A New Year, A New Book, A New Look
And tons of links!!!
Show me a person who does not love September and I will show you a waiter at the table of September’s success. I love summer as much as the next gal but the energy of young September is glorious. The optimism, perusing fall cultural listings, seeing friends who scattered in the summer, cleaning out drawers and closets, clearing the decks, starting a fresh notebook. The world feels new when it is gearing up to go into hibernation and I LIKE IT! As much as I bemoan Truman’s birthday essentially being Labor Day (too literal), it’s perfect. A new baby in a new year.
You know what else is brand new?
The book formerly known as LOVE LOCKDOWN, reincarnated under the new title LOVE IN THE TIME OF INCARCERATION!
Here’s why: “lockdown” reminds people of Covid, gross. (Wish I could say it was because Kanye sued me—imagine the publicity-- but alas.) The book was originally released in Summer ’21. You may recall the vibes were BAD. I was also very pregnant and even less capable of stringing together coherent sentences, so it seems appropriate and humane that she should get a second shot in a new pink dress.
She drops November 7. Do please pre-order and spread the word, post pics, write reviews, all the machinations of 21st century promotion. I’ve written a new chapter with updates on the couples and the ever-prescient wisdom of Jo. I’M AVAILABLE for press and to talk love, relationships, and prison, so do get at me!
Pre-order here!
Might I recommend:
Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer: I shan’t say this book is about “F_______e F________p” because I feel like that is often reductive and not accurate (the Neapolitan Novels are about work ethic vs. genius, AMA) but Bauer gets to some tensions and questions that are so real and resonant and the girls, I love these girls!
Trying to make better salads!!! Nelly witnessed my big hunks of wet lettuce and shamed me appropriately and I am trying to better respect myself through the art of dicing.
Everything/Nothing/Someone by Alice Carriére- You’ve read the rave reviews everywhere but lemme tell ya, this book makes Running with Scissors look like Goodnight Moon. Come for the gossip, stay for the sublime writing and storytelling.
Dance Craze, a concert video of British ska from 1981, and testament to the fact that not everything survives the test of time but it sure looked fun (Elijah’s review: “It really was a dance craze!”). It was rude to the English Beat to share screentime with some of these other bands as they are superior in every conceivable way. Were I to time travel to 1981 and encounter Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger they’d have to create new laws for the things I would do.
The English Experience by Julie Schumacher is the final in the trilogy, but if you aren’t initiated do please begin with Dear Committee Members for the full Fitger experience, a man we all love/loathe/are. Steve Carrell’s wisdom re Michael Scott applies here: If you don’t know a Fitger, you are a Fitger.
BBC Women’s Hour- The happiest of my happy places
Revisiting the iconic “Rest Stop” episode of This American Life (“There’s my wife, the war department!”)
BOTTOMS I am still not ok in the best possible way from this movie. When Ayo doffed her invisible cap…..DEDD
The Leaving Season by Kelly McMasters: People who self-identify as “essayists” (tell me you have an MFA without telling me) get an automatic eye roll, unless that person is Kelly McMasters who actually is!
Couples Therapy: I’m excruciatingly late to the party, but never has there existed a more loathesome villain than Mau, never a goddess more golden than Orna.
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford audiobook, read by mom herself.