From May to September, I went to North Carolina, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles (x2), Chicago, Ohio, Michigan, Martha’s Vineyard, DC, and Mexico City. Ask me how I pack my carry on bag. It’s practiced and meticulous.

In May, my friends and I were sitting at LGA getting ready to board our flight to Wilmington, North Carolina. It was the second year in a row we were going to Carolina Beach, North Carolina, or as we like to call it, CBNC. We stumbled upon this location quite randomly last summer and have since decided we will go back every year for the rest of our lives.

Our flight had been delayed a few times, but it was only lightly drizzling outside, we weren’t particularly worried. We were drinking wine and Bloody Marys when, around 7:30pm, laughing and growing tipsier, our flight was cancelled.

The next flight out wasn’t until three days later, making us miss more than half of our vacation and a nonrefundable VRBO. We weren’t about to give up on this thing we’d been looking forward to all year. We’d already taken work off, we were already packed and ready to go. So how about a flight to anywhere else in the state of North Carolina? Somehow, there were no flights from LGA to the state of NC for the next two days. There were flights from JFK or Newark, but they were obscenely expensive.

So what if we drove? This idea had originally been floated, back in February when we first booked the trip. We initially nixed it because 14 hours sounded too long and we just wanted to get to the beach. But sitting there at LGA, the sober reality of our long awaited vacation crumbling around us, 14 hours sounded a lot easier than three days. So we looked for rental cars from LGA to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Have you ever tried renting a car at 8pm on a Wednesday at LGA? Doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a deal, right? Wrong. And not only were there no cars at LGA at 8pm on a Wednesday, there was nowhere in any of the 5 boroughs that would allow for pickup in New York and drop off in Wilmington. So we expanded our search to New Jersey. Still no dice.

I rent cars for work constantly. And I am often picking them up in one state and dropping them off in another. It feels like sort of the whole point of renting a car? Moving from one place to another? I really didn’t believe that there were no options for us.

So what if we dropped it off somewhere other than Wilmington? Would that magically make the rental car available to us?

And there we were. An SUV available for pickup that night at Newark with drop off in Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh is only a two hour drive from Wilmington, and then Wilmington is a 45 minute uber to our rental house with the included golf cart in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Were we really going to do this? Drive 11 hours through the night to the wrong city, drop off one rental car just to pick up another? Lesser girls wouldn’t have done it. But the beach was so close, all we had to do was get there and the house, the golf cart, and the sweet southern charm would be waiting for us.

We called an uber to Newark.

The uber from LGA to EWR was about an hour long, on a Wednesday at 8:30pm with the normal amount of traffic. We were giddy and cracking up the whole time. We arrived at the car rental center at EWR at 9:30, loaded the bags in the car, just barely fitting, chugged a Celsius, and were on the road by 10pm. The supposed storm that cancelled all the flights was nowhere to be found, there was only a light drizzle. The GPS showed 8 hours to Raleigh. Dani drove the first leg, my designated driver forever, and the first few hours passed quickly.

Around 12:30 we stopped at a gas station outside of Wilmington, Delaware. The wrong Wilmington! We were all still mostly jovial and giggling. How silly was this thing that we were doing? Would anyone else ever dare do something so crazy? Were we the first girls in the world to take a drive? They should make a movie about us!

We got back in the car, this time with me in the driver’s seat, Grace as the passenger, and Anna Callie and Dani in the back (can you picture it?). There was still somehow six hours left, the hours that seemed like an adventure at first now staring back at us like a threat. We got a little less jovial. We reassured ourselves, worst case scenario we pull into a motel and sleep for a while. Or we could stop in DC, where Grace’s parents live, nap on their couch for an hour or two. We had so many options.

The drizzle persisted. I am a California girl so a bit of rain has been known to deter me, but I’ve lived on the East Coast for 9 years at this point. I can handle a little drizzle.

We were on a pitch black highway in maybe Maryland or Virginia when the rain started to really come down, the wind picked up, and the highway got dark. Either the streetlights went out or there weren’t any to begin with. The rain started coming down in sheets, cutting the headlights short. The tall canopy of trees that lined the shoulder was threatening to fling its heavy branches from their trunks, wind rattling the windows. Cars that had whipped past us moments before suddenly slowed down, everyone trying to see more than 10 feet in front of them. Suddenly I could not handle a little drizzle.

Had I been in the passenger seat, I probably would’ve lost my mind. I would’ve made us pull onto the shoulder and wait it out, wait til the sun came up if we had to. But as I was the one driving, I didn’t want to freak anyone else out, so we just kept going. Grace and I whispered, this is insane, this is inane, this is insane. We thought the girls were asleep in the backseat, they didn’t say a word.

It went on for probably 45 minutes, and all I could really do was grip the steering wheel and remind myself that I have always been a good driver. We didn’t let a cancelled flight stop us from getting to CBNC, I sure as hell wasn’t about to let a little rain stop us either.

Eventually the rain stopped, we sighed and laughed, and then (four hours later) we were in Raleigh. Have you ever been to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport car rental center? The employees are darling and it’s honestly sort of beautiful. And there’s a stray cat that wanders the parking lot! And the bathrooms are pretty clean! We felt like the luckiest girls alive. There was a gorgeous sunrise and we’d made it to North Carolina, just one more car and 2 more hours to go.

We had to stop at a coffee shop in Wilmington at 8am because Dani hadn’t taken the day off and had to attend her zoom staff meeting. The coffee shop I found for us turned out to be in the parking lot of a car dealership and “is a human rights movement disguised as a coffee shop” according to their website. I had a great iced tea but of course felt insane.

We made it eventually. We ran into more roadblocks, and through the delirium of driving all night everything became horrible and hilarious. Our uber driver told me I was a beautiful frog. Shit happens.

Here’s what I read this summer.

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

I’d avoided reading Empire of Pain for years despite my love of PRK because I knew it was going to be dark. And it was dark, but it was good. I work with so many of the museums and institutions that the Sackler family supported so felt like it gave me a lot of context for those institutions. I can’t say anything about this book that hasn’t already been said better by other people, but one thing I do want to mention is this TikTok I recently came across comparing the opioid crisis to the ozempedemic. Food for thought! Pun intended!

A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst

Last summer when I was in Martha’s Vineyard, my friend Ali asked me to grab this for her at the bookstore. I had her repeat the title about two or three times and still could not for the life of me figure out what she was saying. I landed on “Emigrate See.” Ali is a totally normal and clear speaker, but I must have just been stupid that day because I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. I was therefore no help to the bookstore employee who was trying to help me out. I told Ali they didn’t have it and she was surprised but we moved on.

About a month later the book was everywhere and it finally clicked. A Marriage at Sea! Of course. Makes far more sense. And it’s a great little book. It’s perfectly concise, tells an unbelievable story, and leaves you teary.

Whistler by Ann Patchett

A few weeks ago I was browsing at the bookstore and overheard a woman pick up Whistler and say to her friend, I don’t really care for Ann Patchett, but my mom loves her. I wanted so badly to interject and tell her to listen to her mother. Bury me with Ann Patchett stuck in my gut as I’ve said time and time before.

I will say, this is maybe my least favorite Patchett I’ve read so far, but I still liked it a lot. I just have a hard time with any story about parents getting old. Let’s all live forever, please.

Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

Delightful little book, my favorite type. In ways this reminded me of Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda. The plots are entirely different, but there is a similar theme of high society and summer malaise. It’s full of quiet yearning and big personalities and I’m already looking forward to rereading it, which I rarely ever do. Also a perfect end of summer book.

Tell Me How You Eat by Amber Husain

Utterly forgettable. And I had high hopes! It’s hard to write about eating disorders in a satisfying way. Maybe that’s the whole point? To mimic the deprivation of the thing itself? Though that didn’t seem to be the case here. None of the points that were promised on the book jacket ever really came to fruition. It felt like a very long undergraduate thesis, no shade to the undergrads.

