Hi friends — It’s been a minute. I hope you’ll forgive my absence. A few life curve balls added up to a hard spring that meant I didn’t make time for my newsletter. However, recent changes announced by Instagram reignited my desire to have a steady, simple space to share my thoughts without having to learn how to become a video editor.
I hope you enjoy this month’s round-up of books, food, advocacy opportunities, and miscellaneous delights.
Take care,
Holly
Bookshelf
Rather than giving you a whole round up of the last five months, I’ve focused on some notable reads. For more full reading history, find me on StoryGraph & GoodReads. I promise future bookshelf sections won’t be quite this long!
My most recent finish will easily land in my top ten for the year. Bewilderment by Richard Powers is an epigrammatic, parable-like novel set in Madison, Wisconsin, following an astrophysicist widower and his young, neurodiverse son named Robin. The two are attempting to navigate the increasingly their unstable world, on the personal level of loss & in terms of climate change and political unrest. When Robin is threatened with expulsion for an outburst at school, his father must come up with a plan for his mental well-being and education. He enrolls him in a neurofeedback study happening at his university, which sets in motion the rest of the book.
This book knocked the wind out of me, my goodness. Reading it felt like seeing coral reef but without an oxygen tank, beautiful and panicky all at once. I was particularly moved by the way Robin saw the world & how his neurodiversity was portrayed with tenderness and honesty. Among the many passages I highlighted, this one stuck out in particular:
"Maybe his reactions are entirely understandable."
"What do you mean?" I asked, although my neck hair knew.
His frown was remarkably like his smile. "Clinicians and theorists are rarely going to agree on what constitutes mental health. Is it the ability to function productively in hard conditions? Or is it more a matter of appropriate response? Constant, cheerful optimism may not be the healthiest reaction to..." He nodded at the TV.
I had an awful thought: Maybe the last few months of neural feedback were hurting Robbie. In the face of the world's basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering. The question wasn't why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.
Kate from @treatyoshelvess encouraged me to read this, and I am grateful she did.
Other standouts from the first half of 2022 include:
Fight Night by Miriam Toews, a slice-of-life novel featuring a nine-year-old protagonist named Swiv who has been suspended from school for fighting. Her single mother has to work to keep the family afloat, so Swiv lands in the somewhat unconventional but very loving care of her grandmother. Toews manages to explore many heavy themes like mental illness & spiritual abuse with wit and tenderness. The book is full of exceptionally poignant observations that resist the pull towards sanctimony or excessive sentimentality. I loved every last bit of it. (Oh, and it makes an excellent audiobook, read by the author and her teenage daughter).
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki took me by surprise. The story follows Benny Oh, a young teenager whose beloved father recently died abruptly. He and his mother, Annabel, deal with the loss in their own ways, Benny retreating further and further into himself and Annabel starting to hoard. When Benny starts to hear voices and realizes that they are coming from the things around him, it kicks off the novel’s main thread, exploring the various ways that mental illness and grief can manifest and the power of found family to navigate it all. This was easily one of the most creative books I’ve read in a good while.
Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen Kirby is a funny, imaginative, biting short story collection. Kirby plays with creative structures like WikiHow articles and Yelp reviews to deliver derisory observations about women’s presence and gendered social expectations throughout history. The book’s title is actually a fragment of the first story’s full name: Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn’t Tell the Trojans Because At That Point Fuck Them Anyway. Your reaction to that heading will give you a good idea if this book might be your jam.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green is just downright incredible. I picked it up reluctantly after the urging of several people finally broke down my entirely baseless resistance. Thank goodness I did, because this book was wonderful. A collection of essays about things in the Anthropocene (Nat Geo: “an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth's history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems”), from an Icelandic hot dog stand to the Indy 500, this book reachs far and wide. John Green writes with so much heart and curiosity and sincerity. It made me cry and laugh and think and feel. I listened on Libro.FM where John Green narrates it himself — definitely the way to go, if you ask me, especially because there are a couple of essay that have audio features which are enriched tremendously by the performance.
Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne was my first romance read! My coworker Amanda has been banging the romance drum and finally convinced me to give this charming book a try. In Second First Impressions, the 20-something main character Ruthie runs a retirement village where she lives and spends virtually all her time. When the owner’s son is sent to live there as penance for a youthful transgression, Ruthie’s orderly and quiet world gets quite a bit more unpredictable. I found Ruthie entirely endearing and the secondary characters seriously fun. A sweet, closed-door romance that broke me into the genre!
Unreconciled by Jesse Wente is a truly phenomenal memoir. Wente is an Ojibwe film critic from Toronto who uses his own story to highlight the ways that Canada has failed to reconcile with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples despite the feigned social and political focus on the subject. With humor and clarity, Wente shares about his family in Serpent River, his absolute love of movies, his radio career, and his activism on behalf of the wider Indigenous community. This book belongs alongside Minor Feelings (Cathy Park Hong) and White Tears / Brown Scars (Ruby Hamad).
