Bookshelf: Reading With A Newborn Again

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.