You Only Get One Shot...
...to embarrass yourself in front of your favorite author. A cringeworthy tale to make you laugh and my round-up of fantastic September reads.
Fall may not be known for ushering in new life, but you know what’s in bloom this season? Great books.
Not only did the world welcome some fantastic new books in the past few weeks (you’ll meet a few below), but it’s the perfect season for reading. Crisp weather, cloudy days (of which we’ve enjoyed consecutive ones this week), and late sunrises make this my favorite season to curl up and read in the dark, early hours of the day. Those moments of peace before the menagerie of getting two kids out the door and off to school are priceless. Well worth the early alarm.
Not every day do I stumble upon a book that I consider truly transformative, but this month, I did. It was a month of eclectic storytelling: from a memoir that cracked open a sliver of the universe, to a love story that warmed my veins, a novel that rewrote history, and one that exposed the seedy underbelly of money. Not to mention a book that quite literally rewired my brain.
Read on to learn about them all, including the author in front of whom I delivered the world’s cringiest plea of friendship introduction.
One-Star Romance by Laura Hankin: If you missed last week’s Lifelong Learning interview with Laura, I hope you’ll go back and read! Laura’s wit, humor, and empathy shine brightly in all of her books, but especially her latest, One-Star Romance, which was released this summer. The premise: Natalie is forced to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with a man who has just given her debut novel a one-star rating on Goodreads. Following that rage-inducing experience, Natalie and Rob are forcibly reunited on several occasions to support their respective best friends. With each reunion, they’ve entered a new stage of adulthood, having learned a valuable lesson about relationships and themselves. Readers will love these characters, the honesty of what it means to “adult,” and how friendships change over time. This book is so much more than just a romance.
Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz: Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award finalist, this book has been sitting on my shelf since my 40th birthday, when a dear friend (and the most avid reader I know) gifted it to me. I regret waiting so long to crack the spine. Framed around the experience of losing her father, Schulz digs deep into the concepts of losing and finding, two universals of the human condition. Though it has been more than ten years since I lost my own father, this book exposed a layer of grief that needed tending: the experience of understanding my loss within the context of all losses. Not all books are write-in-the-margins books, but this one certainly is. An example,
“In the end, this may be why certain losses are so shocking: not because they defy reality but because they reveal it. One of the many ways that loss instructs us is by correcting our sense of scale, showing us the world as it really is: so enormous, complex, and mysterious that there is nothing too large to be lost - and, conversely, no place too small for something to get lost there.”
Read this one. Buy several copies. Gift it to the people in your lives. It’s an extraordinary, universal work of art and a balm to the soul.
The Wildes by Louis Bayard: I consider myself quite lucky to live in a neighborhood where your chances of running into a talented novelist on the walk to CVS or the local coffee shop are nearly guaranteed. Capitol Hill is a neighborhood that loves books. It’s also a neighborhood that loves its writers (hence the standing-room-only crowd at Bayard’s East City Bookshop event).
In his newest historical fiction novel, neighbor/brilliant novelist Louis Bayard tackles the life and trials of famous writer Oscar Wilde. Spotlighting Wilde’s wife, Constance, and their two sons, readers take a revealing journey into the affair that ended Wilde’s career and ultimately led to his imprisonment for homosexuality. Without knowing much about Wilde’s personal life prior to reading, I was riveted by the interior life of Wilde’s family, Constance’s reckoning of her husband’s desires, and Lou’s brilliant imagination in bringing this family to life on the page.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown: Deepest gratitude to fellow writer Togzhan Kassenova (author of Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb) for suggesting this book after she read my recent newsletter, “This is My Out-of-Office Reply”. If you couldn’t tell, boundaries are the constant lesson I’m working to learn in life. To say this book felt like it was written specifically for me is an understatement. I devoured it (as evidenced by page after page of highlighting) as if it were a prescription written by a doctor. By boiling life down to its essentials, and reaching for our greatest contribution with every output of energy, we can rewire the decision-making networks in our brains. For anyone who has ever felt a twinge of resentment after agreeing to give away their time or anyone who’s felt trapped on a hamster wheel unable to get closer to their goals, this book is for you. I’d argue, in fact, that it’s for all people. And if you elect me president this November, my first official act of business will be making it required reading for every American.
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam: Sometimes in life, you get one chance to shoot your shot. And, well, on Friday night, I took it. In this case, shooting my shot involved standing in front of one of my favorite authors (Rumaan Alam) and goofily telling him how much I love his work and how I’ve long thought we should be friends. And if you aren’t cringing yet, you will be once I share the specifics I named to make my case:
We have (almost) the same birthday.
We both like margaritas.
We both harbor a deep fondness for Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (Alam occasionally posts moody MK&A photos that speak to where he is in his writing process).
After recounting the tale to others, my friend Drew observed, “Do you know how creepy it is to tell someone you know their birthday?”
Sigh.
Where was this great advice when I needed it? Should I have just stuck with the Mary Kate and Ashley connection? Or should I have heeded my husband’s advice to keep it lowkey with “I love your work”?
It’s unfortunate that memorable often toes the line of stalker-ish, though it’s worth stating that my misguided efforts were borne from a genuine appreciation for Alam’s prose. His last book, Leave the World Behind, was one of the most brilliant, unsettling things I’ve ever read, and I briefly flirted with the idea of arguing with anyone on Goodreads who stated otherwise.
In his latest book, Entitlement, which was released last week, we meet Brooke, a 30-something Black woman living in the heart of Manhattan, who’s recently taken a job at a philanthropic non-profit aimed at giving away the fortune of billionaire, Asher Jaffe. But as Brooke’s relationship with Asher grows closer, she begins to take note of how the world works for the super-wealthy, and her perception of reality starts to morph. Entitlement shares the same unsettling vibes as Leave the World Behind, but tackles a subject that is still taboo in most conversations: money. The last third of this book will have your stomach in pretzels, and your mind turning over the story for time to come.
And as for my introduction to Alam, I’m choosing to move on. After all,
Next Month’s Spooky Bookshelf
Join me in a literary spookfest for October. I’ll be reading:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier
Model Home by Rivers Solomon (out 10/1)
The new show Nobody Wants This has a scene where the main character’s mother mentions how she and Billy Joel are connected because their birthdays are three days apart 🤣. I too, would say something like “and we both love margaritas!” to someone I was fan-girling.
If I ever have the pleasure of meeting you in person after I tell you how much I love your book I will also tell you that I am a huge fan of Rumaan. He was at Oberlin at the same time as I was but I sadly do not think we ever met.