Hello! So I plan for this to be a slightly shorter newsletter as I don’t have much time this evening, and also I’ve already written the equivalent of two of these since the last one you received. Which is to say, I pitched an article to The Seattle Review of Books featuring the ten best books of 2018 that I haven’t read yet, and they’re going to publish it! Hot damn. So, I just put the finishing touches on that, but I realized last week, after receiving several responses to issue #4, that I actually have readers and I didn’t want to skip a week.
And thanks to everyone who emailed me after the last issue. I have email anxiety and sometimes let my inbox fill up so I didn’t actually respond to anyone (that sounds counterintuitive since I’m writing you emails, but I suspect you’ll understand). Anyway, sorry. But it was truly delightful to receive responses to my newsletter; it made my day.
Wish I Were Reading
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
I can’t remember the first place I heard about this book; I think it was a witchy books listicle (a subgenre of book listicles that I am particularly fond of). It is, as far as I can tell, a book about an English woman who, at age twenty-eight, must move to London to live with her brother and his wife when their father dies. She is terrifyingly close to spinster territory, so the plan is to get her hitched once she’s acclimated to city life. Instead she becomes a witch. I don’t know if that’s the plot or if it’s just the beginning or if that’s even an accurate description of the book. But I picked it up when I was visiting Third Place Books and now I’m really wishing I’d just bought it because I’m very much in the mood for an old, feminist, witchy book.
Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction by Brian Dillon
This book arrived in the bookstore and immediately caught the eye of at least three booksellers, me included. I love the collage cover. I love the first line of the jacket copy:
Essayism is a book about essays and essayists, a study of melancholy and depression, a love letter to belle-lettrists, and an account of the indispensable lifelines of reading and writing.
I love the idea of a book of essays about essays, examining this form that is so broad and malleable. In some writer’s hands I imagine such an idea could be obnoxious, self-indulgent, but Maggie Nelson says the book is “surprising, probing, edifying, itinerant, and eventually quite moving” and I’m inclined to believe her.
Dime Store Alchemy: the Art of Joseph Cornell by Charles Simic
We had this in the bargain section at work, and I’m still mad at myself for not snagging a copy. In high school I was fascinated by Cornell’s shadow boxes. I love small things, I love seeing disparate objects juxtaposed, I love art that is odd and intricate. In college I read poetry by Charles Simic; I can’t remember if I liked him, but I also don’t remember disliking him. I’m not sure if this is poetry or what, to be honest. I’m just interested in reading one poet’s take on an artist I like. I don’t think about visual art as much as I did in school. My partner, Sam, and I went to the Frye this weekend and I was reminded that I enjoy just looking at things, reacting to them, discussing them. Maybe this book, when I get around to it, will pique my art interest again.
Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramović
Speaking of art, a reader suggested I pick this up! Like, an actual reader of this newsletter. It was funny because I’d been thinking about this book. I’d recently re-read a review my co-worker Lauren wrote for the store’s newsletter in 2016, which described the book as “just as brilliant and merciless as her art, but also sensitive, sensual, and morbidly hilarious.” And that description really intrigues me. So I’ll definitely hopefully be picking this one up sometime soon. Maybe as an audiobook.
Currently Reading
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
I was obsessed with Sarah Dessen in high school; I just thought the way she wrote, her characters, their romances, were all so great. The other night—still in a book slump—for some reason I started talking about This Lullaby. And then I started flipping through it. And then Sam suggested I just start from the beginning. And now I’m more than halfway through. It is interesting to read a book I adored with twelve or so years remove. It makes me feel like I’m gaining some kind of insight on the reader I was then. Also, I just love romances and Sarah Dessen knows how to write. I can’t speak to her newer stuff but her old stuff holds up.
Other Ways to Find Me On the Internets
Once a month (or so) I host a podcast called Drunk Booksellers where my best friend and I interview a fellow bookseller while drinking. I sometimes tweet about books and politics. I sometimes post pictures of books I’m reading, or cats I’m hanging out with on Instagram.
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