read with me: what month is it?
read with me!
Hi friends,
I’ve spent the last few weeks like so many people I know bouncing from grief to anger, to complacency, to fear, to more grief. I always find comfort in reading. The peace that washes over me when I wake up on a Sunday morning and pad over to my couch knowing I get to curl up and read all day is one of the greatest treasures in my life, which is why I was so distressed when all of this started and I picked up a book and… couldn’t read. My eyes would jump across the page and I would give up and turn on Great British Baking Show instead. I saw a tweet about feeling like reading during quarantine was like learning how to read all over again. Yep.
I’ve turned to comfort reads (hello 50s noir mysteries) and chick lit (thank you liane moriarity) and i don’t care to read anything more “serious.” I need anything that will shut off the constant hum of my overactive brain.
Sending you all love! Let me know what you’re reading!
books that have held my attention
In a Lonely Place, Dorothy Hughes
This novel is atmospheric and the perfect escape. Read if you want to be transported to 1940s Los Angeles, feel and smell the breeze off of the pacific ocean while driving down the 1 and the grease of burgers and french fries at drive-in diners. Dorothy Hughes is the best mystery writer you’ve probably never heard of and In A Lonely Place provided a needed escape.
Ripley’s Game, Patricia Highsmith
I can’t get enough noir! I’ve raved about Patricia Highsmith before and I’m ripping through her Tom Ripley novels. This is the third book in the series and just as good as the first two. These books are gripping, disturbing, yet oddly tranquil and calming at the same time. Start with The Fantastic Mr. Ripley.
The Husband’s Secret, Liane Moriarty
This book has it all: drama, murder, gossipy Australian moms, a pirate-themed children’s birthday party, a hot P.E. teacher, and twisted romance. Moriarty is the author of the famed book and now HBO series Big Little Lies and this book delivers the same page-turning obsessive reading feeling that I experienced while watching BLL. Read if you don’t want to think about anything and if you crave that up-all-night reading because I need to find out what’s next feeling.
Know My Name, Chanel Miller
This book had been on my reading list for months and I finally read it because my now virtual book club selected it as our April book and I can’t believe I waited so long. Chanel Miller became widely known as “Jane Doe” after she was sexually assaulted on Stanford’s campus in 2015 and Know My Name documents her grueling journey to bring Brock Turner, her rapist, to trial. I can’t do the beauty of this book justice. Chanel’s (her warm writing style makes you feel like you’re on a first-person basis) writing is searing, conversational, and razor-sharp. She’s also an illustrator and I recommend checking out her laugh out loud funny and incredibly poignant Instagram page.
other reading i’ve enjoyed
“In August 2016, Mr. Wisnia took two of his grandchildren with him to the reunion with Ms. Tichauer. He was silent during most of the car ride from Levittown to Manhattan. He didn’t know what to expect. It had been 72 years since he’d last seen his former girlfriend.”
“And the memoir is a different kind of contrivance. You are the building, and you use yourself as the building, and then other people can come and be in you for a bit.”
“How had she and Paul and Kathy managed to do this day after day? Conversation was pretty much out of the question, so they mainly offered observations in louder than normal voices: ‘She was nice,’ or ‘It looks like it might start raining again.’”
“When people are looking for the relative innocence line,” Gilmore told me, “in order to show how sad it is that the relatively innocent are being subjected to the forces of state-organized violence as though they were criminals, they are missing something that they could see. It isn’t that hard. They could be asking whether people who have been criminalized should be subjected to the forces of organized violence. They could ask if we need organized violence.”
my month was better because
Skiing for the first time in my life and only experiencing minor panic at my first run on a blue slope!
Compiling some things that are keeping me grounded during these scary times.
Traveling together,
The world keeps ending, and the world goes on,
Why hold onto all that? And I said, where can I put it down?
Floodlines,You are not okay and you are not alone.
In the morning before anything bad happens
,Meditation for a steady heart
Dark,
Corona correspondences: My favs are Dani Shapiro’s & Catherine Lacey’s
Instant Pot tomato soup,
The case of the missing hit,
Chill at home playlist,
Theragun !!!
Lavender oil cold washcloths that I’ve been refrigerating for after i work out,
Lucinda williams,Hasta la vizsla petulant naturel,
cerf club wine,
A Story For Your Daughters, a Story for Your Sons
,Love letter,
Salted Butter Apple Galette