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 📚
Escapist and breezy. Finished reading: Seven Days in June by Tia Williams 📚
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 📚
I’m divorcing my Apple Watch because I’m in love with my Oura ring. I need fewer CTAs and notifications in my life, and more reminders to prioritize sleep and mindfulness. Plus, you can pay for one with your HSA.
V proud of myself because, despite going to the quilt store yesterday and getting everything BUT what I went there for, I found enough batting scraps to put together a quilt sandwich and began hand quilting it last night. She’s going to be cute.
Nicki does party songs, Megan does praxis.
The latest You’re Wrong About podcast about the pro-life movement is an excellent primer for anyone who knows a little but doesn’t feel like an expert. Covers the history of the movement, where they came from ideologically, how they organize and why it’s effective. yourewrongabout.com
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.
Goodreads never did anything for me
I just spent a pile of money on books, with the goal of reading for pleasure every day, and with the intention of sprinkling some light stuff around my generally serious reading preferences. While I usually read like a dad, heavy on the serious memoirs and book-length nonfiction explainers, I’m trying to take on some lighter reads because mom needs a little sugar with her medicine.
So far, I’m doing an okay job of keeping track of my reading habits here, which is why I ponied up for a paid membership to this site at all: flotisserie.micro.blog/books/
I’m looking for some lightness in my reading list for the next couple of months. Found this list of funniest novels from the Booker library: thebookerprizes.com/the-booke…
Devastating, bleak, relentless.
Finished reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚
❄️ big, fat snowflakes ❄️
Currently reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚
Dystopian, but not so far away.
First real snow today.
🍿 Saltburn, baby.
The local story is ripe with corruption. Indiana likes to spin up private “growth” orgs to bypass legislation, after a long history of treating the state’s water resources like something between a highway and a sewer. Indiana’s Plan to Pipe In Groundwater for Microchip-Making Draws Fire
I am enjoying the Twitter/Tumblr feel of micro.blog and feel like I could settle in here. But it would be cooler if there was a quick reference for markdown near the input field to better format our posts.
The local story is ripe with corruption. Indiana likes to spin up private “growth” orgs to bypass legislation, after a long history of treating the state’s water resources like something between a highway and a sewer. Indiana’s Plan to Pipe In Groundwater for Microchip-Making Draws Fire
“The able and the disabled aren’t two different kinds of people but the same people at different times.” My Unraveling, by Tom Scocca for NYMag
Best New (to me) Books of 2023
After a stint as an English major and as a writer myself, I got into a habit of reading dozens of articles a day instead of longer form writing: books. I spent a lot of energy in 2023 getting back to books. Thanks to a great book club (you know who you are) and making space to settle in with a great book in a cozy spot, here are my favs from 2023:
📚 Monica Potts, “The Forgotten Girls”
I’ve followed Potts’ career since she was a student blogger turned journalist in the aughts, so seeing her publish this book was a little personally gratifying, too. 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. She compares her childhood against a friend who didn’t get out of dodge, and explores what makes the difference in areas where people get left behind.
I really enjoyed this read for so many reasons, and was pleased that Potts’ voice is empathetic, smart and searching despite the challenging material. A mix of memoir and sociology. Very recommended.
📚 Timothy Egan, “A Fever in the Heartland”
In the roaring twenties, my home state of Indiana was a hotbed of racist activity. The KKK rose to their peak power with something like one in three adult Hoosiers counting themselves among their ranks, by leveraging evangelical churches, law enforcement, and local politicians to curry influence and power. This is ultimately a story about a deathbed testimony that broke the spell, when the telling of the Grand Dragon’s secrets, cruelties and perversions finally brought a public reckoning with the Klan.
📚 Barbara Kingsolver, “Demon Copperhead”
Like Dickens did with “Copperfield,” Kingsolver does with “Copperhead.” This novel explores how institutional poverty harms children, set in an American South that, frankly, felt familiar coming from the lower Midwest. It lives up to the hype and was vindicating and familiar. I listened to this audiobook on a long road trip and the narrator nailed it.
(I forgot how much I love Kingsolver. I finished this and turned around and reread “Poisonwood Bible” - about the hubris of American missionaries in Congo - on a camping trip. It holds up.)
📚 Britney Spears, “The Woman in Me”
Yanno, I didn’t think this would be on my list either, but here we are. 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 stole her time, money and autonomy. 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 right under our noses. It’s giving “Yellow Wallpaper,” but pop. Free Britney.
📚 Patrick Radden Keefe, “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty”
This is a giant tome of a book that nevertheless provides a riveting and thorough history of who knew what when and why it matters. It’s also a study of impunity among the super-rich, and how their money and influence reaches into the public commons. It turns out a lot of modern fiction deals with addiction, opioids in particular, so this became a foundational book for a lot of other reads on this year’s list.
If you don’t want to read the book, but want to know more about the Sacklers and their terrible, coercive global influence, don’t miss the documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” which follows artist, activist and addict Nan Goldin as she fights against and grieves for all that opioids have taken from her, and from us. It’s a beautiful testament to art, community and the disenfranchised - and currently streaming on MAX.
I’m building my list for 2024, so let me know what you recommend!