Reading Log on F L O T I S S E R I E

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:17:32 -0500

Finished reading: Multipliers by Liz Wiseman 📚

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:56:01 -0500

Finished reading: Suffer a Witch A Memoir by Joy McCullough 📚

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:12:23 -0500

Finished reading: Famesick by Lena Dunham 📚

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:50:45 -0500

Finished reading: We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida 📚

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:09:04 -0500

Finished reading: Yesteryear A Novel by Caro Claire Burke 📚

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 23:24:08 -0500

Finished reading: The Mixed Marriage Project A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family by Dorothy Roberts 📚

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:26:15 -0500

Finished reading: Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy 📚

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:04:04 -0500

Finished reading: A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle 📚

Fri, 29 May 2026 22:04:22 -0500

Finished reading: My Mother’s Daughter - Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past by Tracy Clark-Flory 📚

Thu, 28 May 2026 07:14:54 -0500

It’s a pleasure to read such a deft writer. Currently reading: My Mother’s Daughter - Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past by Tracy Clark-Flory 📚

Wed, 27 May 2026 20:57:03 -0500

I followed the discourse on this one, but the book itself was much more sad than I expected. I did appreciate her thoughts on the pressure of balancing a public persona with the reality of being a messy and unfinished person, as we all are. Finished reading: Adult Braces by Lindy West 📚

Wed, 27 May 2026 20:49:00 -0500

This one was okay. It felt like a series of earnest blog posts without a real throughline. Finished reading: Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell 📚

Mon, 11 May 2026 11:58:51 -0500

Finished reading: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 📚

Mon, 11 May 2026 09:57:32 -0500

Read this alongside The Bluest Eye. Finished reading: On Morrison by Namwali Serpell 📚

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:07:22 -0500

A quarter of the way in and already exhausted/confounded. Currently reading: Adult Braces by Lindy West 📚

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:04:50 -0500

Finished reading: Even the Good Girls Will Cry A ’90s Rock Memoir by Melissa Auf der Maur 📚

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:03:38 -0500

Finished reading: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor 📚

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:24:36 -0500

Finished reading: Bog Queen by Anna North 📚

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 17:09:37 -0500

Finished reading: Life in Code by Ellen Ullman 📚

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 11:59:46 -0500

Determined to finish at least one more novel this year, and this one fits the bill. Currently reading: Moderation by Elaine Castillo 📚

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 15:14:02 -0500

Currently reading: Women! In! Peril! by Jessie Ren Marshall 📚

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:45:27 -0500

Of course Jean Grae has a striking narrative voice and point of view. My hero. Currently reading: In My Remaining Years by Jean Grae 📚

Fri, 23 May 2025 12:41:33 -0500

Currently reading: Communication Solution by Stacy Smulowitz 📚

Tue, 20 May 2025 09:16:01 -0500

This book has some decent insights, especially on how to refine your leadership “brand” in the workplace and online, but I’m not sold yet. Currently reading: When We’re in Charge by Amanda Litman 📚

Wed, 14 May 2025 08:57:19 -0500

Currently reading: In My Remaining Years by Jean Grae 📚

Tue, 13 May 2025 20:56:44 -0500

Currently reading: When We’re in Charge by Amanda Litman 📚

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 14:23:50 -0500

Vonnegut captures today’s tech zeitgeist in a science fiction tale - written seventy years ago. Apparently he wrote it during his time at GE, inspired by their rush to automation. Finished reading: Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut 📚

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 19:20:42 -0500

Wherein the protagonist turns a blob into the man of her dreams. Currently reading: Blob by Maggie Su 📚

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:25:47 -0500

Currently reading: Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut 📚

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:23:49 -0500

Needed this vibe. Currently reading: An Immense World by Ed Yong 📚

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:20:13 -0500

The bureau speak is v amusing. Currently reading: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley 📚

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:19:04 -0500

Finished reading: Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom 📚

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 17:19:27 -0500

Book club categorically disliked this one. Finished reading: The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry 📚

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 18:38:53 -0500

Dang, this is good. Currently reading: Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom 📚

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 21:25:08 -0500

Finished reading: Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange 📚

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 01:18:00 -0500

Finished reading: Lit by Mary Karr 📚

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:30:43 -0500

Finished reading: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates 📚

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:03:40 -0500

Finished reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 📚

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 10:06:13 -0500

Currently reading: Abortion by Jessica Valenti 📚

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 13:32:31 -0500

Finished reading (a couple of months ago): Holding It Together by Jessica Calarco 📚

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 09:54:21 -0500

Read this in one sitting, reminded of “The Fire Next Time” in both style and urgency. Finished reading: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 📚

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 08:05:55 -0500

Finished reading: On Writing by Stephen King 📚

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:33:27 -0500

Finished reading: James by Percival Everett 📚

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 10:17:06 -0500

Currently reading: 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories by Lorrie Moore 📚

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 09:40:48 -0500

I read this again after a twenty year break. It holds up, but wowzers, my takeaways were different in 2024. Finished reading: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 📚

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 19:10:08 -0500

A clever look at feminist theory through celebrity case studies. My favorite chapters were on humor, leadership and nudity.

Finished reading: Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Petersen 📚

Girl in a Band

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 09:19:07 -0500

A quick read by a singular voice, heavy on descriptions of the New York art and music scene of the 90s. Like many punk memoirs, it’s a tribute to the many names that made the movement and a memorial for a city that no longer exists. Gordon’s voice is kind and bold, curious and smart. Her descriptions of growing up in LA and coming of age in New York are painterly and poetic. Her takes are generous for all but one person: her ex-husband.

