A #missschwegreads list for these "uncertain times"

I am a voracious reader - always have been, always will be - and my first instinct when I find myself on uncertain ground is to try to read my way onto more solid footing. I have a maelstrom of thoughts on everything that has transpired in the last few months, but that’s for another time. I’m posting a list of reading resources I’ve seen shared across the internet in the last week of books to help me educate myself, develop a new vocabulary, and immerse myself in a culture, experience and fight that is not intrinsically mine. Hopefully this helps someone - hopefully this helps me.

• “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin

• “Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black” by Bell Hooks

• “Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good” by Adrienne Maree Brown

• “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorbindness” by Michelle Alexander

• “Citizen: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine

• “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America” by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

• “Sister Outsider” by Audre Lorde

• “Stamped From the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi

• “How to Be an Anti-Racist” also by Ibram X. Kendi

• “Minor Feelings” by Cathy Park Hong

• “America’s Original Sin” by Jim Wallis

• “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge

• “Good Talk” by Mira Jacob

• “Blindspot” by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald

• “Me and White Supremacy” by Layla F. Saad

• “So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo

• “How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America” by Moustafa Bayoumi

• “The Fire This Time” by Jesmyn Ward

• “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo

• “I’m Still Here” by Austin Channing Brown

• “When They Call You a Terrorist: a Black Lives Matter Memoir” by Patrisse Cullors and Asha Bandele

• “An African American and Latinx History of the United States” by Paul Ortiz

• “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” by Xanne Dunbar-Ortiz

• “Mindful of Race” by Ruth King

• “Just Mercy” by Bryn Stevenson

• “Tears We Cannot Stop” by Michael Eric Dyson

• “Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?” by Mumia Abu-Jawal

• “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” by Richard Rothstein

• “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson

• “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum

• “This Book is Anti-Racist” by Tiffany Jewell

• “The Great Unlearn” by Rachel Cargle

• “Rabbit” by Patricia Williams and Jeannine Amber

• “Wow, No Thank You.” by Samantha Irby

• “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon

• “Real Life” by Brandon Taylor

• “Such a Fun Age” by Kiley Reid

• “The Yellow House” by Sarah M. Broom

• “Grand Union” by Zadie Smith. Actually, everything by Zadie Smith.

• “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi

• “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

• “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston

• “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh

A few pop culture PSAs for your January enjoyment.

Music, TV, books, and recipes that are helping me through the January gloom…yes, Norcal is gloomy, no, this is not me complaining and thus giving you an open invitation to tell me how much worse the weather is in the Midwest ;)

• The playlist “Nancy Meyers’ Kitchen” on Spotify is an absolute delight and has sparked so much joy for me over the last few days. Lots of oldie goodness from her movies, which I have always found to have utterly charming soundtracks. I’ve played it in my own kitchen, as well as my car and at my desk for close to a week, and it leaves me feeling happy and also like watching “Something’s Gotta Give” and “It’s Complicated” on repeat. (Anyone else kind of hate “Julie and Julia?”)

• DJ Earworm’s 2019 mashup is actually pretty good this year, but I really loved his Decade in Review. Also worth peeping: his “2009 v 2019” mashups - a fun eleven-minute ride through some true 2010s classics.

• In the last few weeks, I’ve binged on “Cheer,” “You,” and “Sex Education” on Netlix, “Fleabag” on Amazon (how on EARTH did it take me so long to do this?! It’s utterly luminous!), and…PREPARE TO JUDGE ME…”90 Day Fiancé” on Hulu. Kendra and I are embarrassingly addicted, and it’s got an uncanny way of making me feel so, so good about my personal romantic choices, none of which include falling in love in international chatrooms with language barriers and secret catfishings and hidden sugardaddies. Truly an escapist dream, friends. Coming up next: S3 of “Good Girls,” which premieres in February, along with finishing S3 of “The Crown” and hitting “Mrs. Maisel,” about which I have heard mixed reviews (and am, appropriately, thusly devastated!). Also, throwing it out there, I’m really not loving all the girl-on-girl stupid drama on “The Bachelor” this season, and my picks for top 3 are Madison, Hannah Ann, and Kelley. We’ll see if I’m proven right!

