Something nice happened today! I'm clearing room in my weekend schedule for Carrie Fisher.

While old high school classmates are getting married, I'm sitting in bed reading about how dating is a recent social construct 👌

Yes, finally.

"...home alone, I was obsessed with my memorizing torch songs, laments for the unrequited love of a brute..."

Heart-burstingly good.

Reader, I borrowed it.

An ideal time to finally dive into American Gods is the Fourth of July weekend. 🇺🇸

Thorough and engaging, Traister's exploration of single women in America is an inspiring read.

Furiously Happy reads like a transcript from a stand-up routine. It may be nice to listen to, but it makes for hard-to-embrace reading. (I can also admit that I'm a somewhat humorless person!)

Amy Rose Spiegel's Action is the kind of book I wish I had when I was younger.

Maggie Nelson deserves only the most carefully composed Litsy post.

Atmospheric and eco-conscious, Marrow Island is reminiscent of the sort of episode of The X-Files that promises much, but doesn't quite fulfill its potential.

A promising summer read for today's lunch break.

I'll always love Didion, but I wish we'd all talk about Gornick just as much.

"I've never felt that anything I got - any honor, any prize, any decent job - was really legitimately mine." Imposter syndrome in 1971.

This book package was just the nicest thing to find in my mailbox today! I can't wait to read Rob Spillman and Sara Benincasa's latest for some writerly inspiration.

That Bustle quote? That's from my round-up of the 25 best books of 2015. I couldn't be more thrilled/excited to have my first blurb on of my favorite books 🙏

"As far as I could tell, stories may enable us to live, but they also trap us, bring us spectacular pain." - Maggie Nelson

During my lunch break, I actually drove back to my hometown library to pick up The Red Parts. Maggie Nelson is worth it.

"I feel bad." Melissa Broder gets it in So Sad Today.

"Negative things, alternately, are the object truth."

No more reading for me today, I guess.

Specific references aside, this is a good quote on money & compensation that can be applied broadly. #bbhmm

Unsettling. Haunting. The Border of Paradise doesn't shy away from risking transgression. Esme Weijun Wang's effort pays off masterfully in her debut novel.

Malcolm's dissection of biography - as a genre - and of biographies of Sylvia Plath (and by extension Ted Hughes) is brilliant.

"Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother." Janet Malcolm ? #wlclub

"courtship itself is, as often as not, an illusion" Carolyn G. Heilbrun is so good. #wlclub

"men can be men only if women are unambiguously women."

Late to the #wlclub, but wow. Rachel Syme's recs are 🔥🔥🔥

Sara Miles on communion is good.

An elegiac meditation on the origins and workings of desire. Part II is especially moving. Best of 2016 (so far).

Not watching House of Cards...yet

Settling in with Sara Miles' fascinating and beautiful look on faith. Thanks to Nicole Cliffe for the recommendation!

Just translated into English from Finnish, Sinisalo's novel is a terrifying and surreal take on the strict gender roles in an alternate Finland in the very near future. Feminism & chili peppers abound.

It's comparable to Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale? Sign me up.

"And at the time, I didn't believe my body was really mine to navigate. I figured that was what men were for."

I began Re Jane last night, and I'm not quite sure why I put it off. It's wonderful, even without having read Jane Eyre.

From "Nora/Trieste" in The Dead Ladies Project