What Are You Reading?
A new direction.
Hello friends! Hope you’re having a fabulous summer. I’m up in Lake Tahoe, scuttling after my kids with Sun Bum sunscreen sticks. Here’s a photo titled: “Do I break this up or just sit here on these rocks, sip a carton of Liquid Death water, and pretend like they’re a pack of canines?” A common summer dilemma for us boy moms. But overall, we’re having a blast, and have not yet been to urgent care. (That’s the bar for us!)
So, I’m going to take this newsletter in a different direction. Instead of telling people what I’m reading, I’m going to interview the Substackers I love about the books they love. I think this will be way more fun/interesting (for me at least!) My goal is to do this across the Substack niches I follow (fashion! food! motherhood! humor! literature! culture!) to get a good cross-section of tastes.
I’m going to start with
, Head of Design at Substack, deepest thinker I know, and one of my favorite all-around humans. Mills and I go way back to our days working at a floundering/hilarious startup in 2012 (?) and have been friends ever since. He writes one of my must-read Substacks, Rats to Rocks and here’s the quote on his profile: "It is better to say 'I am suffering' than to say 'This landscape is ugly.'" — Simone Weil. Damn.Anyway, I’ll publish that interview when it’s ready! Mills is always reading great stuff!
For now, here’s what I’ve been reading. I’ve been all over the place this summer.
Loved and Missed by Susan Boyt
Stoner by John Williams
Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (re-reading this for the third time. The story I’m working on features a complex female friendship and this novel is the best in show in that arena)
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
The Cost of Ambition by Miroslav Volf
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
- (who also writes a great Substack called This Debut Life)
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by Substack star George Saunders
Next up in my TBR is The Secret History by Donna Tartt and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura Van Den Berg. I also just impulse-bought the newly-released novel Waiting for Britney Spears because I’m an elder millennial woman and am powerless against Britney narratives. Also The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino said it’s good and I usually like her picks.
What are you reading?! And please tell me what you’re watching because I need a show to drool in front of after the kids are in bed. How’s the new Lena Dunham?
I just finished Fishing for the Little Pike by Juhani Karila which is a compelling and delightfully weird novel set in Lapland. A woman must catch a certain pike each summer or die. This summer is different and she must rely on a cast of characters (including folklore creatures) to help her with her quest. I finished it in two days and hugged it when I finished, I loved it so much. It is the best book I have read this summer.
Loved Tell Them You Lied! I’m listening to Jean Hannah Edelstein’s This Really Isn’t About You and I’m going to be so sad when I finish it.