All my respect to her for opening and closing the books with her raw reflections on Thurston’s mundane and deeply uncool betrayal.

Finished reading: Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon 📚

Thu, 23 May 2024 08:14:38 -0500

I very much enjoyed this book. Despite the heavy subjects, ultimately culminating in a reflection on the ongoing conflict in Palestine that can’t be missed, it was a compelling read that I’ve returned to many times as a reference. The mirror as metaphor for the inexplicable stories in the news.

Finished reading: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein 📚

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:23:05 -0500

Light and clever enough for an easy read, while serious enough to hold my attention. Love the demonstrations of mutual care on the margins of polite society.

Finished reading: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 📚

Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 13:40:00 -0500

I’ve been waiting for this one because it’s a story I know well. It is an impeccably reported book covering how young women navigated a compromised, stigmatized, coercive landscape around unplanned pregnancies in the late 20th century. Sisson is a comprehensive writer whose reporting is deeply empathetic, based on her personal experience as an activist and academic working in reproductive justice alongside extensive research. She discusses the history of the adoption movement at length, connecting it to other institutional family separation movements, and considers it alongside the choice to abort unplanned pregnancies and against the decision to parent anyway, often in a deeply compromised social and political climate.

My deep appreciation to her for telling these stories and telling them well.

Currently reading: Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson 📚

Hidden Systems

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:40:45 -0500

My delightful book club pulled this YA graphic novel out of the 2023-24 “best of” lists and loved it. There is a remarkable amount of information on each page - truly, you could build a dynamic reading curriculum off of each section - between the written and visual communication. A triumphant example of quality science writing, a great gift book, suitable for just about any audience over the age of ten.

Finished reading: Hidden Systems by Dan Nott 📚

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:11:42 -0500

The (very decorated) author (his first novel) spent time on the faculty in my Big Ten hometown. I already recognize some of the side characters. 👀 Currently reading: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar 📚

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:09:38 -0500

Escapist and breezy. Finished reading: Seven Days in June by Tia Williams 📚

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:09:04 -0500

This smart graphic novel zooms in and out on engineered systems happening all around us: electricity, water, the internet. Fascinating and clever. Currently reading: Hidden Systems by Dan Nott 📚

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 17:35:40 -0500

Finished reading: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 📚

I liked this one mostly because it asks nothing of the reader, save for enduring the completely unnecessary side story about the biographer.

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:58:34 -0500

Devastating, bleak, relentless.

Finished reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 11:20:23 -0500

Currently reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚

Dystopian, but not so far away.

Indiana, the KKK, and me

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 14:10:00 -0500

Currently reading: A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan 📚

Despite being from Indiana, I feel like I’ve heard very little about this book, which covers the rise of the Indiana KKK in the early 1900s. The book’s central story revolves around the Grand Dragon, a bad man whose bad acts finally land him in enough trouble that the powers that be couldn’t ignore his non-KKK activities any longer. The point, however, is that they ignored most of his activities because institutional power was both in the Klan’s pocket and was leveraged to recruit members up and down the state. Egan takes a powerful, uncomfortable look at how the KKK organized white, Protestant people against everyone else using social and professional organizations and churches, and how they helped shape neighborhood vigilantes into police forces tasked with protecting property and morality.

Fellow Hoosiers will recognize a lot of familiar names, towns and players. That photo in the NYT book review was taken in Marion, Indiana, for example. I’m finishing up an anecdote that takes place in Logansport. New Castle, Muncie, Ft. Wayne, Terre Haute are also places of interest. A reader on Twitter reminded me that the KKK tried to purchase Valparaiso University, once one of the most prestigious private universities this side of the Mississippi. Examples abound. It’s unsurprising to read that Indianapolis was nearly taken over by the Klan in the 1920s, considering how many in the statehouse openly endorse exclusionary opinions today.

Britney's Yellow Wallpaper

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 18:03:00 -0500

Finished reading: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears 📚

Come for the juicy tell-all, stay for the damning details on how Britney’s abusive father, codependent mother and opportunist sister ensnared one of the world’s biggest stars into an abusive conservatorship, and consider at length why we ask young starlets to run through these gauntlets in exchange for our attention. It’s neither the complete portrait of the artist nor the feminist manifesto I wish it was, but I came away from it with more empathy and respect for her and what horrors she’s weathered.

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 17:06:56 -0500

Finished reading: The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts 📚

Potts brings her reporting background to this memoir about coming of age in Arkansas, one of the poorest, reddest states, with lengthy explorations of the economic and social policies that create conditions in which women struggle to thrive. I really enjoyed this read for so many reasons, and was pleased that Potts’ voice is empathetic, smart and searching. Very recommended.

Very excited for the movie

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 13:24:33 -0500

Finished reading: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann 📚

“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.

“Only in the mid-nineteenth century, after the growth of industrial cities and a rash of urban riots—after dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed dread of the state—did police departments emerge in the United States.”

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 19:50:45 -0500

Finished reading: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin 📚

When I realized I’ve read more about him than by him, I had to rectify that problem. So many of the geopolitical problems he discusses are still relevant, and Baldwin’s voice is as clear and urgent as ever.

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:08:30 -0500

Finished reading: Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver 📚

It holds up.

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:07:54 -0500

Finished reading: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 📚

I forgot how much I love Kingsolver. After I finished this one on a road trip, I turned around and reread Poisonwood Bible on a camping trip.