Swanna in Love by Jennifer Belle

Great if you enjoyed the movie Janet Planet but wished it was depraved. A bit of a reverse Lolita, in which the adolescent girl is pursuing the older man. It perfectly captures the teenage feeling of thinking you know exactly what you want and need, but everything is completely out of your control. Also a great end of summer book.

The Bombshell by Darrow Farr

Similar to Swanna in Love, this one does a great job of capturing the blind and unwavering audacity of a teenage girl. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for a boy at that age, so this extreme of that felt relatively realistic. Kidnapped by hot terrorists? I would’ve totally joined the revolution.

Broken Harbor by Tana French

Another in the Dublin Murder Squad series I’ve been slowly reading for years. Tana French writes a great mystery, but the books aren’t going to change your life or anything. It’s just nice to have something to keep coming back to. This one was probably the most fucked up of the series so far.

Headlights by CJ Leede

Read this for book club in August and we talked a lot about being a good writer vs a good storyteller. The writing here wasn’t amazing. It was super accessible and fun, but there were more than a few moments that made me cringe. But the story was super entertaining, many fun twists and terms, and it even got a little sexy! In a way that was slightly horrifying but still fun.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Not sure how it took me so long to read this? Given how all-in I was on the insane woman book trope that has ruled literary fiction since My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I really should have read this years ago. Crazy how nothing will ever be as good as this? The upcoming movie already seems like the worst thing ever.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I was reading the physical book of The Bell Jar, then listening to the audiobook of Rules of Civility during the same period. Got a bit confusing because they take place in similar periods of time, similar worlds. Also can’t believe it has taken me so long to read any Amor Towles! This was fun and always good for me to read more male writers. Perhaps I’ll pick up Gentleman in Moscow next.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Another one I can’t believe took me so long to get around to. One of the greatest books… ever? Like if Jennifer Egan met Robert McCloskey. Such a good “life is beautiful, everyone is going through something” portrait. My FAVORITE!

Ask the Dust by John Fante

I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time in LA this summer so I wanted to read a classic LA book while I was there. I’ve read many of the great LA books, but I always want to read more to help me understand the place I’m from.

At a party a few weeks ago, someone told me I seem like more of an East Coster than a West Coaster. No one has ever said that before, in fact it was usually the complete opposite. In college people would tell me I was “so LA” (which to be fair, I was more so then than I am now), and an old boss once told me that my California casualness may not play well in future professional endeavors (he was wrong, it’s been a great asset!).

Anyway, this is a fantastic LA book. Takes place in the 30s in DTLA. Is it considered a noir? I’m not going to google it. It’s funny so it doesn’t feel like a noir, but it’s also dark and reminded me at times of In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes.

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

Incredibly readable and incredibly annoying. Maybe I’ve just read too many of these kinds of things? But I’m tired of the woman who can’t help herself. Stand UP! Her and her mother!

The Secret Place by Tana French

In one ear and out the other already. But in a very pleasant way.

And that’s all I’ve got for you!

xoxo,

Q

The first is that I started a new job in September which I love so much that I haven’t had as much time to read. I’m getting back into reading finally, as work has finally been less frantic and my head is screwed on a bit tighter again.

I’m so lucky to love my job, and that this isn’t even the first job I’ve loved. I loved working in bookstores. Some were better than others and each one had its pros and cons.

There are a lot of pros to this new job. I’m selling books again. I travel a ton. Since I started, I have been to Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Portland Maine, Boston (twice), Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Miami (twice), Palm Beach (twice), Tampa, Sarasota, Atlanta, Dallas, and LA. Damn it feels good to be a traveling saleswoman, as they say.

In each of these cities, I get to go to the museums. Why aren’t more people talking about The Norton in Palm Beach? Or the Phillips Collection in DC? Or the Rubell Collection in Miami? And the GIFT SHOPS! The Baltimore Museum of Art has a great one, as does the Philadelphia Museum. I’m also working with bookstores, gift stores, home decor stores, a couple hotels, galleries, clothing stores, and a store that specializes in vintage cars and guitars.

The other reason is that there was a random man stalking me on the internet so I wanted to distance myself from my digital footprint. The whole thing was more funny than it was scary, thankfully, and it was going on for years. Some of his messages so iconic that they are now quoted among my friends regularly (see below). And he did send me money a few times, so really I can’t be that upset.

It did make me take a step back though. I put my profiles on private, stopped posting my face as much, which is still probably more than the average person but less than my previous self.

I’ve been online for over half of my life and in that time, I’ve posted photos of myself quite regularly. I remember clearly one time, around 8th or 9th grade, when I was at my best friend’s house with her and her parents. Instagram was still relatively new and I posted a lot of selfies (I was the “it girl” of 7th grade, refer to previous substack). My friend’s mom was scrolling through the Instagram of a girl a few grades above us, then turned to me and remarked, “see how she very rarely posts any photos of herself? I think that’s classy.”

I was so self conscious at that age, as any 12 year old is, and to have an adult who I loved and trusted delivering that sort of backhanded remark was embarrassing. How was I supposed to know what was appropriate, what was classy on the internet in 2012? The whole concept of it was still so new. It still is!

It resonated enough then that I felt ashamed and remember it well, but not enough to make me stop posting photos of myself. Through the years I’ve chilled out on it a bit, turned my lens to the rest of the world. I like that my online persona is a reflection of what I see. I like posting about my friends, about what I’m reading, about art I’m seeing.

I recently went on a few dates with a man so evil there will be monuments dedicated to him, but one thing that he said early on was that he liked that my Instagram didn’t have a lot of photos of myself on it because it showed that I wasn’t vain. Vain? I’ll show you vain. You don’t become the it girl of 7th grade without a healthy dose of vanity.

Of course he was an aspiring TikToker so the jokes are writing themselves here.

I feel pretty at peace with my digital footprint these days. It ebbs and flows. None of it matters. I enjoy posting stories. Being alive in this day and age is weird. Instagram is my canvas and Stories are my paintbrush.

You know what I really get a kick out of, though? Look at the Instagram of that girl a few grades above me, or my best friend’s mom who made the comment, and all you will see are photos of themselves. Time passed, the culture shifted, and I’m not saying I told you so or anything. I’m just saying it’s interesting, is all.

And internet stalker, if you’re reading this, I could use $100.

Here’s what I’ve read since I last posted.

Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek

While reading this, I didn’t feel much. I liked the imagery that it evoked of the desert, but six months out from reading it I couldn’t really tell you what it’s about. The ghost of a theater? It was fine. That being said, I saw someone reading it in a coffee shop recently and it made me smile. Not because I particularly liked the book, but I liked that I’d read it. Whatever that means.

Bear by Marian Engel

At the book club for this, there was a bit of a situation that resulted in one of my friends spending 2 hours in the back of an ambulance outside a bar in Williamsburg. She got to talking with the EMTs and mentioned that she was here for a book club and told him about what we were reading.

I was inside with a couple of the other girls waiting to hear if she was OK. The EMT came inside to use the restroom. We all looked to him anxiously for an update on our dear friend. He looked at us with what seemed to be a mix of amusement and bewilderment, before exclaiming, “she FUCKS the bear?!”

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

I am mostly over the crazy women genre. However, this was a lot of fun. Soon to be a movie starring someone or other and coming out I think in September… the details are a bit hazy and for some reason I refuse to google it.

We read for Christmas book club which is perfect as the book takes place at Christmas time. It’s short enough that it doesn’t hammer in the insane women thing too much, and it makes no excuses, nor provides too much explanation for the woman’s insanity.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

My first reread in a while. As a kid I obsessively reread books but as an adult I am constantly, agonizingly aware of how many books there are and how little time I have. Leaves little room to revisit. Secret History deserved a reread though because I read it in fragments in college and never paid enough attention. Some people in book club didn’t like it which is valid but they are also wrong. It’s a perfect modern classic and really exactly what I want in a book, which is to say it toes the line between mystery and lit fic.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Being in three book clubs keeps me reading things I would otherwise never choose for myself. PHM had a huge moment because of the movie (which book club went to see without me ((whatever)). The book was sweet and very fun. A good reminder that I can stray from my genre preferences and still enjoy myself.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Too long. Most of the middle was unnecessary. The beginning and ending were a ton of fun! Most of book club agreed this could’ve been a novella but instead it’s over 250 pages. Still need to watch the movie.

