May reading roundup #2

We are (somehow) halfway through May, and everything is blooming. Between tulips, morning runs and other adventures, here’s what I have been reading:

Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights-Out, Shannon Reed
I enjoyed this smart, snappy collection of essays about the reading life. (I kept texting photos of the funniest passages to friends.) Reed recalls her bookish childhood, her years as a grad student, and her career as a professor (the vampire class is particularly amusing). Great fun for book lovers.

Owls and Other Fantasies, Mary Oliver
I picked up this collection at Seven and One last December and have been reading it slowly. Oliver turns her keen, loving eye onto the birds she sees. Lyrical and lovely, as always.

Murder Makes Scents, Christin Becher
Candle maker Stella and her mother, Millie, are heading back to Nantucket from a perfume conference in Paris and get caught up in an international intrigue. This cozy mystery was truly wacky – involving top-secret coded formulas, jumping out of a plane, and a concussion. Outlandish, but fun. Snagged for half-price at Jabberwocky Books.

We Still Belong, Christine Day
Seventh-grader Wesley Wilder has high hopes for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, when her poem about her Native heritage will be published in the school newspaper. The day doesn’t go as planned, but there are still sweet, funny, important moments. I loved Wesley’s wise, intergenerational family and the sensitive way Day handles middle-school friendship dynamics.

The Farmer’s Wife: My Life in Days, Helen Rebanks
I snagged this lovely British memoir at the library and inhaled it in two days. Rebanks is married to James (of Shepherd’s Life fame) and details their love story and her journey to embracing being a farm wife and mother of four in England’s Lake District. The narrative jumped around in a way I sometimes found confusing, but I loved the anecdotes of family life and the musings on staying true (or returning) to who we are. Lots of recipes included too.

Jane of Lantern Hill, L.M. Montgomery
I say it every year: I love living alongside Jane as she gets to know both Prince Edward Island and her long-estranged father. The descriptions are gorgeous, and Jane is so practical and kind. Always a delight to revisit the Island.

Up On the Woof Top, Spencer Quinn
Longtime readers know I love Chet and Bernie, and I enjoyed this Christmas-themed entry in which they’re looking for a lost reindeer, but find a murder cold case. Chet the dog is a hilarious narrator, and sometimes sharper than he knows. So much fun.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

Give it an hour. (Make sure you eat.)

Lately, I find myself struggling to make decisions.

Not the big, existential, life-altering ones (those are a separate blog post, or perhaps a whole series). But the ones that feel both significant and small: What do I make for dinner this week? Should I go to that concert, sign up for that writing class, go along on that friend-outing even though it’s a long train ride? How do I strike the right balance between socializing and downtime, both of them necessary? Some parts of my day are taken up with work and chores, but how do I structure the parts where I have some leeway?

Like most people, I have some decisions on autopilot: I eat the same thing for breakfast most days. I always make the bed; I usually go for a morning run. I (almost) always stop to admire and take pictures of the flowers. I have a three-minute makeup routine that works for me, and I’ve worn the same perfume since college.

But. The small-to-medium decisions, daily though they are, can feel astonishingly difficult. I can wear myself out with all the hemming and hawing, the pro-and-conning, the back-and-forthing. Part of this is (still) post-pandemic fatigue, a holdover from those days when it felt like we had no control over our lives, like no decision we made could possibly affect the state of the world. Part of it is the very real limitations of money and time: I can’t afford (in either case) to do everything I want to do, so decisions have to get made.

And yet: part of this dilemma cuts deeper, more at the soul level: what are my choices adding up to, over time? What kind of life am I creating for myself? Sometimes the blank(ish) canvas of my life causes an almost-panic instead of a feeling of freedom. I’m single with no kids, responsible only for myself, so I can choose…nearly anything. The range of possibilities can feel both lonely and daunting.

I don’t have an answer for the existential part, sadly. Nor do I have a foolproof formula for choosing wisely. The variables are different every time, though I often lean toward choosing to move my body and/or engage in community, given the chance.

