read with me: january 2022
read with me!
I’ve been negligent about sending this, but Devin (that ball and chain) has been reminding me that I love writing this.
I’ve read so many good things and cooked some delicious food to escape omicron terror/ overall global collapse…
books
fingersmith by sarah waters
I’ve texted a bunch of people about this book and I know I’m late to the game – it was written in 2002. But wow it is so good. If you like victorian era stuff, lots of plot twists and turns, murder, plus a dash of romance, this book is for you. I don’t want to give away too much other than I thought the writing was fantastic and it kept me up late into the night in a moment when i was craving actual plot in a book.
my body by emily ratajkowski
I knew nothing about emily ratajkowski (forgive me - I got on Instagram two years ago) before I picked up this book and I only read it because it seemed like everyone was talking about it. My expectations were extremely nonexistent/low, but I was pretty impressed with her writing and her deep dive into how her modeling career began and what it’s like for people to exclusively care about your body and not give a shit about your thoughts. I’m still thinking about it and wish she tackled how she contributes to really messed up body image standards (my read on it was she basically shrugged it off because doing her job makes her rich), but overall, I really enjoyed most of the essays and her perspective.
braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer
One of those books where I could have underlined every single sentence but didn’t because the physical book is so beautiful. The TLDR is robin wall kimmerer is a botanist and indigenous ecologist who weaves together essays about science, botany and plant ecology with personal anecdotes from her jealousy-inducing life. It is a true love letter to the earth and made me yearn for a deeper connection to the land i live on, even (maybe especially) as a city dweller. The reverence she feels toward plants is pretty remarkable, and the work is a true call to action people to live their lives in a reciprocal relationship with our planet.
collected stories of alice adams
I only discovered Alice Adams after reading about a recently published biography, and when i learned that all of her short stories take place in san francisco and the bay, i figured i should give her work a shot. Her stories were published mostly during the 70s and 80s, and reading about my own stomping grounds – rickety cabins in tahoe, ski trips gone awry, the smell of the salty air in bolinas– brought me joy. Her writing is evocative and place-based, but it’s also cutting and hilarious and reminds of both Lucia Berlin and Lorrie Moore – two legendary short story writers who also brilliantly capture the absurdity of human existence.
thinking in systems by donella meadows
The work I do around climate change in my day job can be so depressing and sisyphean and i needed to read something that ties together what feel like millions of disconnected and disparate threads. If you, like me, feel like you are banging your head against a wall around climate change, voting rights, and our federal government's inability to do anything on climate right now, I suggest picking up this book to learn more about system thinking and how we can try to solve massive scale problems like climate change.
other reading i've enjoyed
Hanya Yanagihara’s audience of one
What it’s like to fight a megafire
What it takes to climb the world’s most forbidding cliffs
things that made my months better
Yummy food bringing me comfort: sweet potato miso soup, kosmic kitchen recipes, miso risotto with persimmons (miso has made a big appearance in my life recently), sally yeh brussel sprout rosti, saffron honey from peace and plenty farm, irish soda bread, jopchae, california citrus, GHEE, latkes with persimmon sauce, miso marinated eggs, dark horse tamari, gamay noir wine from pax, ashanta wine, buying huge bags of bulk chamomile to drink before bed, homemade tomato sauce, fried plantains, and warming rice congee. visiting harbin hot springs which felt like the 1960s hippy oasis of my dreams, blockshop's amazing friday newsletter, some quality movie watching: dirty dancing, finally watching casablanca and bladerunner!, sound of metal, and power of the dog. my wonderful friend caroline’s insanely comfy PJs, cute socks, organizing my books by category and author for some extremely satisfying organizational ASMR, not tearing my ACL while learning how to ski, playing trampoline dodgeball, biking up big hills, mary oliver’s poetry (always), yelena yemchuk’s paintings, forests are wired for wisdom
For my bay area friends: yimm for yummy thai, penny roma for italian food, homie night at snail bar for an amazing meal + natural wine pairing, coco’s ramen, junior for cocktails, maitre de chai winery in berkeley
Tell me what you are reading or watching or eating or cooking or drinking or enjoying. And if you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please forward this email or share this link where they can subscribe.
Love from my little nook of the world to yours.