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson

My first Tove Jansson! Throughout the first half of this I was confusing Tove Jansson for Tove Ditlevsen and thinking, woah this is a very different tone from The Copenhagen Trilogy. Of course, made much more sense when I realized I was mixing up my Toves.

I really enjoyed this! Reminded me of Run Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk in its humor and foreboding. I liked the characters, I liked the environment. It didn’t change my life or anything but it made me chuckle a few times which, in the scheme of things, can be life changing.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

A month or so ago, archaeologists discovered a fragment of Homer’s Iliad inside the gut of a 1600 year old Egyptian mummy. Kyra sent me a tweet about it and said “bury me with Ann Patchett stuck in my gut.” Which is essentially how I feel as well. If you dismiss Patchett’s work because they are “books for moms” then you are sexist and hate your mother. Bury THAT in your gut.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

I wanted so badly to like this. Ogawa’s The Memory Police was so visceral and devastating and I still think about it constantly, years after reading it. Maybe it’s that I can’t help but compare the two that caused this one to fall flat for me. There were moments that I enjoyed. I liked the stuff about baseball (for some reason), I liked the descriptions of the professor’s home, but I didn’t care much about the characters and there were too many plot holes.

The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee

Really didn’t enjoy it. Felt so cliche. I can’t even find the notes I took during book club for it. Did I not take any? Was it that bad? Whatever the case may be, I can barely even remember the things I didn’t like about this now. Oh well. The book club discussion was fun, but then again it always is.

Antarctica by Claire Keegan

I have thought about the titular story at least once a week since finishing this book a month or so ago. Especially as a traveling saleswoman. Keegan is so good at writing the devastation between the lines. She says so much with so little. One of the greatest of our time.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Yaaa I loved it! Sue me, I’m a sucker for a NYT Bestseller. Fun and new. Surely there will be a million more things like it to follow. Did a deep dive on @BallerinaFarm while reading it and now feel like it is my god given right to know if she has read it. I’m sure she has, right?

The Compound by Aisling Rawle

As someone who doesn’t watch many reality dating shows but considers Survivor the closest I’ve ever felt to organized religion, this was fun! Love Islands meets Survivor meets The Hunger Games sort of. But I’ve also not seen many episodes of Love Island so correct me if I’m wrong. I enjoyed it. It didn’t change my life and I probably won’t be able to tell you anything about it in a year but those kinds of books serve an important purpose.

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

One of my favorite things about book club is that no matter what opinion I come to the meeting with, I almost always walk away from the discussion with a new one. Almost everyone in book club hated this book at the beginning of the conversation but by the end we realized there was actually a lot that we liked about it. It’s a super quick read, which got me out of a reading rut. And it’s ultimately a story about how a sister’s love is the most powerful bond in the world. And as a sister myself… I’m gonna have to go ahead and agree.

Famesick by Lena Dunham

I love reading the big book of the moment. My dad and I have been doing this together, audiobooking all the most talked about titles. First we did Yesteryear, then we did Famesick. The thing I loved the most about this book is the grace that Dunham has for everyone she writes about. You can tell the hurt that so many people caused, but she makes such a clear point to never talk negatively about them, even the ones who did her seriously wrong. The world was awful to her and she still managed to write her way around it with elegance. Now I’m rewatching Girls.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

I’d read PRK’s grocery lists if he published them. And I’m sure he’d find a way to deliver the information accurately, engagingly, and with an acute sensitivity to the history of the ingredients.

The Land and Its People by David Sedaris

Speaking of people whose grocery lists I would read… I feel like I probably have read David Sedaris’ grocery lists at one point or another, probably in one of his diary compilations. Dani got me an ARC of this a week before it’s publication because I was determined to read it on the beach in North Carolina, biblically accurate place to read Sedaris.

My favorite thing about this one is how he really clearly describes the thoughts that I have that I say make me feel like a republican. I’m not going to try to explain what I mean because he does it better than I ever could.

xoxo,

Q

A notion that my friends and I often remind each other of is that no one is thinking about you that much. When I’m self conscious of what I’m wearing, when I think I am being awkward or weird at a party, when I say something dumb and can’t stop replaying the moment in my mind I return to this mantra: No one is thinking about me that much. It is so liberating!

But the internet keeps trying to disprove it.

Sure, I notice people constantly. I notice what they’re wearing, what they’re saying, what they’re reading. And not to pat myself on the back or anything, but it’s rare that I notice a stranger reading and have the thought that they must be doing that performatively. Even when someone posts a photo on their Instagram story of a book that makes me roll my eyes, I’m always just mostly pleased that people are reading at all.

Denmark just abolished all sales tax on books. How awesome, right? EXCEPT the reason they did it is because “Data shows that a quarter of Danish 15-year-olds cannot understand a simple text.” It is an attempt to increase literacy among young adults. So, little less awesome, little more terrifying. In a world where we are experiencing a reading crisis, I am begging for Bushwick male manipulators on the L train (or whatever your local version of this is) to performatively read Joan Didion. TikTok interior designers, please load your shelves with visually appealing volumes you may never crack the spines of. At least the books are there. At least the books are doing something besides burning.

I love noticing what other people are reading in public. I love arranging my books by color in my bedroom. I love books as objects. I love judging a book by its cover. I love posting about what I’m reading. I love Instagram storying a passage that I like. I love reading on the subway. I love reading a book alone at a bar. If someone happens to see me and think I look hot or cool while doing it, hell yeah. If someone notices me and thinks I’m doing it performatively, hell yeah. Aren’t I, in some regard? At least I’m reading.

So here are the things I have read performatively recently.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

I performatively read this in Dorset, Vermont. Some of it was read lying in the grass outside Grace’s family home, some of it was read at the Dorset Marble Quarry where teenagers gave me menacing glares, outrageously jealous of my literacy. God this book hurt. Also hugged! (as in it was comforting…?) My favorite kind of humor is the type that is making the most of a bad situation. I use humor in defense of everything, to a point where it often becomes unclear to me if I am actually upset about something or not because I have made so much light of it. Books like this feel like people like me. The bad can be so bad but we might as well laugh about it. Also, dogs. Always dogs.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

I performatively listened to this one which is harder to do but damnit, I tried.

Once again, good humor in the misery. I am trying to read more modern classics. I should probably focus on reading more old classics but I haven’t entered that phase yet.

I have known of this book forever. The title is a phrase that sometimes gets stuck in my head but it never occurred to me to read it for some reason. Until, a few weeks ago, I was telling my dad that I was in a total rut with finding a new audiobook.(Sidebar: if I haven’t already mentioned this, I need to always have an audiobook. I listen to them all day long. While commuting, while working, while getting dressed, in the rare occasions that I cook. So when I don’t have one, the world takes on an ominous silence.) It is worth reading if you never have. Kind of super epic!

Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda

Imagine reading this in Prospect Park or something and snapping a photo and throwing it up on Instagram. Performative perfection. Would look great on a picnic blanket next to a box of farmers market strawberries.

The PERFECT end of summer book. I think I bought this the first time I ever went to McNally Jackson Williamsburg, weeks before I started working there and would eventually become familiar with its every nook and cranny. I don’t know what took me so long to read this! But I’m so glad it did, because I really think I came to it at the perfect time. I have been feeling relatively antisocial this August which is not the norm for me. This book has the most August feeling in the world, a true end of summer saga, ranging multiple summers on the Spanish coast. One of those ones that I can’t wait to reread in a few years, which I don’t often feel.

