Our bodies can contain reminders of the past, sometimes big and pervasive, sometimes small and persistent. Let me tell you about a small and persistent reminder that my body carries from my concussion, sustained 3+ years ago. A few months after my concussion, I was able to start running again. I usually run with earbuds, but at that time I...
No one knows what to think about Haruki Murakami. That is, everyone knows what to think, but no one can agree. The Japanese fiction author is both beloved and pooh-poohed around the world, by throngs of admiring fans and those who hold their noses in the air. Love him or hate him, he has a new book out called First...
This one is very important and very beautiful. Here is an interesting paragraph, plopped seemingly on a random page, in the book Dusk, Night, Dawn by Anne Lamott: “My friends are the low note that hold me. Love is the whisper of wire drum-brushes. And while everyone has to make a living and show up for family, listening is optional:...
Here’s a line from the fabulous novel Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson, that I could relate to on a deep level: “When I was a kid, I’d been so angry that I was a girl and couldn’t dunk, . . .” The protagonist loves basketball. Basketball hoops are set at certain heights. As a girl of a certain...
Our culture is so weird. I was listening to the radio, and the DJ, in a peppy voice, said something like, “This is such-and-such station, and here’s some music for your workday!” Immediately thereafter, they played a song about a woman who gets so pissed at her philandering boyfriend that she goes psychopath on his swanky, upscale vehicle—totally destroys the...
Oh boy, oh boy, get yourself ready. It’s that time of year, folks. Christmas lights hanging like icicles! Children making snowgentlemen and snowladies! And the shimmering, frosty release of the bitter, angry, pissy, woebegotten, godforsaken annual Christmas rant!!!! I bet you didn’t even know there was ANY such THING as an annual Christmas rant. Well, that’s because I just now...
A friend of mine requested a blog post about hope. Yes, let’s have hope. Let’s have a fight song. Or actually, let’s have a love and peace song. Let’s watch and listen to and remember this: We Shall Overcome. Will you sing along with me?
In a previous blog post about Heather Rose’s astonishing novel The Museum of Modern Love, I wrote about how what seems commonplace can actually hold the deepest truth and wisdom. And then, in another post, I wrote about how pain inspires art, while engaging in art exposes one to pain. These two concepts are intertwined with a third concept vital...
In full disclosure: Paris and I didn’t groove together as well as London and I did. My trip to London was a dream, from start to finish. Paris, however, was a struggle. This was partly due to the fact that I had already been traveling for nine days by the time I got to Paris, and I was getting tired....
What should one eat while traveling in London? I’m glad you asked! I have been overwhelmed, actually, by requests from family, friends, blog readers, acquaintances, and strangers who heard that I am traveling in London. “Okay, so you are in Europe,” they say to me. “Okay, so there’s art and culture and fascinating people and bloody weird language permutations and...
Hello, fellow residents of our beautiful planet! I am writing this blog post from a cute Danish cafe in London. Here is a photo I took from my seat in the cafe. If you know me at least a bit, and if you look closely at the photo, you may be able to guess my favorite part of it. However,...
During the past few weeks, I attempted, with minimal success, to read two books in French. One was Olivier Bourdeaut’s playful novel Waiting for Bojangles, a recent international bestseller. The other was Samuel Beckett’s haunting play Endgame, which premiered in 1957 and is a literary classic. And so I was surprised, and a little weirded out, to learn that my...
The memoir A Mind Unraveled, by Kurt Eichenwald, is astonishing in so many ways. Anyone can run up against health problems and other major life difficulties, but Eichenwald’s story is uniquely interesting and instructive because of his attitude toward his struggles, as well as his phenomenal ability to analyze situations and make wise and brave decisions in even the worst...
I In a play I saw recently, the heroine first appears onstage wearing a red dress . . . with her head bowed and turned away, due to social anxiety. The contrast is striking. There’s something about a red dress that shouts, “Look at me!” To see one on a young woman who so plainly wants to be invisible is...
In 1987, Michael Jackson’s album Bad was released. Shortly thereafter, I acquired the vinyl record and listened to it over and over, with rapture, watching the record spin on the player in my bedroom and gaping at the sounds coming out of it. Even as a girl who hadn’t yet graduated from elementary school, I had strong opinions about that...
I am interested to know about your dreams. Tell me about your dreams. Did you dream last night? Can you recall a long, harrowing sequence of events? Or just a feeling you retained upon waking? Did you dream of specific people? People you see in your current life? People you knew in childhood? Have you had any particularly powerful dreams...
Around noon on Tuesday, having nothing better to do, the inquisitive one drove to the little skating rink in the town square and parked in the garage. After gathering up the hockey skates in the back seat, the inquisitive one walked to the rink. But the skating rink, the inquisitive one saw, was packed with people! Some were racing one...
Would you rather travel this road by motorcycle or foot? Either way, you might enjoy a book called Born to Run. . . . That is, you might enjoy one of two books, both called Born to Run. It’s amazing that, when Bruce Springsteen wanted to, for some reason, only seven years after the book Born to Run by Christopher...
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Books previewed
Unwinding Anxiety Judson Brewer
The Confidence Men Margalit Fox
Liberation Day George Saunders
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
The Journalist and the Murderer Janet Malcolm
Mislaid Nell Zink
Exercised Daniel E. Lieberman
Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh
Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe
Furious Hours Casey Cep
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
The Confidence Men Margalit Fox
Liberation Day George Saunders
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
The Journalist and the Murderer Janet Malcolm
Mislaid Nell Zink
Exercised Daniel E. Lieberman
Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh
Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe
Furious Hours Casey Cep
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
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