But two or three times lately, I’ve given myself the advice above: take an hour or two to think about it, and make sure I eat something. Often (not always), the right (or the right-est) answer is clearer if I give it some time, and have a snack.

Revolutionary? Probably not. Helpful? Definitely. But I thought I’d share, in case you also need help making decisions sometimes. (And in case you need the reminder that snacks are usually a good idea.)

May reading roundup #1

May has been a rush, so far, of blossom and rain, music and meetings. Meanwhile, here’s what I have been reading:

Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, Chanel Miller
I loved this middle-grade novel about two Asian-American girls who travel all over Manhattan trying to return lost socks to their owners. Sweet and funny; Magnolia and her friend Iris learn some important lessons about friendship.

This Here Flesh: Liberation, Spirituality, and the Stories That Make Us, Cole Arthur Riley
I’ve been savoring this memoir-in-essays from Riley, who writes Black Liturgies on Instagram. She blends her family’s stories with insights about topics such as grief, joy, repair and liberation. Hard to categorize, but insightful and powerful.

Happy Place, Emily Henry
Months after breaking up, Harriet and Wyn go on their annual vacation with college friends and try to pretend they’re still together – but they’re not faking their mutual desire. During the week, they face hard truths about their relationship and also work some things out with their friends. Smart, funny and so real, though I got frustrated with all the characters by turns. (Perhaps that’s realistic too?)

Wild and Distant Seas, Tara Karr Roberts
This luminous novel takes Moby-Dick as a starting point, but it’s narrated by the women: starting with widowed innkeeper Evangeline Hussey and continuing through four generations. Each woman – Evangeline, her daughter Rachel, granddaughter Mara, and great-granddaughter Antonia – has a gift, and all use their gifts in ways that wind around each other and the story of Ishmael. Beautiful and haunting.

The Dragon From Chicago, Pamela D. Toler
Toler (a former colleague of mine from Shelf Awareness) brilliantly unfolds the story of Sigrid Schultz, who ran the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau for years and repeatedly warned American readers about the rise of Nazism. Compelling, meticulously researched and so fascinating – now I want a movie about Sigrid’s life! To review for Shelf Awareness (out Aug. 6).

A Pair of Wings, Carole Hopson
Bessie Coleman went from picking cotton in the Texas fields to being the first Black female pilot to earn a license (and an international one!). Hopson narrates Coleman’s story: her migration to Chicago, her pilot training in France, her struggle to build a career and be taken seriously. Vivid and compelling. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Aug. 20).

Isabel in Bloom, Mae Respicio
I snagged a copy of this gorgeous middle-grade novel at the Book Shop of Beverly Farms. Isabel has been living with her grandparents in the Philippines while her mother works in the States to give them all a better life. When Isabel moves to join her mother in San Francisco, she struggles to adjust – until a neglected garden gives her an idea. I loved this sweet narrative in verse; a lovely story of change, growth, plants and community.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

April reading roundup #3

And just like that, it’s May. As the neighborhood continues to burst into bloom, here’s what I have been reading:

Jackie, Dawn Tripp
This spare, luminous novel takes us inside the mind of Jacqueline Kennedy – tracing her life from the time she met Jack, through their courtship and marriage, his political career, his assassination and its aftermath. Tripp is a masterful storyteller, and the narrative voice sings. Absolutely stunning. (I also loved Georgia, Tripp’s novel of Georgia O’Keeffe.) To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 18).

Blessed are the Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole, Micha Boyett
Full disclosure: Micha is a friend. But even if she wasn’t, I’d have loved this gorgeous, wise, powerful book about how the Beatitudes have informed her experience of raising a child with Down syndrome (and vice versa). A truly lovely, remarkable look at the upside-down way Jesus conceives of blessing, and an honest account of parenting through difficulties. (30% off at the publisher’s website above – not an affiliate link.)

