Hello at the end of another unplanned hiatus. Between my work promotion and a whole lotta life happening, I’ve been behind on my newsletter writing. But I’d love to turn that ship around and return to my regular rhythms, especially as we head into 2022. In this issue, you’ll find a round up of the books I’ve read since we last spoke, a tasty cookie recipe, and a few miscellaneous links including a few gift ideas.
Take care,
Holly
Bookshelf
Reads in September
Our Show Me the Women read was Nadia Murad’s The Last Girl, chronicling her experience as an ISIS sabaya (sex slave), harrowing escape, and advocacy for her Yazidi community. It was stunningly written — Murad is honest, descriptive, and incredible strong. I learned a lot about the region and had to repeatedly confront that this all took place in the last decade. I really recommend it.
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy was a surprise for me. It’s a literary fiction set in the early days of a climate catastrophe when all but one species of bird has gone extinct. The protagonist, Franny, is an eccentric, mysterious woman who is tracking what is believed to be the Arctic Tern’s final migration. As the story unfolds, Franny’s shrouded history comes into focus. I found the book is unsettling, gripping, and very memorable.
I listened to The Snow Line by Tessa McWatt via Libro.FM. The premise is a promising one: the book follows a ragtag group of a wedding guests in India as they do a bit of exploring after the ceremony in an effort to find a good spot to spread the ashes of the eldest member’s recently deceased spouse. Unfortunately, I did not love it. I honestly can’t remember the last time I finished a book and felt entirely neutral towards it. There were lines that made me smile and parts that made me scowl, but on the whole I was underwhelmed.
Lots of people are familiar with Anthony Doerr’s World War II historical fiction, All the Light We Cannot See, making his latest epic story highly anticipated. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a genre-melding tome that covers 1400s Turkey up through a few hundred years in the future from now. The 600+ pages introduce a cast of characters who are loosely connected through physical objects and a general desire to do the best they can in an otherwise crumbling world. On the whole I really enjoyed this book, but I’d be remiss to not note a few critical reviews that raise two important points. First, one of the protagonists Seymour is coded as neurodiverse and while Doerr seems to be trying to give him a full-fledged, multi-dimensional character, the arc employs tropes and stereotypes that are ultimately problematic. Secondly, an underlying theme of the more modern storylines is the impending catastrophic climate crisis. Without getting into spoilers, Cloud Cuckoo Land leaves something to be desired in the messaging around what matters when addressing the ways we have ravaged the earth.
Reads in October
In another installment for the Show Me the Women book club, we read New Women of the Old West by Winifred Gallagher who wrote one of my favorite nonfiction reads of 2020 (How the Post Office Created America). Unfortunately, this one was not as strong in my opinion. In New Women of the Old West, Gallagher offers portraits of some of the incredible women in the American West who lead the way on fighting for women’s rights. I learned a lot, especially around how flawed it is that much of our literature and education when it comes to the suffrage movement is East-Coast-centric. However, Gallagher had a frustrating habit of implying dispensation for the harms done to Indigenous communities by way of Manifest Destiny-inspired Westward expansion that severely undercut the power of her book.
I finally picked up Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, at the urging of everyone in my life who has already done so. I’m already a Backman fan — Beartown remains one of the best fictional books I’ve ever read. Anxious People was different in that it felt a bit lighter than the other Backman books I’ve read, but it was just as astute and human. The storyline takes place over the course of a day when an inept bank robber ends up with a room full of hostages on accident. The reader is introduced to the arbitrary cast of characters and learns about their hopes, dreams, and flaws. As suggested, I listened to this on on Libro.FM and the narration was truly exceptional.
Reads in November
The November read for Show Me the Women was Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s When Women Invented Television. Well-researched, compelling, interesting — this one checked the boxes for my kind of nonfiction! Armstrong expertly chronicles the early careers of Betty White, Hazel Scott, Irma Phillips, and Gertrude Berg. The title is not an exaggeration: these four women pioneered the way we experience television today, from soap operas to talk-shows to sitcoms. As was true with radio, women and minorities were guinea pigs for the new medium before powerful white men took over the industry, and Armstrong covers their unique experiences engagingly. Something that stuck out to me in particular was the huge role of McCarthyism in the culture of early television (and media in general). If “untold stories” are your jam, definitely add this book to your list.
At the end of October I was looking for something spooky but not scary, a thriller that would grip me but not keep me up at night. I picked up Madam from the library and it did the trick, though I can’t say it was an especially excellent book. The story follows a young teacher in the UK in the 90s when she is recruited to be the head of classics at a prestigious remote all-girls boarding school in the Scottish Highlands. The entire experience is eerie as she begins to piece together that the school is not a typical one and there is certainly something sinister happening around her.
