On Writing
Stephen King
It’s been a while since I read a book focused on writing. Many writing books are useful for thinking about creativity in general or for applying to any type of writing, but this one is geared toward fiction, at least in the specifically advising sections that are technically the core of the book. I actually skipped much of those, as I didn’t find much of the advice helpful and appreciated the memoir parts more.
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Grace
Grace Coddington
As someone who first learned of Grace Coddington from her feisty presence in The September Issue, I felt appropriately chided by the introduction where Coddington declares it “the movie that is the only reason anyone has ever heard of me.” That claim is mostly untrue in terms of the fashion world, but then the average person who saw that documentary is unaware of who edits the spreads in fashion magazines.
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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Jeanette Winterson
I loved Winterson’s first, semi-autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
The Long Goodbye
Meghan O’Rourke
When I read the excerpt from this book in The New Yorker a couple years ago, I wasn’t particularly drawn to read the whole thing. But a copy showed up in a giveaway pile at work, and I wound up turning to it between library holds. I thought I’d put it aside when something else came along but instead wound up determined to finish, staying up late to get to the end.
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Calling Dr. Laura
Nicole Georges
It’s that time of year when I tend to think of Portland and my time living there — now five years distant; so it was fitting that Nicole’s new book came out right now. I read it in one snowy evening, finding many old familiars of that city and of the people. Nicole is someone I knew there, through mutual friends as well as crossing paths at the IPRC, but not incredibly well. I wasn’t aware of most of the story she captures in this graphic memoir, but I suspect that my relative closeness has a lot to do with my enjoyment of the book.
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Wild
Cheryl Strayed
Like many people, I first came across Cheryl Strayed through her column Dear Sugar on the Rumpus, though her identity was still a secret at that point. Sugar’s advice is so unsparingly raw, honest, and compassionate — I think I read all the entries the first time I came across one of them.
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Giving up the Ghost
Eric Nuzum
The story behind this book is a bit more interesting that its execution. In his adolescence, Eric Nuzum was haunted by a recurring dream of a girl in a blue dress screaming at him in gibberish, which lead him to numb himself with various substances and fear what may be lurking behind closed doors. Another girl, Laura, in his waking life was crucial in him managing to overcome this downward spiral. But she died tragically, leaving him with a slightly more tangible ghost to contend with.
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Swimming Studies
Leanne Shapton
The best adjective I’ve seen so far to describe this book is “pointillistic.”¹ Invariably “quietly” will qualify other descriptors, which rightfully suggests it’s a tricky book to recommend to others, especially if you don’t know how it fits in with their usual reading choices. I recently found myself in conversation with someone who revealed her history of competitive swimming and I asked if she’d read this book, then obviously failed to capture its interest potential in one sentence.
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Blue Nights
Joan Didion
A few months ago I saw a reference to Didion's essay "Goodbye to All That" and read it again and remembered that I still hadn't read this semi-follow-up to The Year of Magical Thinking about her daughter Quintana's death. While the first book is primarily about grief, this one is focused more on mortality, and, more specifically, Didion facing hers without her daughter.
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The Principles of Uncertainty
Maira Kalman
Maybe you saw these when they were posted as Maira Kalman's blog on nytimes.com and now it's only available as this book, which is not such a bad thing. It's kind of a comic of paintings while also somewhat of a general elegy on the finiteness of life. People who have died are a recurring theme; even some of the people she mentions visiting back in 2006 have since passed on — Louise Bourgeois, Helen Levitt. But her sense of humor particularly tickles me. I read half of it before bed and the rest with breakfast.
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