Playworld by Adam Ross

Every time I read a male coming of age novel I’m like wow, this reminds me so much of [other male coming of age novel]. They are often collegiate and end in death (my only real examples here are Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos, The Secret History, and of course The Catcher in the Rye). This was refreshingly less collegiate than the others. No boarding school, no college campus, but the backseat of a much older woman’s car, film sets, and wrestling matches. Everything you need in a good book! It probably could have been 100 pages shorter (though I listened to it so maybe like an hour shorter) and gotten to all the same points but I forgive the overwriting.

The Stepdaughter by Caroline Blackwood

After finishing Playworld which was 500+ pages (22 hour audiobook) I wanted something speedy. Coming in at 112 pages, this was exactly that. I read this in one sitting and it was a great follow up to Playworld. Both take place in the 70’s in NYC and pay certain attention to the lives of adolescence at the time. The difference in this one, however, is that the story is told by the ex-step-mother of a teenage girl who has no friends, no family, and no direction. And the ex step mom really hates her. It’s funny as long as you don’t take things too personally, which I don’t.

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

YAYYYY! :)

Loved this audiobook so much. I really think it’s only worth listening to. His southern drawl is so darling and makes all the stories so much better. I can’t imagine reading the details of his wet dreams about floating down the amazon river. But hearing him tell me them? Fantastic amazing loved every moment. It has a bit of something for everyone… Hollywood, poetry, bumper stickers, unsolicited advice, studying abroad in Australia, God. Fun for the whole family. And SUPER performative.

This time we had the Pod delivered to the house for the weekend so we could go through our shit in the privacy of our own driveway.

When my grandma died in 2017, we stuffed everything she left us in the back of The Pod without ever looking at any of it. Over the years, my mom would remind us constantly that we needed to go through its contents, mainly to make room to stuff more shit inside of it. (How lucky are we? The house burned down but we had the great fortune of stashing some things away first. Not everything, by no means everything, but some things).

We keep valuable things in there, like art, chairs, photographs, baby clothes, elementary school math tests, essentials.

We spent that entire October weekend combing through our lives. The house had been relatively empty of any personal touches for so long (my parents rented it out) so rooting through this vault was done slowly and nostalgically.

I learned so much about myself through the things in those boxes. I can’t believe what I chose to save as a tween. I have this tiny tin box that is stuffed to the brim with mementos; letters I received when I was 10 at sleepaway camp, notes I passed in class, old school photos, polaroids of my first boyfriend, a ticket stub for a 2011 performance of Blue Man Group in Las Vegas. The range was insane.

The best things I found were my old diaries. Thank god I was such a melodramatic 12 year old, it gave me gold such as:

I considered redacting the names here but really, what’s the point?

The next page was quite literally a draft of a suicide note. Again, the range was insane!

The majority of The Pod was taken up by my parents things. Understandably, as they have lived longer than me and had more time to acquire these boxes.

It seems like both of my parents held on to every single letter that anyone ever wrote to them. It can more realistically be chalked up to the fact that through the years they threw things in boxes and never went through them until now.

I want to write (receive) love letters! What will my children find of my past? My text history? My Instagram? My screenshots? It was one of the biggest takeaways of this excavation. I had the least stuff of everyone in The Pod because I am the youngest sure, but I am the most digital.

Anyway sorry I am losing the plot here.

We found so much of our lives in those boxes.

Some things went back in The Pod, some things got donated, and a lot of things got thrown out. Every single thing my sister has ever written, painted, thought, or spoke was somehow cataloged in there (first child and all that). Old tests got tossed, kindergarten projects on beluga whales that didn’t need to be saved, that kind of thing.

We took some things out to go through, left them in the house and now will regret it for the rest of our lives. I try not to think about them but every single day there is a new thing that I remember was in the house or the trailers. It’s odd because whenever I visited home before the fires I was always disappointed by how impersonal that space had become. The house had no family photos, none of my clothes, none of the things that I thought made up a home. Post fire I am dizzy everyday with the scope of the loss. This past weekend I remembered that our Christmas stockings were in there. I never knew I cared so much about them but in their absence I desperately want them back. I don’t want new ones, I want those ones that saw me every Christmas morning for 25 years.

What remained in the house, the things that renters often cited as their favorite part, were the books.

The same thing that took up the most space in The Pod. Every single book that my grandparents had in the house they lived in for 50 years was packed into boxes and thrown in The Pod. Poetry, novels, biographies, and more art books than we could really wrap our heads around. I come from bookish people. I now carry the torch.

That’s what this whole Substack is about anyway.

Here’s what I’ve read recently:

Ice by Anna Kavan

A really good end of the world narrative. Unsettling as it is and then you realize it was written in the 60s and it gets somehow spookier. The story of an evil man’s relentless search for a woman who wants nothing to do with him, amidst the rapid freezing of the earth. It feels like a dark fairytale, vaguely reminiscent of bad dreams I’m sure I’ve had but can’t remember. All that to say? Completely loved it. I had no idea what was going on for the first 40 or so pages, by the end I still wasn’t 100%, but I’ve thought of it many times since finishing it a few months ago. It’s timeless, baby!

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

I meant to read this when it first released in the US in 2019, then really meant to read it when it won The National Book Award for Translated Lit and the Nobel Prize but I somehow didn’t read it any of those times. Instead, I waited until one of my book clubs selected it and finally I got reading. This was a funny thing to read following Ice, simply because I read them both in June as NY was starting to heat up. Both narratives featuring very icy landscapes. Maybe I needed to feel some sort of chill as the impending 90° days loomed?

This was as good as its accolades imply. It is so hard to find a funny book that I feel is actually thoughtful and well written. This had everything I usually want in a book. Mystery, murder, humor, great friendships, wacky narrators, a love of dogs. If you have been meaning to read it, might I suggest now be the time?

Babel by R.F. Kuang

I loved the first half! The second half was not as much my speed. I think the entire book could have just been the first half… I have heard so many differing opinions on this one. It was so big when it first came out. I had no interest in it whatsoever for a while then decided to listen to the audiobook somewhat randomly. Good narrator! Great characters! Okay and sorry but I’m about to spoil the ending. Did they really ALL have to die??

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

My dear friend Olivia is the biggest Murata lover in the world. She has been obsessively recommending her books for as long as I have known her. I was supposed to be reading her new one Vanishing World for book club but thought I should familiarize myself with her whole thing first. I know her specialty is writing freaks and I’m all about that kind of thing. I see how this book could really not be for everyone. The main character is off putting and the entire story follows a series of even more off putting decisions she makes. I love that kind of thing though. I like any book that makes me feel really strong, even if that emotion is discomfort, irritation, etc. I want writing that is evocative! This was definitely that.

The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk

I’m a bit under-read in the Rachel Cusk department. I read the first in the Outline trilogy and never read any of the others. This one is a memoir, though it reads exactly the same as her fiction, which is HER whole thing (less freaks in this one). This was one we read for Unusual Appetites and I was very nervous for how it would be received. We tend to read mostly fiction in the club, and a lot of it leans towards horror. This is quite the opposite and it ended up being one of my favorite discussions yet. I say that every time but I always mean it. It just keeps getting better I suppose!

It’s hard to write down exactly why I loved this book. Not much happens, it is very atmospheric and observational. She writes a lot about art, and it really should be shelved in travel writing. My biggest takeaway was that the story felt very lonely, despite the entire narrative revolving around the people she and her family meets in her travels. Once again, I like a book that evokes something so strongly, even if that emotion is loneliness. I was feeling lonely when I read it and it felt appropriate to be in this isolated hot summer narrative.

Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag

A really good little family drama. The narrator is the over protective father of a 20 year old daughter who goes missing while visiting her uncle. The entire story only spans about one weekend but jumps so seamlessly into vivid descriptions of the past. It felt lighthearted even when dealing with dark topics. I read the whole thing in a day and a half and felt very satisfied when it was over, despite the cliff hanger ending. Also, it’s a McNally Edition! And I am still loyal to my old stomping grounds.

Even before I was 14, back to around the time I was 4, a good amount of my free time was spent in the local bookstore.

