Link Round Up | Friday Reads

Currently Reading

Bridge of Spies – Giles Whittel (audiobook) – super interesting look at a spy exchange during the cold war, and the careers that led up to it.

Leviathan – Scott Westerfield (ebook) – World War I steampunk. So cool!

Death at Victoria Dock  – Kerry Greenwood (ebook) – the next Phyrne Fisher novel. I’m enjoying the books but I think I actually may prefer the show.

Links I’m reading/emailing/tweeting to everyone 

If you haven’t ever read Anne Helen Peterson’s pop culture coverage, may I direct you to her piece on Angelina Jolie’s masterful PR strategy.

Being the New York Times food critic. And for a #TBT, that Guy Fieri restaurant review (bookmark for referencing on bad days).

The Rumpus last week, on You’ve Got Mail aka the best movie ever. Do not fight me on this.

This week I’m listening to…

In addition to my audiobook, I’ve been catching up on Criminal. It has a similar tone to This American Life, but looks at a different crime each week.

Podcast Favorites | Listening

I just finished back to back audiobooks, so of course now I have a huge podcast backlog. I’m going to share three podcasts that I currently have on rotation:

Alice Isn’t Dead

This just wrapped up Part One, so you have plenty of time to catch up before it resumes. It’s made by the people from Welcome to Night Vale, but where WTNV is jokey-horror, this is actually super creepy. Our unnamed narrator is on a cross-country truck drive, telling her wife Alice about her quest to find her.

For fans of: Welcome to Night Vale, Stranger Things, Twin Peaks

Call Your Girlfriend

CYG is a weekly talk show hosted by best friends Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow. They talk about current events, pop culture, this week in menstruation and tackle topics like ethical shopping and long-distance bestie-hood. They’re super smart and their discussions always delve into the complexities of an issue — even if that issue is the economics of the Kardashians.

For fans of: Samantha Bee, Beyoncé, Shine Theory

Sunday School Dropouts

Sunday School Dropouts is hosted by a former Christian and a cultural Jew, both of whom are reading through the Christian Bible for the first time. They take a gently mocking, while still largely respectful tone, and provide a lot of interesting context on where the events and writers are placed historically. I’m learning all kinds of interesting things about wisdom literature, ancient faiths, and also that the Old Testament is little Game of Thrones-y.

 

Complicated Families | Reading

Fiction and nonfiction alike are rife with complicated families. After all, “all happy families are alike each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I love to read about complicated families: it’s a good exercise in seeing people complexly. And, they’re often just entertaining as all get-out. Here are my current top picks for complicated family stories.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Bird escapes from her terrible family life to a small town in New England, where she falls in love with Arturo Whitman and becomes his daughter’s step mother. When she gives birth to their next daughter, family secrets come very much to the front.

In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This is based on the true story of the Mirabel sisters, who rebelled against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. The story follows them from childhood, seeing how they are often at odds with each other, their parents, their husbands, each other’s husbands, and of course the dictator they all live under.

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

The Turner children must decide what happens to their parent’s house in Detroit, now virtually worthless, now that their mother is elderly. The thirteen kids have a myriad of opinions and memories tied to the house, including the oldest Francis, who saw the Haint, and Lelah, battling a serious gambling addiction.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

While this story is about Henrietta Lacks, the HeLa cells, scientific research, and how segregation and the medical system treated African Americans, it is also about Lacks’ children. The author works very closely with one of Lacks’ daughters, and tells the story of what happened to her family and how they reacted to learning their mother’s story.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Nella Oortman comes to Amsterdam to marry Johannes Brandt, and live with him and his sister Marin. He is kind, but standoffish; his sister is stern and serious. Nella feels out of place in this family, until she figures out the secrets they’re hiding, that threaten to unravel the whole family — including her. This book also delves into 17th century Dutch society, which we should all remember is where the Pilgrims fled to when the 17th century English were too loosey-goosey for them.

Link Round Up | Friday Reads

Courtesy of Grey Malin’s “Beaches”

It’s one of the last Fridays of the summer, so things are real quiet at my office. I’ll be daydreaming of reading all the things at the beach, so this week’s links is a link/Friday reads hybrid.

Currently Reading

The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson — savoring this one, one essay at a time.

Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves by Henry Wiencek — pretty damning look at Jefferson. Not the most uplifting commute audiobook, but so important.