• Book-wise, I blew through Erin Morgenstern’s “The Starless Sea,” which is a beautiful, lyrical, poetry-adjacent second effort that still can’t rival “The Night Circus” in my pantheon. I also finally got around to devouring “Bad Blood,” John Carreyrou’s fantastic exposé of Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos fraud. Next up: some professional development reading, starting with “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande. And just for fun, probably something by Ruth Reichl…it feels like everyone is reading her these days, and you all know I have terrible literary FOMO.

• Cooking! I made a fantastic Chicken Florentine casserole for which you can find the recipe on page 27 of this bizarre digital magazine. Sadly, I burned the pine nuts while broiling the Parmesan crust, but I like to think it adds depth of flavor (proving I can do the mental gymnastics to justify absolutely everything). I’m also living on soup lately - enjoying this low-cal tomato basil bisque, and my perennial fallback, Italian chicken quinoa stew.

That’s all - enjoy this ridiculous brain dump :)

Bookworm: December 2018

"Although she was a logical, practical person, she believed that in books there existed a kind of magic. Between the aging covers on these shelves, contained in tiny, abstract black marks on sheets of paper, were voices from the past. Voices that reached into the future, into her own life and heart and mind, to tell her what they knew, what they'd learned, what they'd seen, what they'd felt. Wasn't that magic?" - Christi Phillips

Loved:

Educated, Tara Westover: I could hardly put this down - the story of a young woman’s upbringing by a bipolar father and submissive mother in a Mormon fundamentalist family, without education, healthcare or even a birth certificate had me riveted from pretty much the first chapter. Her meteoric rise from a childhood of abuse and deprivation to her current status - a PhD from Cambridge, Harvard masters, best-selling author - is a story that’s equal parts fairy tale and American dream.

Enjoyed:

Becoming, Michelle Obama: I really liked this extremely au courant choice - Michelle Obama has a lovely literary voice that is candid, uncompromising and unapologetic. While I loved the behind-the-scenes glimpses into her life as First Lady, I felt that the book focused almost too much on the pre-Presidential chapters of her life - fascinating though they were.

One Day In December, Josie Silver: This was charming and sweet and exactly the kind of chick lit that one wants to read around the holidays - the story of a young woman who spots her “one true love” through the window of a bus unspools over the course of ten years or so, and illustrates both romantic relationships and female friendships in a way that is sweet without being saccharine. Perfect for those of you heading into long, cold, dark winters.

Winter Storms, Elin Hilderbrand: I was hospitalized at the tail end of the month, and extremely cranky about that fact, so I self-medicated with chick lit. Elin Hilderbrand is a new-to-me author who I’ve had on my “Books To Read” list for the better part of a year, and I really enjoyed this one. I think it was the third in a trilogy, but that said, I still jumped right in and liked the various plot threads of a well-heeled Nantucket family dealing with a POW situation and complex interpersonal dramas.

Nantucket Nights, Elin Hilderbrand: Another Hilderbrand offering I enjoyed - a mysterious disappearance of a mysterious woman off the coast of Nantucket on Labor Day, rife with people sleeping with people they shouldn’t and generally bad but deliciously dramatic situations. A quick, salacious read to power through.

The Royal Runaway, Lindsay Emory: This was truly the nadir of my hospitalization - I read it overnight while kept awake, and it was actually pretty delightful. A princess of a fictional country in Europe teams up with a sexy, mysterious Scottish spy to find out what actually happened to her vanishing fiance, and ends up on a dark and twisty path of murder and intrigue and espionage. SUPER light, super fast, super entertaining. Pretty much Netflix’s “A Christmas Prince” in movie form, but with murder and spies and fraud!

Tolerated:

Nothing - super nice month of reading things I actually enjoyed (or at least was in the right frame of mind for!).

Re-reads:

 Fake Plastic Love, Kimberley Tait: I revisited this in the hospital as well, and it was just as frothy and visually evocative as the first time around. The story of two erstwhile best friends, one a romantic blogger, one a pragmatic banker, growing apart and surviving their twenties together, is sweet but provides an interesting social commentary on the worlds we live in (and construct for ourselves).

Bookworm: November 2018

I had always found comfort between rows and rows of books: some familiar, some foreign, stacks of old friends and piles of new friends to be found.