Olivetti, Allie Millington
Olivetti – a green typewriter with lots of opinions – loves living with the Brindle family, especially Beatrice, mother of four, who used to pour her memories into him. But one day, Beatrice takes Olivetti to a pawn shop and then disappears. Breaking the cardinal rule of typewriters – typing back to humans – Olivetti helps 12-year-old Ernest embark on a search for Beatrice. I loved this quirky, sweet middle-grade novel (and so did Tom Hanks!).

Table for Two, Amor Towles
I enjoy Towles’ elegantly written novels, though Rules of Civility is my favorite. This new collection includes six short stories and a novella starring Evelyn Ross from RoC. I’m not a huge short story reader, but I liked these (especially “The Bootlegger”) and the novella was great – film noir meets clever leading lady. A lot of fun for Towles fans.

The Last Note of Warning, Katharine Schellman
Schellman’s third Vivian Kelly mystery finds Viv accused of murdering a wealthy man, and scrambling to clear her name before she lands in jail. The jazzy 1920s setting is fun, but I also liked seeing the complicated layers of Vivian’s relationships with her sister and other returning characters. Well plotted and satisfying. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 4).

The New Tourist: Waking Up to the Power and Perils of Travel, Paige McClanahan
As an avid traveler, I appreciated this thoughtful look at the impacts of tourism (cultural and environmental). Full of vivid anecdotes and good questions for travelers to consider, especially as travel explodes post-pandemic. Clear, interesting and insightful. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 18).

My Roman History, Alizah Holstein
Since she was a high school student reading Dante, Holstein has felt drawn to Rome. This memoir explores her long relationship with the city, including her time researching her dissertation; Holstein also examines her complicated (and short) academic career. I wasn’t all that interested in medieval Rome, but loved Holstein’s account of returning to Rome again and again, finding community there, trying to define what it means to her. (So similar to how I feel about Oxford.) To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 25).

The Expectant Detectives, Kat Ailes
I flew through the sequel to this fun British mystery recently, so picked up the first installment. Alice and her partner, Joe, are adjusting to village life when a man is murdered during their prenatal class. Alice and her new (almost) mum friends begin investigating, to the chagrin of Joe and the local police inspector. Wacky, witty and so much fun.

Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross
This hit YA novel follows Iris and Roman, two young journalists who both end up reporting on the war their country’s caught in. I should have loved this (enchanted typewriters!), but found it…predictable? I did enjoy Iris’ friends Attie and Marisol; I wanted more of their stories. Worthwhile, but not amazing (or just not for me).

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

Essays Written for a World in Motion: Dispersals at The Common

“These are essays written for a world in motion,” writes Jessica J. Lee in the introduction to her exquisite, haunting third book, Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging, a collection of 14 essays examining the movement–voluntary, forced and accidental–of people and plants across landscapes.

Writing in a time of massive global migration, and having experienced several recent upheavals in her own life (including motherhood and the COVID-19 pandemic), Lee considers terms like rooted and migration in light of economic structures, political power, and her own Welsh-Taiwanese-Canadian ancestry. She probes, researches, and even delights in the ways in which plants–seeds, trees, rhizomes–consistently defy human notions of borders and boundaries.

I’ve got a review of Lee’s wonderful book up at The Common today. Please head over there to read the whole piece!

Poetry Friday: Li-Young Lee

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward   
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into   
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry on Fridays here this month, as I do every year. The other night in Piers Park, walking among the cherry trees, I kept thinking of this last line: “sweet impossible blossom.”

On house sparrows and paying attention

Spring has officially sprung here in East Boston: we’re past both the equinox and the eclipse, and the grass in Piers Park is carpeted with fallen pink cherry blossoms. I’m waking early these days, despite my love of sleeping in: my body seems to sense the morning light (and, yes, the honking carpool line around the corner) before my eyes even have a chance to open. 