Life Debt (Aftermath #2) by Chuck Wendig — the second in the Star Wars Aftermath trilogy.

Links I’m reading/emailing/tweeting to everyone 

YouTubers are known for relentless positivity. But what happens when that positivity is applied to North Korea? Is there room for critical thinking in the positivity vacuum?

Joseph Goebbels’ secretary is now 105 years old and sharing her story.

So much of the work done by Black women is brushed under the rug and forgotten by history. Luckily, Hollywood has picked up this story of the Black female mathematicians at NASA who contributed to the Apollo 11 mission.

Why every coffee shop and hip apartment look exactly the same.

#tbt

An ode to the Villainesses of Disney.

The fascinating article about Rose Wilder and Laura Ingalls Wilder getting the Little House books published. Much rougher around the edges (and more than a little like Ron Swanson) than their fictional counterparts, the real Wilder Women are definitely more interesting.

Books to read if you love The West Wing | Reading

Courtesy of Warner Bros. and Getty.

Since it’s an election year and everything is terrible, I’ve been marathoning The West Wing, where even if the good guys don’t win, the bad guys aren’t cartoon villains so it’s kind of okay. There are so many books referenced on the show (as President Bartlet is an absolute nerd), and I’m sure its nerdy audience is full of readers. So today, we’re going to talk about books to read if you love TWW.

For the nitty gritty of how stuff gets done, read Sisters in Law. This joint biography of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg covers their legal careers as well as the ways that found each other as allies on the court despite their philosophical differences.

For a look at the intersection of disability, politics, and secrecy, read Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter.  This book is about JFK’s older sister, but it’s also about the harmful ableist narratives in our culture and the lengths ambitious people will go to.

For those who love Toby Ziegler dealing with the free trade protestors, read Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. Told from multiple points of view, this book tells the story of one day during the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. Protestors, police, and delegates narrate the story as protests and violence unfold.

Finally, for tensions between idealism and reality, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which tells the story of the founding fathers from a slightly different angle.

Link Round Up | Reading

Links are heavy. Have a cat picture

This week is a little heavy, with the dark side of the Olympics and business-casual shopping, but some weeks are just like that. 

To the links!

A reading list on the social justice implications of hosting the Olympics.

End the tyranny of flossing!

On thinking it might not matter that Hillary Clinton is a woman, until you find yourself crying during her speech. (Also, will read anything Sarah Vowell writes).

Catholics who grew up post-Vatican II and find themselves at a crossroads between Catholicism and services with guitars. Relevant to anyone who thinks the Church never lets its hair down.

The implications of calling a store Banana Republic.

#tbt

Lin-Manuel Miranda on By The Book.

 

Backlist Summer Reading | Reading

This time of year, the book lists are moving away from summer reading and toward back-to-school. I always want to scream BUT WE HAVE ALL OF AUGUST. Well, that’s what blogs are for.

Here are three backlist summer reading picks, for holding onto those last dog days of summer.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Yes, I have Ferrante Fever. If you aren’t familiar, this is the first of four books following two Italian women from their childhood in Naples to their old age. Ferrante’s writing is spare, with the women’s friendship at the center of these novels. Seriously, just read them.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

This is half-memoir of how Doughty started working in the funeral industry, half-treatise on death and dying. There is so much about the funeral industry that I never knew (like if you donate your body to science, different parts of your body will trickle into various crematories. A foot here, arm there) that Doughty talks about with dry humor and deep knowledge. Read it and then bug all your friends with your “didya knows” about death.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Mayhew Bergman speculates on the lives of women on the periphery of fame in this fantastic short story collection. Women like Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister, Lord Byron’s daughter, conjoined twins who briefly saw fame. The stories show these women, and their famous counterparts, as complex, fascinating women.

 

Link Round-Up | Reading

This week, when I wasn’t bawling over Michelle Obama’s convention speech, I was reading great stuff on the internet. AKA what I’m doing every week.

Relevant to this post — Reading lists are the new mixtapes. How we take it upon ourselves to find and share great links with the people we know or want to know better.

This year is depressing, so I’ve had a hard time watching “prestige tv,” opting instead to watch Friends and Psych. This list from the AV Club of best shows so far this year might sway me.

A stray cat snuck into a zoo and found another cat. I can barely handle this link.

