT.

It's tender without being cloying, absurd without being twee, experimental without being so just for the sake of it. think I've recommended it to forty different people since finishing it.

So there you have it! Can't say this is my Recommended Reading For New Mothers, but it got me through!

Bookshelf: Nine Months Pregnant Reading

September 23, 2017 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

I read approximately 10,000 books my last few weeks pregnant. It was the best way to keep my mind off all the waiting. Here's a few of 'em:

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. About the absurdity of office life. Could have been so mundane but was somehow hilarious. Told in the second person which can sometimes feel forced in other books but it was perfect for this story.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. I didn't read this when it first blew up. I'm her age and was working on my own writing so let's get real-- it was 100% jealousy that kept me from this during its initial wave of awards and popularity. At first it felt a little... overworked? Or precious? Or MFA workshop-y? But by about the halfway mark I was all in. It's strange and haunting and I'm now looking forward to whatever is next from her.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Obviously a tough read since it's about a family tree, half of whom stay in West Africa and half of whom are captured to be slaves in America. Each chapter is a new character which gives the whole book a delightfully fast pace for something so intrinsically heavy.

We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby. The BEST book in this stack. SO. FUCKING. FUNNY. When I read her first chapter, which is a fake application to be on the Bachelor (or maybe it's real??), I seriously couldn't stop laughing aloud. I think Steven had to leave the room it was that annoying :) Such an original voice, such a unique perspective. I've read a lot of memoirs recently but I don't think I've ever read a more bracingly honest and shine-a-light-on-it-ALL-no-matter-how-"bad"-I-might-look one ever before. And you just never knew what she was going to say next. I'm a fan of hers for life now. Kiiinda wish I could meet her in real life despite the promise of her title though...

The Readymade Thief by Augustus Rose. Fast paced, totally bizarre mystery that combines teenage runaways with the dark web and raves and DuChamps. Devoured it in one day. Sometimes mysteries just really hit the spot.

One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. Amusing, tender. I'm always interested in second generation stories (her folks are from India and moved to Canada where she was raised). Not as laugh-out-loud as Irby's memoir above, but I don't think it was supposed to be quite as outrageous. Her chapter on the cyber bullying she's experienced as a woman was particularly good.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Another read-it-in-a-day affair. The kind of book someone would lovingly call "a guilty pleasure" or "trashy" but I think that undersells how smart it is. Wanted to read it before checking out the HBO show which Steven and I started the night before last. So far so good! Adaptations are always hard.

Transit by Rachel Cusk. Just lovely. One of those books that's not really "about" anything. The opposite of books like Big Little Lies or The Readymade Thief which are soooo plot driven. It's that kind of writing that brings you deep into someone else's mind and points out the details of daily life with such graceful nuance that when you look up, suddenly everything and everyone around you seems more interesting. It made me want to reread Pond.

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta. I loved reading The Leftovers. (Haven't watched the show yet, probably because reading it felt like watching show.) So I was inevitably a little disappointed by this one in comparison. It was hard to care about the characters who were all adrift and making questionable decisions while being mean to each other. Maybe especially so since I was pregnant and thinking a lot about parenthood and role models.

Currently reading Autumn by Ali Smith and What Happened by Hillary Clinton and LOVING them both! Autumn is surreal and delicious and so original. What Happened is well, also unfortunately surreal. Also incredibly important and insightful and even funny. Amina is posed next to the book because I think about how one day I am going to have to explain to her what the f*ck happened.

Bookshelf: The Argonauts

June 29, 2017 by Casey Scieszka in Bookshelf

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

A good line or two:

"How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or sexuality-- or anything else, really-- is to listen to what they tell you, and try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours?" (p.53)

"We bantered good-naturedly [after watching the movie X-Men: First Class] , yet somehow allowed ourselves to get polarized into a needless binary. That's what we both hate about fiction, or at least crappy fiction-- it purports to provide occasions for thinking through complex issues, but really it has predetermined the positions, stuffed a narrative full of false choices, and hooked you on them, rendering you less able to see out, to get out." (p. 82)

Got me thinking about:

Oh so much about intersectionality in identity politics (especially on the heels of events like this), about how Americans define family, about how I perform my gender, about pregnancy. WHAT A FREAKING MIND. This books has been recommended to me by so many different people and I've been putting off reading it knowing it would be a good one and oh, was it a good one indeed.

How inviting and approachable her writing is not at all at the cost of being whip-smart and subtly layered.

Consumed:

In one quiet evening with the dog in the garden, on our stoop, in the living room... as Steven was out brookie stalking with Todd of Espous Creel who was on the hunt for one big guy in particular he knew had been lurking for days. And they got him!

Put him back too of course.