As I lie in bed, or even after I get up, I’m listening to the chorus of spring birdsong outside: delighting in its bright tones, but also trying to pick individual notes out of the cacophonous symphony. This is a new endeavor for me. Although I was thrilled to find an Audubon field guide for $6 at a used bookstore during the pandemic, I didn’t really take up birding right then, as so many others did. I read Christian Cooper’s excellent memoir (both evocative and compelling – the man can write), and I’ve long delighted in a glimpse of a scarlet cardinal or a cheeky robin redbreast. 

But these days, I find my eye (and ear) increasingly drawn to a bird both small and ubiquitous here in Massachusetts: the house sparrow.

This is an excerpt from my April newsletter, For the Noticers. Read the rest and subscribe at my Substack site!

tiny spring rituals: a list.

• Opening the windows just a little bit wider.
• Going barefoot in my apartment, especially when the sunlight hits those wood floors.
• Trading out the fleece-lined running tights for lighter ones.
• Checking on that crocus bed in Cambridge.
• Rereading Jane of Lantern Hill (again).
• Dipping into a volume or two of Mary Oliver.
• Taking non-frigid sunset walks in Piers Park.
• Waking up before my alarm – usually to birdsong.
• Pumping up my bike tires.
• Breaking out the higher-SPF sunscreen.
• At least one tulip walk in the Public Garden.
• Eating ice cream without shivering.
• Starting seeds in tiny pots, and pulling weeds in the flowerbeds out back.
• Paying more attention to the birds.
• Mixing in lighter jackets with my iconic green coat.
• Snapping photos of tulips, daffodils, scilla, magnolias, cherry trees, forsythia and every blooming thing.

What are your small spring rituals?

April reading roundup #2

April is flying – helped along by a weekend in New York, an up-and-down mix of spring weather, and several great books. Here’s what I have been reading (alongside a lot of wonderful nonfiction, which is slower going):

Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston
My girl Allison and I were discussing this book in San Diego, and then I found it for $4 at Verbatim. (A sign!) It’s a fascinating account of Jeanne Wakatsuki’s experience at Manzanar, one of 10 internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII, and the profound effect it had on Jeanne and her family. Simply told, but vivid and insightful; a slice of history I know too little about.

Dead Tired, Kat Ailes
After solving a murder, Alice and her best friends are hoping for a quiet end to their respective maternity leaves. But when they join a climate protest and a young woman ends up dead, the friends – with babies in tow – start investigating. A fun, witty, very British mystery featuring new mums; second in a series. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 4).

Summer Romance, Annabel Monaghan
Professional organizer Ali Morris is reeling from her mom’s death when her husband tells her he wants a divorce. Soon after, she stumbles into a summer romance with her best friend’s brother – but both of them start wanting more. A super sweet second-chance romance with real adults; I found Ali frustrating but endearing, and I adored her kids and her one-sided conversations with her mom. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 4).

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, Jesse Q. Sutanto
Meddy Chan and her new husband are off to Jakarta for Chinese New Year, along with Meddy’s mother and her three overbearing aunties. Once there, of course, they get mixed up with several local mafia bosses who are rivals – and one of them is Second Aunt’s long-lost love. I adore this zany series and this third book was fast-paced, hilarious and sweet.

The Last Twelve Miles, Erika Robuck
I flew through this whip-smart, fascinating dual-narrative novel set during Prohibition, following the real-life struggle between rum-running queen Marie Waite and cryptanalyst Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Robuck alternates between their two perspectives, capturing each woman’s drive and ambition, and the complexities of both their home lives. Fast-paced, vividly detailed and so good. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 4).

The Paris Secret, Natasha Lester
Fashion conservator Kat Jourdan stumbles upon a collection of Dior dresses in her grandmother’s cottage in Cornwall. Digging into the dresses’ legacy, Kat unearths a complicated story of female pilots, clashing sisters, espionage in WWII, and great suffering. Lester writes wonderful narratives – rich and compelling, with characters I love. Heads up for multiple concentration-camp scenes.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

Poetry Friday: William Stafford

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry on Fridays here this month, as I do every year.