Tell Everyone On This Train I Love Them by Maeve Higgins is an essay collection teeming with compassionate curiosity. Higgins peeks under the rocks of America from the bemused but charmed view of an immigrant writer, hitting on topic ranging from Paper Source to Border Patrol to 90-Day Fiance. What makes this book particularly good is Higgins’s openness. She doesn’t approach any topic looking for a fight, fists balled and poised to strike. Instead, she optimistically views humanity has generally alright, albeit peculiar and often rather foolish.
In case you didn’t know, I run WORD’s Show Me the Women book club. So far in 2022, we’ve read a real range of stories including: the dramatic account of two women central to a Gilded Age bohemian artists’ colony (The Gilded Edge), the life story of exiled Black Panther Assata Shakur (Assata: An Autobiography), a compilation of con women from the 1700s in France up to modern times (Confidence Women), a memoir from a woman who grew up in a remote matrilineal society in the mountains of China (Leaving Mother Lake), and a scholarly exploration of heroine narratives through time (The Heroine with 1,001 Faces). Honestly, they have all been good so far. I was especially taken by the Gilded Edge because Catherine Prendergast did such a thorough reconstruction of Nora May French’s and Carrie Sterling’s lives from records that were meant to erase their impacts. Also, even though The Heroine With 1,001 Faces was the most academic of the books, it was deeply fascinating with original ideas that prompted rich discussion. And, as far as memoirs are concerned, Leaving Mother Lake was very well done. I found it refreshing to read about culture that was new to me but to have the story not hinge on some deep trauma or abuse.
Finally, unfortunately not all books can be a hit. I was disappointed with O Beautiful by Jung Yun and The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk. I name these not to throw shade, but because there are so many good books in the world and so little time, I’d like to steer you to the ones I think are worth your attention.
For regular posts & reviews, follow along at @fromhollysbookshelf and in my Bookshop storefront. For my monthly staff picks, visit my WORD page.
*Note: Links listed above are to Bookshop, where I'm an affiliate. I make a small commission off any purchases using those links, and Bookshop uses its profits to support local bookstores. If you have a favorite indie shop, please purchase from them instead!
Kitchen
Jackson and I are both currently quite obsessed with the Maman cookbook, especially because of the creative sandwiches that have made excellent lunch options for us. Their secret sauce is…. sauce. No really, the things they think to throw together in a blender is astounding, elevating a sandwich or salad to something uniquely delicious.
Bibiane Sandwich
From maman: the cookbook | Makes 4 sandwiches
Ingredients
• 2 cups (80 g) packed baby kale leaves
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1.5 cups (338 g) ricotta cheese
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
• 3/4 cup (100 g) peas (fresh or frozen & thawed)
• 8 large slices country bread
• 8 slices (approx. 5.5 oz) sharp white cheddar
• 1/2 cup pickled red onions
• 12 thin slices roast turkey breast
• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Directions
Make the spread: In a food processor, combine the kale and garlic. Process until finely chopped, then transfer to a small bowl. Once again in the food processor, combine the ricotta, lemon juice, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and pepper flakes. Process until very smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add back the chopped kale mixture. Add in the peas, and pulse about 5 times, until the ingredients are well-mixed and the spread is mostly smooth.
Make the sandwiches: Place 4 slices of bread on a cutting board and layer each with cheddar, some pickled onions, and turkey breast. Spread some of the kale pea ricotta spread on each of the remaining slices of bread and close up the sandwiches. Head 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, add 2 sandwiches to the skillet, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until the bread is a deep golden brown. Flip over, cover, and cook another two minutes, or until the other side is similarly browned and the cheese is melted. Repeat for the remaining two sandwiches using the remaining olive oil. Let sandwiches rest for a minute, then halve diagonally and serve.
For snippets of our home cooking with occasional tips & recipes, follow along at @fromhollyskitchen.
Miscellany
A bookstore customer recently turned me on to Ada Limón’s podcast, The Slowdown. I have never been particularly into poetry — it always felt a little unapproachable to me — but these short episodes of read-aloud works are just lovely. I’ve started incorporating them into my morning playlist.
I’ve shared before about Kendall Vanderslice (author of We Will Feast) & her nonprofit, Edible Theology. Recently, they launched an Indiegogo campaign to cover costs of their next stage of growth. Kendall’s vision and determination have really built steam around the Edible Theology curriculum offerings bridging food, faith, and culture.
Would it be a Holly miscellany section without something to do with ethical fashion? I’ve joined a clothing swap app called Isthmus that has a list of accepted slow-fashion brands. It’s been so fun to trade clothing with folks, knowing what we’re exchanging is good quality. It’s also introduced me to some new companies I didn’t know about. Let me know if you’d like an invite code. I would post a general link, but they are one-use.
And, on the off chance you haven’t yet seen it, I have lost track of how many times I’ve watched this Apple-ringtones-as-interpretive-dance reel.
Wishing you all the best. Please feel free to pass along the link to my newsletter if you think someone else might be interested in my bits and bobs.
Warmly,
Holly