-Emery Lord, “The Start of Me and You”

I cracked up at this Italian version of “Green Eggs and Ham” in Florence a couple weeks ago - I think Sam I Am would definitely have enjoyed prosciutto ;)

Loved:

Cork Dork, Bianca Bosker: I picked this up in Colorado and ended up staying up my entire late flight home reading it - I’m fascinated with the wine world (which is news to nobody), and this chronicle of a journalist’s decision to attempt to become a certified sommelier - in just a year - was beautifully written, told a unique and riveting story, and taught me so much! Definitely worth a read if you’ve watched any of the “Somm” documentaries on Netflix or have a more than passing interest in wine.

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett: Another CO purchase - I somehow never read this despite its incredible critical acclaim, and I’m so glad I remedied that. The story of a high-profile political/corporate birthday party turned terrorist hostage situation sucked me in after the first chapter. Weaving in so much of the opera world that I love (the only female hostage is a world-famous soprano), the characters were beautifully drawn and the story’s gut-wrenching conclusion rocked me.

Every Note Played, Lisa Genova: This was a random find on Scribd - for serious readers, I really recommend/enjoy the site - telling the story of a world-class concert pianist’s diagnosis and illness with ALS. It additionally chronicles his broken marriage, frayed relationship with his daughter and struggle with his father and siblings - a fiercely intense, gorgeously-written novel. The way Ms. Genova illustrates the ravages of the disease was at times hard to read, but I think good writing sometimes isn’t easy to read…isn’t that the point?

Enjoyed:

Girl, Wash Your Face, Rachel Hollis: Kels recommended this after she read it this summer, and it came at a great time for me to read it. A delightfully witty, self-deprecating self help book, geared at identifying the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves and breaking them down/reframing them to work through or overcome them.

Tolerated:

The Proposal, Jasmine Guillory: I should have liked this more on paper, but I kept finding myself thinking as I read it - “I could’ve written this, and better.” It’s a fairly insipid love story, good for a beach read, nothing to write home about and not particularly memorable.

Re-reads:

Welcome to Temptation, Jennifer Crusie: I had a severe need for some smart chick lit early in the month, and this fit the bill - it’s a typical smutty romance novel, but it’s also witty and incredibly entertaining, with a fresh plot that never really devolved into cliché. There’s also a murder mystery woven in, which I think is why I not only stomached this admittedly atypical read, but returned to it and enjoyed it just as much the second time.

Faking It, Jennifer Crusie: The sequel to “Welcome To Temptation,” and I may like it even better - again, it’s a love story/romance novel, but there’s also plotlines of art forgery and murder, and the characters are anything BUT perfect - quirky and relatable and fun to read. I think that’s maybe what sets Ms. Crusie’s writing apart from the Danielle Steels of the world (ugh, yuck) - her novels, while clearly written to appeal to romance readers, never rely on hackneyed tradition and are well-written and genuinely interesting reads.

The Hopefuls, Jennifer Close: I really enjoyed this novel both the first and second time - the story of two young political families in DC, and their ultimate efforts on a campaign in Texas to get one of the husbands elected to office, paints a fascinating and flawed picture of the political world.

Bookworm: September/October 2018

"Books, the good ones, the ones you hold on to and come back to, they never disappoint. They're the best kind of escape because, instead of leading you away from yourself, they end up circling you back to yourself, nice and easy, helping you see things not just as they are, but as you are too." - Sally Franson

Loved:

Everyone Brave is Forgiven, Chris Cleave: I first read Chris Cleave nearly a decade ago when I studied in London, and I remember being stricken to the core by the brutality and beauty with which he wrote. This latest offering is no exception - a gut-wrenchingly lovely, painful, breath-stealing World War II love/friendship/hate/endurance story that I could not put down, even through the haze of NyQuil. Absolutely gorgeous, a true must-read for anyone who appreciates being simultaneously warmed and burned by literature.

Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel, Val Emmich: Oh my god they turned one of my favorite musicals into a novel, and I adored it. Honestly, this isn’t writing that’s going to set the world on fire or win a Pulitzer - I loved it moreso for the expansion of the characters’ backstories, for the glimpses into the motivations, causes and effects that just can’t be illustrated in a musical. Definitely recommend for fans of the musical, for young adults, for anyone really. (Bonus: it’s an incredibly fast read - at under 300 pages, I finished it in about 3 hours with breaks!)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid: This was SUCH a charming read - mashing up aspects of Marilyn Monroe’s film career and Liz Taylor’s myriad marriages, this story of Hollywood’s golden age and a movie star who played the game better than anyone was a quick, unique and delightful read.

Enjoyed:

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han: I had to read it after the Netflix movie-fication became the breakout hit of August. It was charming, sweet, undemanding young-adult chick lit, with a good female role model and well-drawn love interests and supporting characters. Sweet.

P.S. I Still Love You, Jenny Han: Who knew this was a trilogy? Pretty much more of the same - I would have loved this series a decade-plus ago.

Always and Forever, Lara Jean, Jenny Han: In which our characters finish senior year and prepare to go to college. Again - written SO for teenage Lizzie it’s not even funny.

Three Wishes, Liane Moriarty: I’ve always been a fan of Liane Moriarty’s particular universe of writing - it’s different and interesting while simultaneously unchallenging and quirky and kind of escapist good fun. This offering wasn’t my favorite of hers, but I enjoyed the story of three adult triplets seeking their own identities while dealing with myriad personal and familial demands and complications.

Wideacre, Philippa Gregory: A sort of Georgian horror/mystery/murder/insanity novel chronicling the lengths to which a young gentlewoman will go in order to inherit/keep her family’s estate. Lots of grisly incest-y murdery darkness - it fucked with my head quite intensely and I can’t say I loved it.

The Favored Child, Philippa Gregory: The next generation of the Wideacre story - again, more incest, murder, insanity, screwiness. A good suspenseful read, but it really messed with me.

Meridon, Philippa Gregory: I preferred this to the first two installments of the Wideacre trilogy - the third generation, and the only one with a happy ending.

A Simple Favor, Darcey Bell: I read this because I haven’t yet managed to see the Blake Lively-Anna Kendrick moviefication of the book, and it was DARK, campers. Twisty and rife with plot points I didn’t see coming, and yet at the same time, somehow not actually that well-written. I feel like it was kind of a cheap rip-off of “Gone Girl” and its ilk…hmm.

Tolerated:

The Confession of Katherine Howard, Suzannah Dunn: Eh - this was terribly insipid. I read it in the thick of my Tudor phase, and it hammered home how much more masterful Tudor experts like Philippa Gregory, Jean Plaidy, and Hilary Mantel are at painting a vivid (albeit slightly historically inaccurate) world.

Re-reads:

After my little delve into the world of well-written YA literature, I revisited a favorite YA writer, Emery Lord, who I’ve followed for nearly a decade (she used to write on a blog I read, and was one of the few original and lovely voices there). Her books are just beautiful YA lit - complex characters, unafraid to tackle weightier issues, and deeply textured and specific and place-aware, if that makes sense.

Open Road Summer, Emery Lord: Two best friends on a concert tour deal with their demons.

The Start of Me and You, Emery Lord: A junior in high school works her way back to being okay after her boyfriend’s death.

When We Collided, Emery Lord: Bipolar disorder and depression in a coastal town in Northern California - beautifully handed.

The Names They Gave Us, Emery Lord: Crises of faith and stage 4 cancer. I’m aware I’m making these books sound really uplifting, but I think that’s one of the really great things about YA lit - when it can take things that teenagers actually do face and deal with, and make them both relatable and…tolerably packaged? I always really did well when books captured and distilled a particular intersection of my angst and inability to express myself, essentially doing that work for me. I think Emery Lord is a master (mistress) of that and that’s why I would recommend her highly, whether you’re a young-adult reader or not.

I also continued on my binge of Philippa Gregory in chronological historical order and finished out:

The Boleyn Inheritance: Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and nasty Jane Boleyn - one of my favorites.

The Taming of the Queen: Katherine Parr, and another of my favorites.

The Queen’s Fool: Judaism, the reign of Mary I, and the loss of Calais.

The Virgin’s Lover: the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign, very Robert Dudley-heavy.

The Last Tudor: Eh, I re-read it to complete the cycle and regret that - this story of the three Grey sisters is just as insipid the second time around.