Liz's Pickz 2021!
Liz’s Pickz 2021
It’s that time of year again—the days are short, the nights are long, and Liz has some Pickz for you! A compendium of my favorite books, articles, and miscellany of the year!
BOOKS
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder: I was recently imploring a friend to read this book to which she said she’s been having trouble getting into novels lately. I said, girl, this is journalism.
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz: Never has the figure of the Sad Writer Man been done such delicious justice. A page turner and a half.
Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria: Karens, hold on to your Vera Bradley, Zakaria is coming for YOU!
O Beautiful by Jung Yun: I loved this book so much that I pitched a review of it one million months pregnant.
Mad Men Carousel by Matt Zoller Seitz: One of the best things I did in my maternity leave is re-watch Mad Men in its glorious entirety from the fizzy early 60s to the sad brown-tinged early 70s. I cried at the end, not because of Don’s Coca-Cola commercial revelation but because I was going to miss my FRIENDS! This book has allowed me to tie one on with Roger, Joan and Bobbie Barret (the best ever of Don’s girlfriends, deserving of her own spin-off) for a little longer.
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney: In the hotly contested single slot for
“novel by a man” on this exclusive list, I re-read this over the summer and then urged Scott to do the same, saying, “you’ll be surprised I like this book.” I don’t just like it, I actually love it. I love it for the time and place it depicts, for the precision of the descriptions, and for a New York I’ll never know, a dragon I will spend the rest of my life chasing. It prompted a visit to the Odeon, captured in this picture, that I still regret not posting to the main.
The Siren by Katherine St. John: This book came to me in the middle of one of the shittiest winters on record when I started and abandoned half a dozen allegedly fun beach read-y books, but this one got me through.
Repentance by Eloísa Díaz: It debuted Stateside in November so you should just order it now, you don’t want to be without this political thriller a second longer.
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy: If Rachel Cusk were to say about The Outline trilogy, “Yeah girl, it me,” it would be like this.
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell: Such a 2019 rec, but there is a section here on “maintenance art” aka the repetitive and unvalued work of keeping people alive that really got me.
And some favorite articles of the year:
Laurie Anderson profile
The Secrets of the World’s Greatest Free Diver
On Benches
Ladies in Waiting
Black Hole
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind
Etc.
Kieran Culkin interview
Nicki Minaj hosting Part IV of Potomac reunion: A Master Class in shade, facilitated by a MacArthur genius.
Etel Adnan exhibit at the Guggenheim
Dr. Singha’s Mustard Bath
Charity Pot
Chan Is Missing
And I have a Letter of Anti-Recommendation…. I’m not on Twitter in any meaningful way and I find NextDoor completely antithetical to the kind of community I’d like to live in. I have nowhere else to register this complaint SO!
To the Parents and Guardians of the Students of the International School of Brooklyn:
I know you are French or a momfluencer (Eee-lah-ria wears six inch heels to drop-off, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how reviled she must be by the other moms, delighting me to no end) which apparently exempts you from common decency but YOU MUST STOP BLOCKING THE SIDEWALK OF COURT STREET BETWEEN LUQUER AND NELSON STREETS WHEN YOU DO YOUR PROTRACTED PERFORMATIVE DROP-OFF!!!!! Every morning I almost ram into one of you getting out of a Tesla, or having very involved conversations with one another, probably about unpasteurized cheeses or how you need Americans to rescue you from every armed conflict you flaneur yourself into, while obstructing a busy thoroughfare. Just! Fucking! Move! Over!!!!!!! I have an anxious chihuahua, a spirited three-year-old, a bad attitude and I will bonk you over the head with a baguette. Nah, I’ll probably just give you a dirty look which you register with a shrug as “nor-mahl” and excoriate you in the newsletter of record.
Also, I was noted, briefly, in the New Yorker.
Goddess bless us, every one!