I miss it madly! I miss it everyday! I feel ignorant stupid and dumb because of this absence. My ideal lifestyle is one where I work in a bookstore 4 days a week, get paid 250k, and have unlimited PTO. Is that too much to ask?

I miss seeing what people are reading. It’s an amazing way to keep your finger on the pulse politically, culturally, socially. I have nothing to back this up because I haven’t done any research on it but I think that the rise in popularity of romantasy post Covid is coming from an eagerness to escape reality in favor of something gloriously fake.

I miss talking to strangers everyday. I have a large social battery and I suspect that some days I exhaust my current coworkers with my endless chatter. I can't help it, I am used to the ongoing small talk of retail.

“My mom loved that book!”

“People say this is THE book on the history of The Titanic.”

“My middle school P.E. teacher used to give every student a copy of this book at the end of the semester.”

“I recommended this book to my step aunt’s book club and one of the ladies’ husbands is a TV writer so he adapted the screenplay and rumor has it it’s going to be a limited series on Hulu next summer.”

I miss lying to customers. Many were uninterested in my rapport, but some would latch on.

I miss the regular customers whose names I never remembered. There was this girl with a slight accent, maybe Portuguese, with big blonde curly hair and always asking for poetry recommendations. A guy who came in multiple times a week with a dog named Ellie, so we referred to him as Ellie’s dad. The kid, now teenager, whose mysterious aunts sent him gift cards every month that are kept on hold behind the register for him. A guy who liked me on Hinge repeatedly but made no effort at conversation in the store, never even said please or thank you, merely grunted when I asked him if he would like a bag.

Sometimes I will still see these regulars on the street in Williamsburg, but they never seem to recognize me outside of the context of the bookstore. I could say hi but honestly, I prefer to remain in that image.

Anyway.

I have been in a reading rut and like many other things, I am blaming it on the fact that my house burned down. It is an amazing excuse and I will miss the day I stop being able to use it. For the time being it is still carrying its weight. At first there was so much chaos, so much to coordinate. There was so much grief to carry, not only my own but my family’s, my community’s, random acquaintances’ who want to feel like they’ve done their part by asking out of nowhere how my parents are, if insurance paid out, if we’re going to rebuild. There was so much to do at first.

But it is slowing down. My parents have moved into a groovy new spot and the debris has been cleared from the property. Fire took the first chunk of the house and a bulldozer cleared the second. Flowers are growing all over the property and I am 3,000 miles away, planting my own roots and gallivanting all over town.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

Boulder by Eva Baltasar

The quick progression of a 10+ year marriage where the main character has no interest in children and her wife desperately wants one, so they have one. The main character is uncomfortable, cold, deceitful, yet somehow had my sympathies by the end. The book is set in Iceland which adds to the coldness, but the author (and protagonist) is Catalan, so there is this undercurrent of a missing warmth throughout the whole story. Between the characters, between the environments, etc. I liked it because I like when things aren’t all wrapped up in a perfect bow, I like an unlikable character, and I like a quick read.

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle

Like Groundhog Day without any of the comedy. A woman keeps waking up every day to November 18th (which I must note is my best friend Kayla’s birthday). The weight of the day, of the repetition, of being the only one weighs heavier and heavier on her with each passing November 18th. I really enjoyed this but it took me a long time to finish because it was so damn sad. A friend compared it tonally to I Who Have Never Known Men and I think that is apt, but believe it or not, this is even sadder. This is only the first volume (as the title suggests) in what will be a seven book series. The second is already out, with the third and fourth coming out on, you guessed it! November 18th.

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

The May installment of Mel and my Unusual Appetites Book Club. Thematically, it hit the nail on the head. It takes place in a near apocalyptic world where a dense fog is killing people. The wealthy have fled to higher ground which is where the main character has come to stay. Or rather, to work in a fine dining restaurant.

There's a lot going on in this book. There's the apocalyptic part, there’s the villainous “Employer”, there’s his daughter who the main character first seems to fear then ends up having an affair with, all while discovering that she (the nameless protagonist) is there to pretend to be her employer’s long lost wife. Oh and then also there is a lab where the daughter/lover is working on de-extinction, so one night for dinner they serve their guests Wooly Mammoth. It had a lot going on! In my opinion, a bit too much.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were discussing books that we think are modern classics (modern in this case meaning in our lifetime because it is our life so of course it’s all about us). A Visit from the Goon Squad, My Brilliant Friend, The Book Thief, 1Q84, All the Light We Cannot See, the list is long. Then Erin mentioned Demon Copperhead and it got me thinking of what really makes something a modern classic. Can a book less than three years old really do it? But then again, I supposed that was the whole point of the “modern” thing.

And well my god, were they right! One of the best books I’ve read in years. It had been a while since I felt hungover upon finishing a book. I didn’t expect that to happen with this. But I miss the characters. I felt so much sympathy for them all, they were all so tangible.

I listened to the audiobook and I have heard from multiple people that they wish they’d done the audiobook instead of the physical. I think you’re probably fine either way, but I will say the audiobook was phenomenal. I think a book as grand as this deserves something theatrical, if theatrical is what you’re into, so it served this story well.

Calypso by David Sedaris

You may have heard that my friends and I went to Carolina Beach, North Carolina this past weekend. It was perfect and amazing and we’re going to buy a house there one day. I knew all of this would be the case because of David Sedaris.

Some of my favorite stories of his are the ones that take place at his family’s house on the North Carolina coast. When packing for our girls weekend, staring at my bookshelf, it was mostly tragedy after tragedy. Not really the girls trip vibe. So I did something which I haven’t done in a while and picked up something I had already read.

The first book of his I ever read was Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which I stole from my long dead grandfather’s bedside table without asking my grandma if it was okay. I suspected she wouldn’t notice and she didn’t. I was probably thirteen or fourteen and I was so amazed by the ease of his humor. It felt reminiscent of my own family, my dad’s instinct to find comedy in every situation. Since then I have read all his books as they’ve come out, I have seen him live twice, and I am a fierce believer that he is close to the top of the modern literary classic canon.

I am dying to know what books other people consider modern classics! Please tell me :)

A lot has happened since I last wrote…

The house I grew up in burned down. If you follow me or anyone in my family on any social media, surely you know this already. The news is not new to anyone at this point, but it still feels terrifyingly new to me every day. I woke up every day for almost 25 years knowing one thing in my life was certain. Now that thing isn’t certain anymore! How strange, how big, how beautiful if I really think about it. As Hannah Regel wrote in The Last Sane Woman, “Everything is temporary and nothing matters and I am grinning from ear to ear because of it! What a relief!”

At one point, I would’ve had a lot of flowery words to say to depict the devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires. After the Woolsey fires in 2018, which took the homes of so many of my friends and changed our community in so many ways, I had SO much to say. I wrote poems, I wrote essays, I wrote Instagram captions. I wrote some great things, if I do say so myself! Some melodramatic terrible ones, too.

One of the lines in the essay I wrote was, “We have always unpacked.” Maybe that is why I had so much to say then and so little now. Unpacking looks quite different for our family this time around. We are lucky; we have so much more than so many people. All my dad’s art books are at his studio in Santa Monica, a lot of old photos and things from our childhoods are in a storage pod in the valley. But one thing that was lost was the literature. My parents spent their lives collecting books that lined the shelves of our home. While they are physically gone, it’s reassuring to know that all those stories are still out there. All they need is to pick up new copies.

At this current point in my life, I feel more inclined to absorb the words of others. One day I will have bigger, more beautiful eulogies for the house that raised me but until then, I am diving into distraction.

Here’s some books I’ve loved recently:

Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel

Anna’s mom recommended this to me a little over a year ago. She teaches English and raised one of my favorite people so I take her recommendations seriously. I don’t remember what she said she liked about it, I didn’t write down any details at the time, just the recommendation. When I flew home to LA in the weeks after the fires, I grabbed it off my shelf because it was short (as in, short stories but also only about 120 pages). I came to find out that all the stories revolve around a woman in LA dealing with the devastations of loss, both of people and of places. One story is even about a house burning down! How wonderful that this little book found me in the time I needed it most. Thank you Gail, thank you Anna, thank you Amy Hempel.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

I have accidentally read quite a few books about female serial killers. Perhaps not completely accidental, as one of my greatest literary fascinations is the expansive topic of women on the verge. We read this for February’s Unusual Appetites book club, and it fit very comfortably into the theme. Based on a true story, the book follows a journalist as she interviews a woman accused of killing past lovers. It blends food writing with mystery and a bit of madness. Absolutely delicious.

