Happy Valentine's Day, friends.
Welcome to the week, everyone. May the odds be ever in our favor. As I type, I am dreading reporting to jury duty tomorrow. The last time I had jury duty we were asked to fill out a very, very long questionnaire that asked us questions including, “Name your hero.” I answered: Queen Greta Thunberg. Needless to say, I was not selected to serve.
In other news:
What I finished reading last week:
This book was funny. It’s Andy Corren’s memoir of his life growing up poor, gay, and Jewish in the South, all centered around his inimitable mother Renay. To be honest, the poor Southern Jew is not a subset of the Chosen People I’ve ever encountered; I have never met a Jewish redneck, but this was a whole family of them. In subject matter, the book reminded me of Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with less tragedy and more chicken liver. There’s also a dog named Licorice Katz, who was a highlight.
What I loved: the lush, witty prose.
What I didn’t: It was a little long, a little repetitive, a little lacking in psychological insight.
Did it work for me? Not entirely. For me, a memoir lives or dies on its author’s candor and ability to self-reflect, and Corren leaves many, many stones unturned. Should you read it? Sure, if you liked Educated but thought it lacked poop jokes. It’s really fun, though, and that’s not nothing.
What You Should Read: Valentine’s Edition
I love Valentine’s Day. It’s a candy-centered holiday, which is really my top priority. I like pink and I like hearts and I like love. Sometimes my mom still sends me Valentine’s cards in the mail, which is festive. To celebrate this occasion, I submit to you three of my all-time favorite love stories.
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Look, this is in my top books of all time, a desert island pick. It is perfect. There are NO funny parts at all and I still love it. It’s about memory, loss, grief, regrets, class… All I really want in life is to read books either a) about the apocalypse or b) set in stately but slightly threadbare English manors in which the inhabitants struggle to understand their own emotions. This novel falls into the latter category. Despite the absence of zombies, a nuclear armageddon, or a super-flu, it is a fucking banger. Read this, and then next read Never Let Me Go, A Pale View of Hills, and An Artist of the Floating World, all by the same author.
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett almost never gets it wrong. Reading her work is like settling into a cozy couch on a misty day with a small, scruffy dog and a fully charged e-cig. In my mind, Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, and Kate Atkinson all get together for yearly meetings where they talk about writing life-affirming books that are somehow not maudlin garbage. I would like to be invited to this meeting, but I make too many jokes about Abu Ghraib. Anyway. Ann loves her husband, she loves her dogs, she loves her work, she loves books. She is an oasis of humanity and generosity of spirit. I love her, and it’s refreshing to read about a marriage that isn’t tragic or boring.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Do I know how to say this guy’s last name? No. Is it fun to try? Yes! (Side note: last year, I was reading a book by Ondaatje and I did NOT like it. Boring characters, boring setting, overly precious prose. Then I realized that I was reading a book by a different author — Michael Cunningham, not Michael Ondaatje — and I had an epiphany: these two Michaels who both write books are NOT the same person!) This book makes my heart hurt to think about. It’s set in WWII, in a run-down Italian villa where a Canadian nurse cares for a severely burned patient with amnesia. Again, not a lot of jokes in this book, maybe none, but I cannot implore you enough to read it. There’s love, deception, imperialism, gross medical stuff… 10/10.
Candy News:
My friend Sam shared her birthday candy with me and I can’t stop thinking about it.
It may look like meat, but it’s actually watermelon Sour Patch Kids coated in chamoy and tajin. SO good. I’ll never choose a fruit-based candy over a chocolate-based candy, unless it’s an Airhead or a pink or red Starburst, but this candy is EXCELLENT.
What I’m Watching:
My husband got me into Taskmaster, which is a British comedy show where a group of comedians have to accomplish silly tasks, like concealing an entire pineapple on one’s person. I personally love the second season because it features Richard Osman, writer of my beloved Thursday Murder Club series. We’re watching the fourth season now, which features two Great British Baking Show alums, Mel and Noel. Absolutely delightful.
What You Should Listen To:
The Retrievals, a podcast from Serial (p.s., Adnan didn’t do it). Per NYT, “The patients in this story came to the Yale Fertility Center to pursue pregnancy. They began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure called egg retrieval caused them excruciating pain. Some of the patients screamed out in the procedure room. Others called the clinic from home to report pain in the hours that followed. But most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with saline.”
This is one of the most fucked things I’ve ever listened to. It combines several of my keenest interests: motherhood, medical abuse, systems of power. Probably not an ideal listen if you’re trying to conceive, or if you’re a sensitive soul, but worth it because it raises really interesting questions about women’s pain and how often it’s dismissed.
Pop Culture Moment I’m Thinking About:
I have nothing to say about the Super Bowl because I don’t like football, but I do think about this football icon often:
All I know is that he is very rich and owns the Raiders, and this is his hair. Literally never gets old for me.
What I’m Looking Forward To:
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Per the publisher: “On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: ‘One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.’ This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.”
El Akkad’s novel American War was really excellent - a work of speculative fiction about a second Civil War 50 years in the future, so I have high hopes for this.
On a lighter note, I’m excited for Greenteeth, yet another cozy fantasy, one of my favorite genres.
“Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.”
A witch, a lake, and the soul of Britain? I’m here for it. I’ll report back.
That’s all for this week. May the courts of Los Angeles release me in a timely fashion tomorrow so I can have my much-needed nap.