See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur will certainly make my list of favorite memoirs. In the book she reflects on her experience as a Sikh woman in America and her activism that was catalyzed by seeing post-9/11 hate crimes against her community. I knew so little about Sikhism going into the book and Kaur does a beautiful job of sharing her journey. She has lived many lives as she has documented tragedies, earned a law degree, and organized community actions across the country. A truly excellent read.
Known for her delightful, irreverent science writing, Mary Roach discusses human-nature conflict and all the various (sometimes misguided) ways we deal with it in her newest book, Fuzz. From crime scene investigators who are trained in animal bite forensics to the priests who have to decide which pesticides are OK to use at the Vatican, the people Roach interviews have the sort of jobs you never knew existed but are chock full of weird knowledge. I sort of want to be her — this book felt like she did a Wikipedia deep-dive and decided the info was insufficient so she spent a few years trotting around the globe finding her own answers.
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
Every year I make cookies for the staff of our apartment building. I’ve got a number of recipes I like to use, but I’m partial to this one because they feel festive in a nostalgic, cozy sort of way.
Old-Fashioned Ice Oatmeal Cookies
From Rebecca Firth’s The Cookie Book | Makes 36 cookies
Ingredients
• 8 tablespoons (115 g) unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup (79 ml) sunflower seed oil
• 1.25 cups (263 g) light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup (48 g) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) real vanilla extract
• 2 cups (182 g) old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1.25 cups (170 g) all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup (90 g) white whole wheat flour (Note from Holly: this specific ingredient is important! Don’t skip or sub it!)
• 3 teaspoons (11 g) baking powder
• 2 teaspoons (5 g) cinnamon
• 1.5 teaspoons (7 g) sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1.25 cups (195 g) powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) milk
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375*F and place a rack in the top third of the oven. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
Microwave the butter in large bowl on high for 30-60 seconds, until melted. Set aside to cool for a minute or so. Once cooled slightly, whisky in the oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
In a high-speed blender or food processor fitted with the blade, pule the oats until they are coarsely chopped. Some bits will be fine and dusty, others more substantial; this is fine. Add the oats to a medium bowl and whisk with the AP flour, white whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sea salt, baking soda, cardamom, and nutmeg. Pour this into the butter mixture and stir until just combined. Let sit on the counter for 10 minutes (doing this will make the dough easier to roll). Gently roll 1.5 tablespoons (21 g) of dough into a ball and place on a baking sheet, spacing with 2 inches between each.
Bake one sheet at a time for 8 minutes, then take the sheet out of the oven and drop the baking sheet twice on the counter and place back in the oven for one minute more (so total bake time is 9 minutes). Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.
To make the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla bean seeds in a medium bowl. Add more milk in 1 tsp increments, if necessary, to get the desired consistency (Note from Holly: You want it to be a little loose but not runny. If you pull a spoon up from the mix and it makes a slow but steady stream back down, you’ve nailed it). Take each (cooled!) cookie and dip, top-down, into the icing bowl. Don’t submerge the cookie — you just want the icing to coat the top. Let the cookie drip over the bowl for a few moments before setting back (right-side-up!) onto the rack.
For snippets of my home cooking with occasional tips & recipes, follow along at @fromhollyskitchen.
Miscellany
Are you into the whole matching-pajamas-for-the-whole-family thing? Well, one of my favorite ethical clothing stores Threads 4 Thought now has a line so you can participate without actively contributing to fast fashion. Woohoo!
My friend Denise runs a stationary store on Etsy and they have some truly lovely letter writing sheets with matching envelopes. They’d be perfect for writing holiday notes or gifting to the snail mailer in your life.
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably heard me talk about Bombas socks. They are downright magical AND they give specially-designed pairs to local homeless shelters. Stuff some socks in your stockings this year. I’m not exaggerating that they are a favorite under the tree with my family each year.
Every year I look forward to Sarah Bessey’s Gift Guide to Empower. She puts a ton of effort into compiling a host of recommendations for businesses that are actively doing good.
I’m a board member of an organization called Rise that connects, equips, empowers women with the goal of making the church a place where women thrive. If you’d like to donate to set us up for success in 2022, I’ve got an Instagram fundraiser live here.
Ready for a truly wonderful moment of delight? Where does the comma go in God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman?
Wishing you warm holidays! See you in a few weeks.
All my best,
Holly