Hey, friends.

Sorry it’s been a few weeks since I wrote to you. I kept intending to, but these past two weeks I’ve been dogged by a recurring neck-and-shoulder issue. Another personal outcome of what Leah Finnegan is calling The Saddening. It appears to be on the mend now. Although I’ve been trying to do 3-4 hours a week of yoga all year, it’s been too hot to walk and I’ve taken to sitting on the couch a lot more than I used to. There used to be more errands to run, more reasons to walk a few hundred steps before sitting in a different chair. Maybe those smartwatch alerts that bully you into getting up to walk around are onto something after all.

How are you getting on? I feel a little more refreshed after finally getting out to the Monterey Bay for a wee day trip. My husband golfed and I took a walk on 17 Mile Drive and wandered around town for a few hours. It was a real salve.
 

SPACES & PLACES

Jean Hannah Edelstein, like me, lives in the US while her family lives in Glasgow, Scotland. “We’ve had the privilege of seeing immigration as a force for good in our families: for opportunity, adventure, variety. But now, we’re reconsidering our choices in ways that we’ve never imagined we would.” Phewph. We were a little more realistic, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Following a conversation with a friend about liminal spaces and “edgelands” (a concept from environmentalist Marion Shoard), I revisited Jenny Odell’s how to do nothing from 2017. It’s about rose gardens, public space, ways of working, and birding. She adapted it into a book shortly thereafter, though I haven’t read it yet.

This one, from By Caroline Randall Williams, is very powerful: You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument.

America’s First Female Recession. We knew from the beginning that women would be disproportionately affected by any recession/depression caused by this pandemic – but the numbers in this piece are just nuts. “In three months, women lost a decade’s worth of economic advancement.”

You may recall that my husband and I watch a lot of baseball. Plagueball has been… weird… but there was a little joy in it last week. San Francisco’s stadium is right on the water at McCovey Cove, and several people hang out in kayaks hoping to catch balls that are hit out of the park over right field and into the water. There’s one guy known as McCovey Dave who has caught the most “splash hits”. Last week, he caught Mike Yastrzemski’s first splash hit, taking a dive himself in the process. So the SF gate wrote a feature on him.

An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by Sophie Haigney

When things feel out of control, I like to take a longer view of history. If you do, too, check out this story about a 390-year-old bonsai tree that survived an atomic bomb. “One of the things that makes it so special is, if you imagine, somebody has attended to that tree every day since 1625,” Sustic said. “I always like to say bonsai is like a verb. It’s not a noun; it’s doing.”

WIT MONTH, IS IT?

August is Women in Translation month – or #WITMonth – which I can’t help reading as “whit month?” (“Whit” being our charmingly slack-mouthed way of saying, “What” in Scotland, in case you aren’t following.)

I don’t generally prioritise reading to theme, but since I only had a couple of books by women in translation on my shelves I might as well give them a look. I’ve started A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux, a French author whose work has been recently republished by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Her style of memoir is very insightful. She often scrutinises her memories and diaries side-by-side, interrogating them for key differences. Here, she refers to her past self in the third person and her present self in the first. She also references time and place alongside popular culture, making sights and sounds and the cultural ephemera in the air part of the atmosphere. (People loved The Years for this, I’m preferring A Girl’s Story thus far.)

Next on my TBR is Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda, a Catalan author. I bought this after Michael replied to a previous Reading Week saying they were enjoying it. Thanks, Michael, for the tip!

Since then I’ve also bought another of Rodoreda’s novels from Open Letter Books. They’re offering 40% off all of their titles which are written by and/or translated by women. I went for:
Four by Four by Sara Mesa, translated by Katie Whittemore
War, So Much War by Mercè Rodoreda, translated by Maruxa Relaño & Martha Tennent
The Things We Don’t Do by Andrés Neuman, translated by Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia

I can also recommend Alejandro Zambra’s The Private Lives of Trees, translated by Megan MacDowell.

In related, here’s an interview with Christina MacSweeney, who has translated all of Valeria Luiselli’s wonderful work.

ON MY NIGHTSTAND

I’ve read loads this past month, but feel I lave little to show for it. This is, perhaps, partly because I started a reading journal where I can scribble down thoughts and have arguments with myself. It’s been fun. We almost always agree. But it does reduce my urge to yell about books publicly a little.

Many of my recent reads have been slim little volumes. A few highlights? I loved Birthday by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews. He wrote it on the occasion of his 50th birthday, he’s now 71. I was expecting a novelita but it’s a memoir about writing and gaps in knowledge. It reminded me a little of Patti Smith’s Devotion, in which she travels and elucidates how she works. Similarly I quite enjoyed Zadie Smith’s Intimations, a miniature collection of 6 essays written during lockdown. One comprises mostly of character vignettes, others take on various aspects of pandemic life.

