Your Friday Book-y Post
There are some great things I’ve gotten to read recently which I am excited to share with you today! I am THE MOST stoked about Emily Matchar’s Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity (Indiebound | Amazon), which, for some reason, I received three separate copies of, which reminds me of the time I got sent an historical romance novel, and then the same historical romance novel, and then a stuffed swan with the name of the historical romance novel on it. But it worked out, because a) #paidtoblogaboutbookproblems and b) my kid now sleeps with an historical romance novel swan. You know? Fuck it. An historical romance novel a man could read* is One Good Earl Deserves a Lover: The Second Rule of Scandals (Indiebound | Amazon). Thanks for the swan.
ANYWAY, Homeward Bound. I unreservedly loved it. It’s like when you read those trend pieces about six people doing something dumb, or maybe not so dumb, but if you don’t put any time into it, the people will seem dumb? And you think, I wish someone smart would really get at why people are pickling eggs again, or literally never setting their child down on the ground, or quilting, but also talk about the racial and class-based tensions within these ideas, and portray them as complex people who are trying to cope with the basic pervasive ennui of the human condition like everyone else? Well, Emily Matchar has done it. It’s empathetic and funny and thoughtful and smart, and I encourage all of you to read it.
Next, we have a compilation of sixteen (not forty-one, don’t be overwhelmed unnecessarily) of Janet Malcolm’s wondrous creations: Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers (Indiebound | Amazon). Damnit, Janet, why are you so good? Janet Malcolm is so much better than you. Or me, or anyone we know. “Janet Malcolm is Better Than You at Being Alive” is the riot grrl band the world is waiting for. And this new collection is a treasure. When I cracked it open, the first thing I saw was Lytton Strachey asking Vanessa Bell if she had a semen stain on her dress, which is a thing that HAPPENED, obviously, and then we were off to the races. Janet Malcolm is smart in the best way, a way that allows her to write brilliantly about brilliant things without ever making you feel you’re not bright enough to follow along. You will be raised up a level intellectually when you’re done, but you will not give up in frustration. As Bill Murray sort-of said to his girlfriend at the beginning of Stripes, you’ll want to read books on the outside just to keep up with her. She is a wizard and a temptress and a genius.
There are few things in life that give one greater pleasure than being able to recommend the book of a (fake internet) friend in good faith, so I am tickled to tell you to actually pay money for Public Apology: In Which a Man Grapples With a Lifetime of Regret, One Incident at a Time (Indiebound | Amazon), Dave Bry’s exploration of his own awfulness. I laughed, I cried, I lent it to friends. Maybe we would all be better people if we apologized for everything we’ve done wrong, even if they happened twenty years ago and we’re the only one who still knows about it. Dave’s a great writer, and this isn’t a gimmick. But even if it was a gimmick, so is the epistolary novel, or the diary-as-novel, or the multiple-narrator novel, or all the weird and wonderful forms that memoir can take. It’s just a good book. And, for those who prefer their books in picture form, I’m also enjoying this new comic book, Tribute: Marilyn Monroe (Amazon), which is really sweet and pretty and different.
*The last GoT joke I may ever make on The Hairpin. Maybe not, because I’m still gonna do ‘Pin Picks. See you around, kids!
