10 Things I Read and Loved in September

It was one of those audiobooks-only kind of months.

Sep 29, 2022

Hello from Hurricane Ian’s path! 👋 I’m rushing to finish this newsletter on Wednesday afternoon as the winds pick up. No clue when we’ll lose power, but my husband and I have plenty of water, food, and candles to last us through the storm. (And books. Lots of them. If things don’t get too scary here in Jacksonville, maybe I’ll catch up on some reading.)

When I found out on Monday that a huge hurricane was heading toward my home state, all I could do was laugh. It just makes sense given the September I have been having, which has been one of the hardest months of my life! Thank the lord for audiobooks. I wouldn’t have read a thing this month if it hadn’t been for my Libby app.

Here’s what I’ve been reading and loving throughout this cursed month.

1) Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron

Delia Ephron’s new memoir, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life, simply couldn’t have been more enchanting. (Though it wouldn’t be a book by an Ephron sister if it failed to delight.)

I was so moved by the 72-year-old’s second chance at love after losing her first husband, the writer Jerome Kass. This new love, combined with an excellent team of doctors, saved her life when she was diagnosed with leukemia. Ephron’s outlook on love and survival left me in awe.

2) a thread about writing by a video game designer

Kat Lewis @katjolewis

Earlier this year, I took a job as a narrative designer at a video game company. Here are three things I learned while writing video games that made me a better novelist 🧵 (1/14)

Here’s my personal favorite part of this all-around excellent thread:

Kat Lewis @katjolewis

Ask yourself two questions: Q1: What concrete thing does my character want? To test that their goal is concrete, it should fall into one of four categories: win, stop, escape, or retrieve. If it doesn’t, it’s not concrete enough and your external conflict will likely be too weak.

Win, stop, escape, retrieve. Brilliant!

3) Emma Straub’s beautiful tribute to her father, the novelist Peter Straub, who died earlier this month

Emma Straub @emmastraub

Ok this is going to be long and rambling but here goes. My father, Peter Straub, died on Sunday night. He was the fucking best, and here's why, with photos:

Don’t read the whole thing unless you’re ready to weep. (And if you end up having a good weep, be sure to pick up Emma Straub’s latest novel, This Time Tomorrow, which she wrote in dedication to her father as he was dying.)

4) Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener

First released in January 2020, this memoir is one of the best cases of “better late than never” I’ve ever had with a book.

A profound and honest look at the tech industry by an early startup employee who now writes for The New Yorker, Uncanny Valley is among the best memoirs of the 21st century.

5) an extremely relatable tweet for mercury-in-retrograde times

Tom Lin @tom_lin__

coming out of my cage and i’ve been doing not great going back to my cage and now i’m in my cage

We’re almost safe from Mercury’s shit!

6) Michael Pollan’s ruthless interrogation of caffeine

Before I go any further, let me be clear: I’m not thinking of giving up caffeine. But if I’m ever required to do so for health reasons (which is literally the only reason why I would ever stop drinking coffee), I know it’s going to be reeeeeeeeally hard for me. That’s why I listen closely whenever someone explains why they’ve given it up, hoping to learn some benefits that might counteract the inevitable grogginess.

In a recent article for The Guardian, food writer Michael Pollan presents one of the best cases I’ve heard for cutting out caffeine:

“Whether caffeine also enhances creativity is a different question, however, and there’s some reason to doubt that it does. Caffeine improves our focus and ability to concentrate, which surely enhances linear and abstract thinking, but creativity works very differently. It may depend on the loss of a certain kind of focus, and the freedom to let the mind off the leash of linear thought.”

So… cutting out caffeine might actually make us better writers? I’m intrigued. (But not enough to cut out my daily coffees and occasional mid-morning/early afternoon/late afternoon/early evening cups of tea.)

7) another perfect text from my dad

Featuring his stylin’ duck boots.

8) Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Carrie Soto is Back is one of the most fun novels I have ever read. (However, as a Taylor Jenkins Reid superfan, I’ll admit that I’m a tad bit biased.)

It’s an absolutely triumphant comeback story about a tennis champion who is coached by her father. And do I know anything about tennis beyond the fact that I look incredible in a tennis skirt? No. But that didn’t stop me from tearing through this book, which brought me so much joy during hard times.

9) Lena Dunham’s surprising ode to Marilyn Monroe for Vogue

I almost didn’t read this article when this month’s issue of Vogue came in the mail. What more did I need to know about Marilyn Monroe, a star who’s always seemed so overblown to me? Turned out, Lena Dunham thought the same thing I did:

“As a young woman, I didn’t much care about her… I thought that girls who cited Monroe as an inspiration were at best trite and at worst boring.”

What struck me most about this piece, which was far more of a personal essay than it was a profile, were the parallels Dunham draws between her life at age 33 and Monroe’s.