Hi there,
We are just a week or so past summer solstice, so the days are long and warm. Jackson and I are getting ready to host our annual Fourth of July party and firework viewing. We also are excited to be moving to a new apartment (with 2 bedrooms!) within our building in a couple weeks. If you follow me on Instagram, expect even more sunset pictures. Hope your summers are going well & you have plans for something that brings you joy.
Take care,
Holly
Bookshelf
After a few months of hit & miss books, this month was full of winners — hallelujah! Half fiction and half nonfiction and I’d recommend them all.
Reads in June
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong | ★★★★★
A memoir-infused essay collection, Minor Feelings offers a candid, incisive reflection on a variety of topics related to art, Asian American identity, performance, and relationship. It is obvious when reading this book that Hong’s primary medium is poetry. Along with sentences steeped intention, rich vocabulary permeates each chapter and gives the personal, thoughtful reflections an urgency and intensity that makes this book particularly remarkable.
A recurring theme was Hong’s internal tension between being a token Asian American voice — expected to represent a wide swath of uncollapsible identities — and so deeply not wanting that role. Ironically, I think the book’s subtitle is misleading in this way. The book covers such an array of topics and wrestles with the bifurcation experienced by those who are simultaneously privileged and oppressed. Naming it as an “Asian American reckoning” is, in my opinion, somewhat flattening.
All that to say: I’d really encourage you to read this book. It’s important and deliberate and raw. I learned a lot but beyond that, I feel grateful to have experienced Hong’s incredible writing.
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin | ★★★★★
*Publishes July 9, 2021
I loved this book.
Gilda, the protagonist, is a lesbian, atheist in her late-twenties who is wildly anxious and deeply awkward. After receiving a flier for mental health services, she ends up at a Catholic church, is mistaken for a job applicant, and is offered the position of secretary. Desperate for work, Gilda accepts, though doing so requires a significant amount of identity-masking. She also must learn some of the rhythms of her new setting, which provides its own source of comedy. Kindhearted yet debilitated by both fear & apathy, Gilda makes for a maladroit heroine that must attempt to function as a human with her chaotic emotions as a soundtrack.
Austin wrote Gilda’s inner monologues with deftness and humor and humanity all baked in. What I loved most about it was how real the depictions of anxiety and depression are. I related to her panicky moments as she thought about things like the vastness of the universe and the insanity of skeletons. Of specific importance: the tone is not nihilistic, simply overwhelmed. Moments of poignancy are scattered throughout and made my heart swell.
As an aside: I’m still cracking up at a review I saw on Goodreads that said something like “The main character is like, really fixated on death.” I’d have hoped the title would have been a giveaway! Oh well, to each their own.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore | ★★★★☆
When radium was discovered by the Curies at the turn of the century, it became something of a global phenomenon. Due to its luminescent quality, it was used to make watch faces and aircraft dials glow in the dark. Enter: the radium girls. These young women used a technique called lip-pointing to make their brush tips as narrow as possible. This meant putting the paint in their mouths, repeatedly, for the duration of their employment. At first, the dangers of radium were unknown (by the general public), then minimized, then outright denied. Unfortunately, these women would come to carry the truth in their bodies, over time dying gruesomely in alarming numbers from a previously-unstudied type of poisoning.
The book moves at a steady clip, imbuing with humanity the girls whose lives were treated as disposable. Bravely, a number of them stood up to the industry and fought for new worker protections and updated workers-comp-approved conditions, even with terminal diagnoses. What made this story particularly gripping was how relatively recently this took place (about a as well as the eerie arguments used to discredit science, echoing a lot of present-day rhetoric. And, as is always true with these types of book, these women embodied resilience even though, had everyone acted compassionately and humanely from the get-go, they wouldn’t have been called to such bravery.
Site Fidelity by Claire Boyles | ★★★★★
This collection of short stories is set in and around Colorado, with themes of environmentalism, our responsibilities to those around us, economic hardship, and resilience in the face of difficulty. I loved the way Boyles cultivated the setting in each story, with atmospheric language and winsome characters. She has a masterful way of making observations in subtle, tender ways and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
For regular posts & reviews, follow along at @fromhollysbookshelf and in my Bookshop storefront. For my monthly staff picks, visit my WORD page.
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Kitchen
This recipe has become a go-to lunch for us. It’s very delicious and filling and doesn’t have the same creamy heaviness that characterizes lots of pasta salads. It also makes a lot more than the stated 6 servings and keeps pretty well in the fridge.
Dad’s Simple Pasta Salad
From Half Baked Harvest | Serves 6
*Below is my slightly modified version based on our preferences!
Ingredients
• 1 lb short-cut pasta, such as fusilli
• 1.5 cups basil pesto
• 1.5 cups sharp cheddar cheese, cut into cubes
• 1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained & chopped
• 1/2 cup pepperoni, diced
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 fresh basil leaves, torn
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted (Note from Holly: don’t skip the toasting! It dramatically deepens the flavor and is absolutely worth the extra few minutes of prep)
Directions
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and transfer to a large serving bowl.
While pasta is still hot, add the pesto, cheddar, and broccoli. Toss well to to combine. Add the bell pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, pepperoni, lemon juice, cherry tomatoes, basil, and pine nuts. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Can be served warm or cold.
For snippets of my home cooking with occasional tips & recipes, follow along at @fromhollyskitchen.
Miscellany
I recently learned about Duende District, an organization that does curated pop-up bookshops that highlight writers of color. They have a Bookshop page if there are no sites near you.
I shared this last month, but given that graves continue to be revealed, I wanted to re-iterate the importance: the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Society supports Indigenous people who are dealing with inter-generational traumas wrought by the boarding schools. Please donate if you can.
As we get back to “normal” post-vaccine, we all get to spend time in those stranger-filled places like coffee shops and airports. I loved this New Yorker reflection on eavesdropping in a pandemic.
Have you ever read a Fredrik Backman book? He is an excellent writer, in both novels and essays. I really enjoyed his piece in The Guardian about fatherhood.
Another article recommendation: How The Personal Computer Broke the Human Body. Get your steps in, folks! Make sure to sit up straight!
My friend’s husband Andy is part of a team putting together a book of rock-climbing-themed poetry and using the proceeds to rehab some routes around the country. Their Kickstarter has a few more days — can you pitch in or share it with someone who might be interested?
Finally, my dear high school friend Clare Elich just released her first single: Tully. She has such a magical voice and if you like folksy music, you will certainly love it. Go give her all the Spotify & Apple Music plays!
Instead of a moment of delight this month, I offer a moment of awe: the most detailed images of a cell, as captured by radiography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and cryoelectron microscopy. It blew my mind when I first saw it and I haven’t stopped thinking about it!
I’m thankful that you’d join me here! See you in a few weeks.
Warmly,
Holly