Penance by Eliza Clark

If you can’t tend to stomach true crime and all that bloody twisted stuff, not the book for you. But oh boy was it the book for me! I love an unreliable narrator, I love a story that starts with an ending and works backwards. While the whole thing is fictional, it is told through the work of a reporter doing a deep dive into the case. It scratched a particular itch for me because I stopped reading and listening to true crime a few years ago. It helped me sleep at night but I’ve missed some aspects of the terror. This was the perfect thing, because none of it is actually true, but it’s told as if it is. (I must add that I liked this more than her debut Boy Parts, and I really enjoyed that when I first read it)

Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos by Nash Jenkins

For fans of The Secret History by Donna Tartt or I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai. Some of my favorite kinds of books are ones that are shelved in fiction but could just as well be shelved in mystery. Another is a campus novel. This, along with the two titles I just mentioned, have both of these things. The book takes place in a fancy New England boarding school and reading it took me back to being a middle schooler desperate for the literary and film depiction of these institutions. Who remembers I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You? I was crazy about that book as a tween. Wild Child (2008) starring Emma Roberts? That one takes place in Old England but the sentiment still stands. Foster Dade is closer in tone to The Secret History than Wild Child but I have to admit, I see parallels.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Why did no one tell me about this book sooner? Who can I blame? This was so up my alley that I felt resentful for not having known it. The pacing in this is so precise, the characters are so perfectly imperfect, and throughout the novel I felt the 12-year-old version of myself fighting to defend the protagonist. Coming of age novels, especially ones set in a pre-internet age, tend to make up the bulk of my all-time-favorites list. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore, In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard… the list goes on and on. This one fits in quite nicely with the others.

And in terms of what I’m currently reading…

One or Two by H.D. Everett

I work in art book publishing, and while I am deeply passionate about the visual arts, it is no secret that I am a bookish girl. Being raised in bookstores and working in them from the ages of 14-24 left me with a habit I can’t shake. The company I work for, Artbook, recently started distributing books by the amazing Mandylion Press. They unearth books written by “women and weirdos” in the 1800s and they are all such gems. I am very excited to be working with them, not only because their books are beautiful objects but because the stories are so FUN. One or Two officially publishes tomorrow and is already on shelves in some of my favorite bookstores (McNally Jackson and Unnameable Books in NYC, Skylight in LA, Brookline Booksmith in Boston, among others!). We are reading it for April’s installment of Unusual Appetites Book Club and people are saying it’s going to be the event of the season?? Tickets are almost sold out?? You might as well meet us there…!

XO,

Q 💋

The Goodby People by Gavin Lambert ★★

I’m a sucker for a book about LA and I read this in a moment of homesickness. It reminded me of so many of my favorite things about LA. The expansiveness, the novelty, the drama. It came close to scratching the itch that so many LA books have, but it was missing something that I still haven’t been able to put my finger on. Read it and let me know if you figure out what it is. 

Happy Place by Emily Henry ★

I enjoyed it! But I just am not a romance novel girl. Romance novels make me sad for some reason? Let's not look into that.

Seven Empty Houses by Samantha Schweblin ★★★

I’ve been meaning to read this since it won the National Book Award in 2022, and it did not disappoint. I love an unsettling little book! None of the stories would be classified as horror but they could definitely keep you up at night.

The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir ★★

I read this quite soon after reading The Book of Goose and the plotlines are incredibly similar. Two girls in the French countryside, one wild and the other given more opportunities. They grow apart due to circumstance but will always care for one another. It’s a formula that I love, but no one will ever do it quite as well as Elena Ferrante.

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess ★★★

Perhaps my favorite book of the year so far. I didn’t expect to love this quite as much as I did, probably because I am usually drawn more to fiction than non-fiction. But this blew me away. I’ll admit it took me some time to really get into, and even once I was in it I found myself moving through it slowly. It demands close attention. The book is so well researched it is almost encyclopedic. She weaves topics together so seamlessly, like relating the physical feelings of falling in love to Cronenberg’s body horror. Magnificent! If you are to read anything from it, let it be Ladies in Waiting. Not to be dramatic, but it may change your life!

Tenderloin by Joy Sorman ★

Essentially just very in depth descriptions of butchery.

Down the Drain by Julia Fox ★★

I love a celebrity memoir, sue me!

The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune by Alexander Stille ★★

After I read this article in The New Yorker last summer, I was morbidly curious about the infamous cult. The book scratched the itch.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides ★★

Michaelides does a good job with mysteries because he himself seems a bit… off? Like I wouldn’t be surprised if he found himself in the middle of some mysterious tragedy himself.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (the entire series) ★★★

I can not believe it took me so long to read these books. Granted, I was six when the first one came out but my god… a perfect series all around. It has everything a good mystery should and then some. I wish I could wipe my memory of them and start over from the beginning.

Women: A Novella by Cloe Caldwell ★

Strange thing to read in your best friend’s grandparents’ screened in porch.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro ★★★

No one does it like her.

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher ★★

I used to devour insane women books but it’s lost a bit of the intrigue in recent years. This is probably the most on the nose of the genre I’ve read in a while and I was very pleased with it, felt more meaningful than the Moshfeghs and Rooneys.

All Fours by Miranda July ★★

I loved all the parts on motherhood but they terrified me, both for myself and my eventual future, and to think of my own mother feeling these ways. Yikes!

The Last Sane Woman by Hannah Regel ★★

This is another insane woman book, but in a very different format than the others. The story shifts back and forth between the protagonist, in the current day, and the letters she is obsessively reading between two women in the 80s. Kind of unlike anything I’ve ever read but with many familiar feelings. I can’t help it, I will always love a crazy woman.

Perhaps the thing I love the most about the east coast is the daffodils in the spring. Growing up in LA, spring wasn’t much of a season. The hills turn green in February from the winter rain and by May everything has begun to dry out. The east coast on the other hand has spring in abundance. I didn’t even know that tulips and daffodils COULD grow wildly until I moved east. The first daffodil of the season bring me more joy than I can comprehend and by the time the tulips arrive I am spinning with joy.

This New Yorker cartoon pretty much sums it up. But that’s enough of that, lets get into the books:

You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

This was the March selection for Unusual Appetites Book Club. I had wanted to read this book for a long time but never got around to it until now. I’m dipping my toes back into the genre of “women on the verge.” I kept flipping back in this book, thinking I’d missed the mention of something as the plot jutted randomly into new twists and corners. But no, that is just the style, and miraculously, Kleeman makes it work. The characters only go by their first initial, and the setting is some vague unnamed American town. The blurred details of the book descend gracefully into a type of science fiction that I never saw coming.

Piglet by Lottie Hazell

I wanted so badly to love this, and there were parts of it that I really did enjoy. In theory, it is so up my alley. Girl vs the void, obsessions with food, etc. But it didn’t totally hit for me. Maybe because I have read so many books about tortured women that I want things to go a bit crazier. The main character, Piglet, is in the final weeks leading up to her wedding when her fiancé admits to something that threatens their entire relationship. At the core of the chaos is Piglet’s obsession with food, which Hazell wrote so compellingly. Her descriptions of food really were fantastic and worth reading entirely for that. But ultimately, I wanted some wild crazy shit to happen and that’s not what happened.

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

Li’s writing is beautiful and tragic and oh-so heart wrenching. This book reminded me so much of the My Brilliant Friend series. Both are set in Europe in the 50s and follow the codependent relationship of two best friends that ultimately falls apart. This book felt a touch darker than the Neapolitan Novels. The two girls in this book felt more sinister, though. Books about female friendship, especially in adolescence, always get me. I’ll probably think about this book forever.