Finally, I also picked up a reissue of Dorothy Strachey’s (also billed as Dorothy Bussey) Olivia – an autobiographical novel about an English schoolgirl who goes to French finishing school and becomes infatuated with her teacher. The new edition has a touching introduction from André Aciman, who credits the book as his inspiration for Call Me By Your Name. It was a sumptuous read, very impassioned, and surprisingly dramatic for its length of precisely 100 pages. I really enjoyed it.
 

TIL NEXT TIME

Your turn! How’s it going? What are you reading? Leave a reply or go ahead and tweet me.

Stay safe,
Nicola x

 
Hey, friends.

I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy. It’s been quite a month.

In this series of links and letters I’ve always tried to give you a little respite from the headlines of the day. I like finding different perspectives on what’s front-of-mind but I generally avoid the news cycle. The thing is that right now we are dealing with situations which are 1. immediate and 2. things that a lot of people don’t have the luxury of seeking respite from. The pandemic continues, police brutality continues (despite being given great attention and scrutiny), and the systematically oppressive regimes in our countries continue. I imagine that you, like me, have been giving these topics some additional attention.

This week I’m going to break with tradition and share some links on the topics that have overtaken our lives over the past few weeks.

THE OMNICRISIS

In This Pandemic, Personal Echoes of the AIDS Crisis. Alexander Chee asks, “Are the parallels in the nature of the viruses, or just an old story about America that had never changed?” The resemblance is striking.

So much of this crisis has been born out of wishful thinking. Buzzfeed’s Tom Gara says, Just Wait For August.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck makes an argument for Why We Should All Be Keeping Coronavirus Journals.

Here’s a related note:

Fascinating detail on gender and history writing: In women's memoirs of Kristallnacht, the focus isn't on the broken glass (of shopfronts and synagogues) but on marauders invading homes, destroying feather blankets and pillows and shaking them out everywhere.

— Ruth Franklin (@ruth_franklin) June 17, 2020

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Karen Attiah effectively imagined How Western media would cover Minneapolis it it happened in another country. This one took me back to my early days as a media student in 2005, when so much of our news coverage was about the war in Iraq.

A boot is crushing the neck of American democracy – Cornell West.

Alex S Ativale says, The answer to police violence is not ‘reform’. It’s defunding. Here’s why.

Didi from the book blog Brown Girl Reading has been encouraging people to read book by black authors from all over the diaspora for years now using the hashtag #ReadSoulLit. Now you can follow Read Soul Lit on Instagram.

There have been tons of resources, petitions, and donation funds floating around the internet for weeks now. If you’re still on the look-out, check out this page. I’ve personally donated to, and encourage you to donate to, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Critical Resistance, Know Your Rights Camp, and Assata’s Daughters.

A poem: Bullet Points by Jericho Brown.

ON MY BOOKSHELVES

I’ve been reprioritising my to-read list over these past few weeks. That has involved thinking about where I get my recommendations, how books find their way onto my shelves, and whether it’s an accident that some of these have lingered on the list for years. I’ve also bought a bunch of books that had been on my to-read list for years but never made it onto my shelves, including Small Island by Andrea Levy, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, and Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin.

There have also been several free and discounted books about social justice being circulated online over the past few weeks. Verso Books has 40% off all titles for a few more days. I downloaded The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale, If They Come in the Morning... Edited by Angela Y. Davis, and The US Antifascism Reader Edited by Bill V. Mullen and Christopher Vials –– which is currently free. 

From Haymarket Books, you can also download Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? for free.

In Celebration of Bookstores Reopening – Monika Zgustova on Reading and Resistance.

ON MY NIGHTSTAND

This week I read Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, which also topped the UK bestseller lists. It belonged there when it first came out. It is an excellent primer on the history and structural elements of racism in the UK. I found it stronger in its historical elements and in the assessments of issues like class and life chances than its more of-the-moment media analysis elements. The final chapter became a little circular and wasn’t as coherent as some of the other sections of the book. My timing has hindered its effect a little; though the final added chapter with a reassessment from late 2017 gave some follow-up and clarity to some earlier references. Definitely a worthwhile read for all British people.

I also picked up Passing by Nella Larsen. After I mentioned it, a few people told me they studied and loved it. It follows two women, old friends, who reconnect in adulthood. Both are Black, one is passing for white with a white husband and family. It presents a complex issue in the form of a complex relationship with great tension and intrigue and a few very powerful scenes. Although I liked the three-act structure, the dramatic moments later in the book didn’t quite live up to those earlier for me. On a thematic level there’s a lot to get your teeth into here, though. It’s an interesting book and worth a read if you like short, powerful novels.

One more poem before I go: How to be a Poet by Wendell Berry.

TIL NEXT TIME

Your turn! What are you reading? Are you reading? Leave a reply or go ahead and tweet me.

Stay safe,
Nicola x