10 Things I Read and Loved in April
Featuring a celebrity memoir, a book about cooking, articles, poems, song lyrics, and a top contender for Best Book of 2023. Plus, the Book Club for Writers meets this Sunday!
Scroll down for information on the Book Club for Writers meeting this Sunday! If you’re a paid subscriber, I hope to see you there.
On the first day of April, I rode a very sweet horse on a very beautiful beach, and somehow, the month has managed to go uphill from there. Here’s what I read and loved this month! 🐎
1. Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
It’s going to be hard to top this novel for Best Book of 2023. I loved watching this journalist protagonist obsessively uncover the secret past of her wife, a prolific and notoriously mysterious artist. Catherine Lacey creates an entire alternate history of the United States in this story, juxtaposing real-life artists (David Bowie! Connie Converse! Brain Eno!) with fictional characters. This book is a triumph.
2. this account of a single-day writing residency
Chrissy Hennessey’s newsletter offers great reminder: you don’t have to take a whole week off work (or even leave your house) to have a fruitful writing residency.
3. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett
This book by the host of On Being was the perfect read during this time of year, a time when the blooming flowers always make me wonder how I can bloom more into myself. Using segments from her radio show, Krista Tippett beautifully assesses the capital-B, capital-Q Big Questions of human existence. I listened to the audiobook, which I think would be perfect to listen to a long road trip with someone you love—someone with whom you’d like to deepen conversation and connection.
4. that New Yorker article about Ozempic everyone on Twitter was talking about
Jia Tolentino’s reporting on Ozempic and weight loss made me very sad and scared, and you should definitely read it.
5. a much-needed affirmation from Catherine Spino’s poem “Source of Truth”
I am a writer I am a writer I am a writer I am a writer I am a writer I am a writer. I type this out 10 more times into an Untitled Google Doc.
Read five of Spino’s poems via Hobart. They’re exquisite.
6. An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler
This book is giving me flashbacks to when I first read Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking: by that, I mean to say that this book is returning my zest for being in the kitchen. In gorgeous prose, Tamar Adler describes her process of preparing meals, cooking with seasonal ingredients, and not wasting food.
I was also excited to learn this month that Tamar Adler has a new cookbook coming out! I’m excited to dig into it and the other cookbook mentioned in the Eater article Can Cookbooks Teach Us to Waste Less Food?
7. the lyrics of Wilco’s “If I Ever Was a Child”
Wilco, my all-time favorite band, played a fantastic set at the St. Augustine Amphitheater this month. Jeff Tweedy and company haven’t come through Northeast Florida in eight whole years, and Jacksonville’s own Derek Trucks coming onstage to solo on “Impossible Germany” made the show well worth the wait.
Wilco also played “If I Ever Was a Child,” a song I’ve heard hundreds of times, and listening to it that night, I felt like I was hearing it for the very first time. Has that ever happened to you with a song you love? Certain lines I’d never paid much thought had a way of floating to the surface that night.
I saw, behind my brain, a haunted stain—it never fades
I hunt for the kind of pain I can take
The morning after the show, ears still ringing after shout-singing along with perfect strangers in the front row, all I wanted to do was look up the lyrics and really focus on them. What a powerful song, all the way through.
8. Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth by Pamela Anderson
I never thought I’d be examining Pamela Anderson’s writing at the sentence level, but that’s the thing about Pamela—we need to stop underestimating her. She really took the reins of her own story in her book, telling it with tenderness and care.
9. Hunter S. Thompson’s daily routine vs. Mark Wahlberg’s daily routine
The juxtaposition of these two routines made me laugh so hard. Here’s an average day in the life of Hunter S. Thompson:
The only thing I’m really envying here is the combination of carrot cake + a double order of onion rings during the 7:05PM “lunch.”
And then there’s Marky Mark:
“I'm presuming he snacks while golfing,” said Aaron Burch, who tweeted these daily routines side by side, “but I like the idea that he golfs for half an hour then snacks for an hour and a half.”
Same.
10. this article about Duolingo and AI
I use Duolingo every day in order to wake up (in fact, it’s my top secret to becoming more of a morning person), and I was enlightened by this article via The New Yorker about the app’s development and AI usage.
This month, I started using the Audm app to listen to longform articles, which I never find time to read. The narrators on the app are great, and I love putting an article on while I’m cleaning the house or walking the dog, listening to it like a podcast or audiobook.
The app grants access to thousands of articles from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, ProPublica—the list goes on. An unlimited-access subscription goes for just $4.99/month, and I think it’s worth every penny.
(This isn’t an ad or anything. I just really like this app.)
Things I Wrote This Month
🌔 For The Creative Independent, I interviewed Cindy House, author of Mother Noise. We had a great conversation about writing about real people and maintaining mentorships.
🌖 I also spoke with experimental band golfer two for Jacksonville Music Experience about the gear they used to record their latest EP. (Hint: there may or may not have been a dog chain involved.)
Book Club for Writers: Sunday, April 30, 1-2:30PM EST
I’m excited to discuss Jenny Boully’s Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life on Sunday with the Book Club for Writers at 1PM EST on Zoom.
If you’d like to join our discussion-rich, writing-prompt-packed meeting, you can do so by becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter. Click below to upgrade your subscription.
If you’re already a paid subscriber—thank you, by the way!—you’ll receive a Zoom link to the discussion tomorrow.
Didn’t get a chance to read the book this time around? You’ll still be able to follow along during our book club meeting! If you’d like to take a quick peek at the book, though, you can purchase the e-book here.
I * LOVE* a single day writing residency. I do this every now and then and treat myself to breakfast out at my favorite spot (nothing like breakfast at a nice spot on a weekday when the place is empty!) and then write and read in equal measures. It always ends up being so productive, and yet also restful.
I always look forward these monthly reading updates. What a treat to see my newsletter included in it!