The first rule of Fight Club...
Wowza, does it feel like the past three months has been like 6 years? I had forgotten how exhausting it is to live in the Trump times.
A few weeks ago I got a text message from B’s middle school teacher that there had been a 7th grade boys’ “Fight Club” spreadsheet distributed and “Alec” was on there in a time slot to fight in the bathroom. Fun text to receive in the middle of busy workday— and my co-worker, whose son was also on the roster, quipped, “the first rule of Fight Club is you don’t use a teacher accessible spreadsheet.” Fortunately it was sniffed out before the fights began. A few days later B told me that he realized that the school Fight Club was modeled after the movie. Oh ya, you got it buddy.
Evan and I saw this on our trip last week to NYC!
Ok, on to books.
This month I finished an epic journey with Kristin Hannah. I started with The Women, then listened to The Four Winds, The Nightingale and The Great Alone. They are all LONG. I liked The Four Winds the most- it felt so relevant with regard to immigration and public opinion. There’s some cruelty to the reader in these books, not only for the difficult time periods/historical context- but she goes on a bit of a manipulative journey with some characters/plot lines. I will say that all four of these books were immersive, which is helpful these days.
Two more recommendations:
James, by Percival Everett - worth the very long Libby wait!
Written in the Waters, by Tara Roberts
My dear friend Jess Striebel met Tara at an archeology conference recently. She is a Mount Holyoke alum and her book is magnificent. I love a memoir! The book details her journey to learn how to scuba dive- and her work with Diving with a Purpose - an underwater archeology group that gathers information and artifacts from wrecked slave ships.
Currently reading: The Reformatory, by Tananarive Due; Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family, by Patrick Radden Keefe (he wrote Say Nothing!); 44 Poems on Being with Each Other, by Padraig O Tuama; and Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May.
Sending you all love and light and some tiny morsels of joy like this precious baby girl Samantha Josephine McGrath who we met in Park Slope on Thursday along with her handsome father.