Woodworm by Layla Martinez

Perhaps my favorite thing I’ve read so far this year. Originally published in Spain in 2021, this English translation comes out in the US on May 14th. I managed to get my hands on an advanced readers copy and absolutely devoured it. The book is short, about 150 pages, and the story moves fast. It is essentially about a girl, her grandmother, and the supernaturally haunted house their family has lived in for generations. The story is so perfectly contained, there isn’t a single sentence that doesn’t feel immensely purposeful. It’s also incredibly funny! Haunted and humorous, what more could you ask for.

Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey

A rare graphic novel thrown in the mix! The April selection for Unusual Appetites, we wanted to change things up and this graphic novel was the perfect way. The story follows a girl named Joey on vacation for the summer at her boyfriend’s family’s beach house. She quickly notices that things aren’t quite right in this fancy seaside town. Themes are very similar to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” but with a touch more romance.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Had I read this book pre-2020, I might have lost my mind completely. The story of a pandemic that leaves society in total collapse, but somehow Mandel manages to not make it feel so completely bleak. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrifying. But maybe it didn’t feel so scary because what we lived through wasn’t nearly as bad as the apocalyptic world in Station Eleven. But also because the story was more about how people react to horrifying things more than it was about the horrifying things themselves. I felt so much love in every character in here. Mandell writes characters that feel very reminiscent of Jennifer Egan’s work (A Visit from the Goon Squad). While their subject matters are wildly different, their perspectives and empathy feel quite similar.

Anyway, that’s all for now, folks! Happy reading!

That is how a lot has gone this month. In one eye or ear, out the other.

I started three different audiobooks that I didn’t finish. I won’t tell you which in hopes that I circle back to them eventually. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Such is life.

I keep joking to my friends that I have rediscovered music. Not that music was ever lost to me, but when I was younger I used to always make playlists, send my friends songs I liked, go down Spotify rabbit holes. When I became an obsessive audiobook listener, that took up all of my time. Because this past month has been so overwhelming for so many reasons, it has been hard to hold my attention for any long periods of time.

I read less and listened more. So this month’s newsletter will be a bit all over the place. It will have some novels, some artbooks, some songs, more so a roundup of what I’ve been ingesting this month various mediums. It’s my newsletter, I can do whatever I want!

Starting with good old fashioned books:

After Delores by Sarah Schulman

For a very long time, all I read was books about miserable women. I’ve recently weened myself off of that particular niche, and found that I was a slightly happier person in doing so. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE books about horrible women. But the Ottessa Moshfegh-ification of everything started to weigh a bit too heavy on my literary pursuits, so I abandoned the genre in pursuit of nobler novels (all novels are noble in their own right, I know). This book brought me back to the genre and I loved it dearly. It is a book about New York, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s when I can put myself in a narrative in some shape or form. Give me a plot that takes place in a city I have once lived in (limited options) and I will eat that shit up. This particular novel takes place in the Lower East Side in the 80s and follows a protagonist who is slowly spinning out after an abrupt breakup. The characters are reluctantly loveable and you will not see the end coming. Or at least, I didn’t…

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

There were moments when I wanted to give up on this book because I truly could not wrap my head around the actions of the characters, but I stuck with it. I was dying to see how it ends and it didn’t disappoint. Patricia Highsmith is of course a master of her craft. She wouldn’t be so prolific and well known if she wasn’t doing something right. It’s interesting to read her first book knowing where she goes later in her career (the Ripley series, among others). I read Ripley’s Game for a class in college and I’ll be honest, I think I skimmed it. There are obvious things that I remember from it, mostly how homoerotic it was. This has the same undertones, which makes sense. Highsmith once said that Bruno, one of the main characters in this novel, was her original inspiration for Ripley. I’ve yet to watch to the movie adaptation of Strangers, but I’ve heard more of it actually takes place on a train.

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

Oh, Lorrie Moore. Easily my favorite writer of all time. How does she do it? Create such visceral moments, bring purpose to the meaningless, nurture wounds you didn’t even know you had. I would recommend any of her books to anyone. From this one, I will leave you with my favorite passage from my favorite story:

“I am thinking not only of my own body here, that unbeguilable, broken basket, that stiff meringue. I am not, Patrick, thinking only of myself, my lost troupe, my empty bed. I am thinking of the dancing body's magnificent and ostentatious scorn. This is how we offer ourselves, enter heaven, enter speaking: we say with motion, in space, This is what life's done so far down here; this is all and what and everything it's managed—this body, these bodies, that body—so what do you think, Heaven? What do you fucking think?”

“Dance in America” by Lorrie Moore

Some random art books:

Girl Pictures by Justine Kurland

In 2020, photographer Justine Kurland published a collection of her work titled Girl Pictures. The photos were taken between 1997 and 2002, portraying a group of teenage girls as rebellious runaways. Girls are the entire world in Kurland’s photos. They are cowboys and runaways, they are dancing along highways and burning bonfires in the woods. The world is theirs for the taking, and they’re going to grab it by the horns. Sometimes literally. Her photos capture that essence of being so girl, so young and full of angst and wonder. Her photos are such a precise depiction of this kind of angst that one image, The Orchard, was literally used as the cover image of a 2009 republishing of The Virgin Suicides. How much more classic “girl” does it get? (She also has a forthcoming book called The Train that accompanies an exhibition at Higher Pictures through March 23rd).

Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield

I bought this book when I was 17. At 17 years old, I was posting selfies on Instagram with tears painted on my face in glitter, I wrote insanely dramatic poetry on Tumblr, I thought that the misery I was commodifying was unique to me. Cut to me discovering this book and I was like, oh! Thank goodness! Greenfield manages to capture adolescent angst in a way that feels nurturing. She has talked at length about this commodification of femininity. In an interview about the collection in 2002, she said  “The body has become the primary expression of identity for girls and women, and the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity.” This exhibition is at the core of what so many of us are witnessing with the girl obsessed world we live in. Greenfield’s collection of images show all sides of girlhood— the good (prom night), the bad (high school cliques), and the ugly (eating disorders). Along with her interviews with the subjects, this book will make you laugh and cry and maybe reread your high school diaries.

Shaping Surf History: Tom Curren and Al Merrick, California 1980-1983 by Jimmy Metyko

I discovered this book back in September via a New York Times review. As previously mentioned, I am obsessed with anything that chronicles the places I have lived. Being born and raised in Malibu, this book immediately caught my attention. I ordered the book with the intention of giving it to my dad for Christmas. When the book finally arrived, I forgot all about giving it to my dad. It was too good, I had to keep it for myself. Cut to a couple weeks ago, he and I were catching up on Facetime. He was telling me about a book signing that he and my mom had just gone to for some cool new surfing photography book, and asked me if I’d ever heard of it.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I own it. I almost gave it to you!” It was a funny moment that made me like the book even more.

A random assortment of songs and albums I’ve been listening to on repeat this month:

Happy reading, happy looking, happy listening, happy life, etc etc etc…

Does listening to audiobooks count as reading? I think it does, but also think it depends on how locked in you are to the story.

I listen to audiobooks all day long— on the train, on walks, around the house, in the shower. If I’m not actively in conversation I am usually listening to an audiobook. Live laugh love listen etc.

My parents are the same way, constantly listening to audiobooks. Usually, I will listen to something and then recommend it to my dad, and then he will recommend it to my mom, so eventually we will all have read it. My sister tunes in for them every now and then, but maybe this newsletter will serve as inspiration for her to join more frequently.

So without further ado, here is everything that I read in January.