Someone articulated shit Hillary can’t say. (It is not clear to all commenters that Hillary Clinton did not, in fact, write this).

Throwback

Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer, was on NPR’s Fresh Air in May talking about his book and his own experiences living in Vietnam and as a Vietnamese immigrant in America.

Two Monks Invent Denominations. RIP The Toast. I’ve been going back through the archives and reading articles I missed or re-reading ones I love. Two Monks are the best monks.

#24in48 Recap | Reading

Peak summer — porch margaritas and books.

This past weekend was the 24 in 48 readathon. For those unfamiliar, the goal is to spend 24 of the 48 hours in the weekend reading. There are giveaways throughout the day and tons of people sharing their reading on Litsy, Instagram, Twitter, and the like. (I shared on Litsy, where you can find me @erinkwed).

In all honesty, I was not quite as ambitious as 24 hours. My goal was 12 hours of reading, which I came a little short on. Saturday I read for six hours, and Sunday I read for five.

Friday night/Saturday morning

I started with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. An epistolary novel, it focuses on correspondence just after World War II with a newspaper columnist in London starting to write her next book and a book group from Guernsey. I actually had no idea that the Guernsey Islands were occupied during the war. The book is cozy, tragic, and heartwarming all at the same time.

Heading over to my parents to meet my Dad for lunch, I listened to a half hour of Angels and Demons each way. I’m enjoying the thriller and historical aspects of this novel, eye rolling at some of the dialogue and characterization. Overall a fun listen.

Saturday afternoon/evening

In the afternoon, I read Saga, Vol 6. I had been saving it for this weekend and was so glad I did. (**SPOILERS**) It was so satisfying to finally see some good things happening to this family. Honestly, the last volume was getting to be kind of hard to read, so this one was refreshing — back to action, humor, and pathos.

I followed it up with a palate cleanser of The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson. I read Gilead in high school and didn’t see what the fuss was, but reading this essay collection with fresh eyes makes me want to revisit it. She is so smart, throws such shade, and just has a quiet quality to her writing that lulls you into complacency before hitting you in the face with her brilliance.

Sunday

Between Church, grocery shopping, and general lying around, I didn’t get as much reading in on Sunday. I did read all of Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. It had been compared to Let the Great World Spin, which is one of my favorite books. I think that description was apt. This was a hard read, though, because the depiction of police brutality felt raw in a way I don’t think it would have a few years ago.

I also read bits and pieces of The Sympathizer all weekend. I’m kind of struggling with this book — it is a really good, fascinating book, but it isn’t engrossing. I almost have to remind myself to pick it up. I think it will be worth it when I finally finish, though.

All in all, this weekend was more than I’ve read in months. Definitely check out the readathon next time it runs. The next readathon will be January 21-22, mark your calendars!

 

Link Round-Up | Reading

(the Peony Garden at Nichols Arboretum this spring)

I recently did a thing on Twitter: I purged a lot of the accounts I was following. Once that was done, I went through and looked at who people I admired or people who shared great reads followed, and followed those people.

It has been so refreshing to have basically a brand-new Twitter feed, which has also resulted in saving a million links to share here.

(I’ll limit myself to five) (maybe six).

New Reads

Ghostbusters and 17th Century Nuns. What does it mean for women to fight possession, instead of being possessed? (Also, The Establishment has been killing it lately).

NPR’s Read, Watch, Binge series. The second installment recommends movies based on books you like. BRB adding them all to my to-watch.

Female solitude as rebellion. “Women are the anchors of social labor, the glue pulling the family, and then the community, together with small talk and good manners and social niceties. Living alone as a woman is not just a luxury but a refusal to bend into the shape of patriarchal assumption and expectation.” AKA an apartment of one’s own.

LaCroix has a fascinating history. The midwestern moms were right.

Joan Didion as pool reading.  I haven’t actually read Joan Didion, but this convinced me I need to change that ASAP.

Throwbacks

Dr. Martin Luther King on Vietnam. I am just now starting to read Dr. King’s speeches and essays,  having mostly just heard the sanitized version of his life in school. His work is so much more radical and political than I ever knew, and truly spellbinding.

Sleeping trees. “For the first time, trees have been shown to undergo physical changes at night that can be likened to sleep, or at least to day-night cycles that have been observed experimentally in smaller plants.” Trees have circadian rhythms, too.