My Reading List

This is a regularly updated list of the books I’ve read and enjoyed. 

You may wonder about the little write-ups below: Why are all of these “reviews” positive? Surely not every book every book you’ve read deserves all these flowery adjectives! I know first-hand how hard it is to write a book — it is a ridiculous endeavor, and one that takes an inordinate amount of time for, usually, very little money. I honestly believe that the best thing to do with a book I don’t like is to stop reading it and never think or talk about it again, except perhaps with all the friends I talk to about things I think are terrible — this is a tactic I have adopted here. If it’s below, I loved something about it, and I hope you might, too. 

The List

The Familiar

By: Leigh Bardugo

This was the first book by Leigh Bardugo I’ve read, which is embarrassing, and I’m so grateful to the friend who put it on our agenda for our book club. I feel like there is a ritual common to all American children attending a certain kind of extremely basic public school, and that is the moment when you choose between taking Spanish or French. I chose the latter, and so while I have lived in France on and off for more than ten years, I’ve spent less than a week of my life in Spain. I mention this because part of what I loved about this book was how deeply it installed us in the world of 16th-century Madrid — what it smelled like, what it looked like, how it felt. 

Conversations With Friends

By: Sally Rooney

I was prepared not to love Conversations With Friends — all I knew was that is was “sort of about poly” and came after Normal People, which not only did I love but taught me new ways of thinking about how a character in fiction can think and feel and express her thoughts on the page — and not only that, but how to be weak and wrong and “unlikable” while being compelling all the same. What a trick that is — to create a character who is so deeply flawed (like all of us) and at the same time deserving of her observers’ interest and compassion (like we all are). 

All Fours

By: Miranda July

There’s a reason why every woman I know over the age of 35 is reading this book: It’s impossible not to use it as a sort of pleasure-centric measuring stick — as a way to evaluate if you, too, want to blow up your life because it has became so staid, so expected, so insupportable. Can a life that was once radical coast on that radicality forever? Can a life that is radical in its work, and creative focus, sustain a private life that is conventional, and even conservative? Can the comforts of convention outweigh the pleasures of what is novel, and unexpected, and new? 
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