Hunger by Roxane Gay

We read this one for Unusual Appetites book club. It’s quite on the nose for the theme of the club. The books range from horror to fiction and this month, it landed in memoir. Everyone in the club liked it a lot, myself included. I haven’t read many books about eating disorders– for many years I avoided the topic entirely in favor of nurturing my own rather than learning about other people’s. The book is moving, depressing, graceful, and funny. I’d read essays of Gay’s in the past but never anything as longform as this. She has a really wonderful ability to write details concisely and evoke emotion without wringing it out of you.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

First words that come to mind after reading this: wacky, whimsical, weird. Absolutely loved it. In short, it is a surrealist novel about a home for senile old women. It is laugh out loud funny, beautifully written, and includes darling little drawings throughout. It felt like the perfect thing to read at this point in my life, transitioning from many years of working in bookstores to my new career working with art books. Because Carrington is best known for her paintings, I felt this book put me right at the intersection of these two worlds that I love so much. Beyond that, the book is just insane. You never can guess what is going to happen next, so don’t even try.

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

My first ever Octavia Butler book! I can’t believe that I didn’t know until recently that this book is about vampires. While I didn’t completely obsess over vampires during the Twilight era, I definitely have enjoyed my fair share of vampire media. This is the best yet! I’m going to save my thoughts for book club. (This is the February pick for Unusual Appetites book club. It’s not too late to RSVP for the February 5th meeting!!!)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

In terms of my relationship with John Steinbeck… I read The Grapes of Wrath as required reading in high school. I think I was fourteen and had no interest whatsoever, so I didn’t finish the book. Then in late 2020 I was driving up the 5 to Oakland during those crazy wildfires that turned the sky red for a couple of days and I thought, what better to listen to right now than The Grapes of Wrath? So I did and loved it and have always meant to read more Steinbeck but it’s usually not what I reach for. I’ve had a copy of Of Mice and Men sitting in my room for years so I finally picked it up. And obviously, it was sad! Two dogs die! And a couple people as well! The copy I have was bought used so it has someone’s scrawled annotations throughout. I could immediately tell that this person didn’t actually read the book and just annotated randomly, which made me smile, as that is exactly what I did when assigned The Grapes of Wrath.

Faithful Place by Tana French

Sometimes you just need a good old mystery. This is book three of French’s Dublin Murder Squad series and I had a great time. If you love mystery novels as I deeply do, the murder squad series will scratch the itch. Every book follows a supporting character from the previous story, so you slowly get a feel for the depths of the universe French has created. The audiobook for this was fantastic, with thick Irish accents reminiscent of a far more fucked up version of Derry Girls. There’s family drama, first love, murder, the whole nine yards.

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

On the topic of my loving silly mystery novels… I had a great time with this one. I found the characters likeable and the twists actually surprising. I’m not going to tell you to drop everything to read this book, I probably wouldn’t even recommend it to someone asking for a mystery recommendation. It just scratched the itch of wanting some mindless fun! And the story was a bit different than the classic Woman On The Train Across From The House In The Window or whatever that parody was. Easy enjoyable fun.

Hello Dear Readers!

It will likely come as no surprise that I have decided to start a newsletter. Topic of conversation will always be books— what I’ve read, what I’m reading, and healthy levels of influencing and deinfluencing.

This year I ended an eight year long run of working in bookstores (though I can still be found at McNally Jackson for Unusual Appetites Book Club). While exciting (I’m now at DAP), this departure has left me nervous that by nature of not being in the bookstore all the time, I won’t read as much. So, this newsletter will serve as a way to

A.) Hold me accountable.

B.) Maintain the sense of community that comes from books.

I love giving recommendations. It is, in my opinion, the best parts of working in bookstores. The communal aspect is what has led me to join and or start 3 book clubs. I love talking about books! There are so many worlds within them! They can take us away from the real world AND change our perspectives on reality! Isn’t it marvelous!

So without further ado…

Here’s my 2023 wrapped in reading, starting with the highlights:

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I'm very rarely at a loss for words, but this book left me speechless. It’s about a group of women who have been locked in an underground bunker for years. Our protagonist is the youngest of the group and has never known a world outside of the cage. The other women have snippets of memories, but even those are fleeting. It’s an incredible story, unlike anything I’ve ever read, and surprisingly far less depressing than it sounds. Trust me on this one, it is freaky and phenomenal.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

I hadn’t read a fantasy novel in years before I picked this one up (at the urging of my good friend Melanie). I was so happily surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s about a troubled teen who gets in to Yale for her… special abilities shall we say (okay I’ll tell you, she can see dead people). There are secret societies, dark academia, the occult, all that jazz. So enjoyable, and there’s a sequel!

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

I read this for one of my book clubs and it was the perfect thing to read with a group of friends. It was written in 1957 but it feels so modern, like Mad Men meets Sex and the City. It’s about so many things– the uncertainty of your 20s, the tribulations of romance, the endless joys of friendship. Have you heard that Tik Tok sound that was viral a couple months ago that goes “I think when you’re a young woman in your 20s I don’t think there’s any getting out of… you know… it’s the trenches.” This is that, for the ages.

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

I read a lot of generic mystery novels. Tana French, Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware, I’ve read them all. This is like a smarter version of all of those. A true crime podcaster goes back to her old boarding school to teach a group of students a class on podcasting. What arises are things she would’ve preferred to keep buried.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Another book club pick, but from a different book club than previously mentioned. It was unanimously adored. I don’t really want to tell you anything about the plot, I think it’s best to go in blind. So perfectly contained in its little world.

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

You’ll have to read it to believe it and even then, it’s hard to wrap your head around. The true story of a man who stole famous artworks without being caught for years. He’s a thief unlike any I’ve ever heard of before. He wasn’t in it for the money— He was driven purely by an obsession with art so massive, so unique, and honestly, so impressive you may start itching for a Rembrandt of your own.

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore

Every now and then, I read a book in one sitting. This was one of those. I love Lorrie Moore so damn much and this was a great reminder of why. She just captures life in such a precise way that I didn’t think was possible. But she does it! Over and over again. Her stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, all those good things. (Honorable mention for Who Will Run the Frog Hospital which I read last year but remains my favorite of her work).

And here is everything, in the order that I read them:

1. Ghost Music by An Yu ★★

2. Heartburn by Nora Ephron ★★★

3. The Guest by Emma Cline ★★

4. Spare by Prince Harry ★★

5. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo ★★★

6. Some of Them Will Carry Me by Giada Scodellaro ★★

7. Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo ★★★

8. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin ★★

9. The Vegetarian by Han Kang ★★★

10. I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai ★★★

11. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley ★★

12. Bunny by Mona Awad ★★

13. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami ★★

14. Act One by Moss Hart ★★★

15. The Likeness by Tana French ★★

16. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★★★

17. The Daydreams by Laura Hankin ★★

18. Earth Angel by Madeline Cash ★★★

19. The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe ★★★

20. Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel ★

21. Every Summer After by Carly Fortune ★★

22. The Sellout by Paul Beatty ★★★

23. The Only One Left by Riley Sagar ★

24. The Wager by David Grann ★★★

25. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas ★★★

26. Pretty Baby by Chris Belcher ★★

27. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel ★★★

28. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas ★★★

29. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield ★

30. How Can I Help You by Laura Sims ★

31. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas ★★

32. I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea ★★★

33. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett ★★★

34. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman ★★★

35. Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval ★

36. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas ★★

37. Anagrams by Lorrie Moore ★★★

38. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan  ★★★

39. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ★★★

40. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood ★★★

41. Self-Help by Lorrie Moore ★★★

42. The Seagull by Anton Chekov ★★

43. Winter Solstice by Nina MacLaughlin ★★★

44. The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore ★★

45. Like Life by Lorrie Moore ★★★

I will leave you all with a reminder to not buy your books from Amazon this holiday season or any other season, best explained in this twitter thread. All books in this newsletter are linked to Bookshop.org, a site that allows you to select a local bookstore of your choice to receive the profit of your purchase! (With the exception of I Who Have Never Known Men which is a bit harder to find new, so it is linked to Powells which has plenty of used copies!)

And lastly, this whole thing is largely inspired by my dear friend Ali’s newsletter which I recommend checking out. She reads great things.

Happy reading!

-Quinn