do I say something about how time is passing so quickly it’s making me nervous every month? is that boring? i love summer because summer makes me feel like i love everything. like, everything: charli xcx, sweating in parks, mills’ haircut, lightning bugs, aperol spritzes, long train rides, checking out more books from the library than should be legal, sitting in cafes alone, talking about everything in terms of how similar it is or isn’t to summer camp, forest hills, sleepovers, making people tell me every detail of their engagements and weddings, birthday parties, maiden lane, leos, la cabra, new loafers, parades, post cards, my friends’ instagram stories, eavesdropping. i even like packing in the summer! compared to winter it’s a delight! i am such a reckless little optimist lately. although i have been noticing anew, intensely, that nothing is new, everything is borrowed. life is too short to read books that aren’t good is an adage that feels related and is also a right i exercised liberally this month. i feel like i barely finished reading anything besides every edition of
and a zillion sweet little recs on this month but that can’t be true because the books i did manage to read are as follows...I didn’t read Rachel Cusk for the first time until 2020 or so, when I was working in a bookstore and ever since then I’ve feared and adored her in equal measure. Adored because she writes these incredible novels that keep reinventing fiction while also showing me what it’s like to be a woman who doesn’t feel like she needs to pander to men who won’t shut up on airplanes, and feared because I don’t always feel smart enough to understand precisely what she’s doing. But still, she is so good. Every time she publishes something new I’m like ohhh so this is what it is to be a writer. This novel in particular follows many artists named G and it’s a vertiginous experience, trying to keep track of who is who. It did at first feel a little gimmicky to ignore structures I take for granted in novels, like names of characters, but I think she’s pushing her readers just as much as she’s pushing herself. Not an easy read but visionary, as usual.
I read this writer’s Grub Street Diet and thought it was so good that I immediately trotted over to the library after work and checked out one of her books. I’m not usually a mystery person but this was so great—compelling characters, weird mystery, rich english people behaving badly, surprising ending, stunning island where horrible things happen—checked lots of boxes for me!
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, Hilma Wolitzer
This is a book of short stories that begins with a woman attempting to sooth a mother who’s having a…moment…in a grocery store and follows a cast of characters through adventures in model homes, ex-wives, affairs. Much of it is set in the 60s and keeps its eye on the same cast of characters, though the last story is set during the pandemic and was gutting. These stories are frank but warm, somehow, earnest but sharply funny. Enjoyable summer read.
Ana Turns is a novel written in the style (ish) of Mrs. Dalloway, in that it rotates its perspective, following several characters over the course of one day who are getting ready for Ana’s birthday party. If you like Emma Straub or Jenny Jackson, you will love this for its flawed but lovable characters and dramatic, heart wrenching relationships. Good beach read.
The Alternatives, Caoilinn Hughes
I ordered this from The Village Bookseller in order to fill the Bad Sisters sized hole left in my heart, and while there was unfortunately no horrible brother in law murder to contend with, it did not disappoint. Four sisters, who couldn’t be more different, lost their parents in a mysterious accident when they were young and this story follows them over a decade later as they return home to Ireland to search for the oldest of the sisters who’s gone off the grid. The dialogue between the sisters is incredible and it’s another portrait of a family that’s funny and warm and so incredibly real. I’m sure this will be a limited series on Apple TV in approximately thirty seconds so read it soon!
Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, Danielle Dutton
Unfortunately my taste failed me here—I just don’t think I’m intellectual enough to appreciate this book, which is sort of a menagerie of prose: short stories give way to a scrapbook of quotes about clothing, before turning into a play1. The writing is very good, I just didn’t quite understand how the pieces of this book fit together. Chic cover though and genius title!
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
This book centers around George, a man whose just lost his husband and is struggling to cope. I read the first forty pages and appreciated the description of the setting—kind of made me want to move to California, it was so good—but it was just so insistently grim and melancholy, almost obscenely so, that it felt suffocating and I was already feeling the June gloom. Maybe I’ll pick it up later but I just couldn’t shoulder through.
reading now
I am loving this book SO so so so much. I’m rationing it out like expensive moisturizer and only letting myself have a little bit everyday but keep sneaking the book out of the drawer for more! It follows a young woman working in publishing who is engaged to a man who comes from wealth. They’ve just purchased a house in Oxford together when cracks in their relationship start to show. This coupled with her complicated relationship with food is wreaking havoc on the days leading up to their wedding. I know it’s almost a trope at this point, troubled young woman who loves books has a hard time, but something feels so fresh about this take—I almost never say this before I’ve finished a book, but I’m halfway through and really just couldn’t recommend more if you’re a Sally Rooney fan, or loved Sweetbitter. I was in kind of a slump this month and this is shaking me by the shoulders and reminding me why I love books.
Started this the same time I started Parade and it’s a perfect companion for the novel! Olivia Laing is one of my most favorite writers (Crudo is in my all time top five favorites) and this book is a collection of her essays on art and artists. It’s smart and big hearted, she is able to write with so much understanding and intelligence in a way I admire so much. I highly recommend reading this alongside Parade if you haven’t already and are planning to read that—it was a total coincidence but I think the two will forever be linked in my mind.
The Little Drummer Girl, John le Carre
I don’t think I’m going to finish this spy novel…le Carre famously writes big sweeping novels about international spies, mostly. I’ve never read anything by him but Flynn Berry wrote so convincingly about this book, also in her Grub Street Diet, that I checked it out but I just cannot get into it and there are so many books loaded onto my kindle that I’m excited to read. Am I making a mistake?
underlined
“Anyway, you can’t live without loneliness. It’s the ultimate lover.” from The Alternatives
help help what should i read next? has anyone finished blue sisters yet? i’m going on vacation later this week and am planning on spending the majority of the trip lying by various bodies of water with a book.
as always, you can find any and/or all of these books here! see you next week for friends of, featuring a very cool guest who is much smarter and well read than me, thank god!!! i feel like i have about one brain cell left this month!
Something is going on with plays…both The Alternatives and Prairie, Dresses, turned into plays for part of the book. I keep talking to people who are interested in writing plays. Are plays back? Did they ever leave? I’m talking like serious, heavy plays too, not Broadway.
Love loved Piglet so much!