everything I read in September

I read so, so much — enough that it took me 17 days to compile this newsletter. There's memoir, there's fiction, there's books about writing fiction!

Lately: More cooking! I’m a lady of the kitchen again. And more writing! I continue to plod away at my novel, and I just re-read the first 15,000 words, which are relatively polished. Upon conclusion, I actually liked the story I’m starting to tell. … My cousin tipped me off about an app called Yuka, which scans bar codes of packaged foods and tells you how much garbage is in them. I’m obsessed, and I’ve finally broken up with my JIF peanut butter.

I read so, so, so much in September. It was heavenly. Here’s the breakdown:

Books that were stunning and knocked the wind out of me in the best possible way (like, I’m sitting here feeling inspired and also so, so inferior)

The Anthropologists, by Aysegül Savas: Over the course of the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I finished two books and started a third. “The Anthropologists” fell in the middle of that sandwich, which means I read it in full over a handful of hours on my couch, and it was perfect. It was a small novel about two people and their small lives — small, in this case, being a compliment.

From the New York Times review:

Rather, the book’s mission seems to be simply to plunge the reader into the mind of one woman as she evaluates her days and considers what she wants her life to be as she searches for a new home. I found it utterly enchanting. Even the most humdrum events resonate with importance when viewed through Savas’s meticulous and layered prose and plotting. Her storytelling is subtle but deliberate, and through it we see how drinks with friends, for instance, can be a philosophical summit or a romantic springboard or … just drinks with friends. The ordinary moments contain multitudes, the novel seems to say. The ordinary moments are significant.

Savas uncovers so much beauty and introspection in the mundanity of daily life, and I find myself thinking about phrases and back-and-forths from the story even still, six weeks later.

Mina’s Matchbox, by Yoko Ogawa: I started “Mina’s Matchbox” the same day I learned about the existence of viral toddler pygmy hippo Moo Deng, which was the happiest coincidence. The pygmy hippo in this story is called Pochiko, and it lives in an abandoned zoo in a rich family’s backyard in 1972 Japan. The narrator is a 12-year-old girl, a cousin come to stay with her offbeat relatives for a year, and she paints a vivid, kooky picture of her world. “Mina’s Matchbox” is about secrets and the stories people tell, and its drama is quiet but palpable.

Books about writing (at least kind of)

What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction, by Alice McDermott: I’m still starting each day by reading a bit of a book on the craft of writing, and in September, I finished two, both by women writers I idolize. “What about the Baby” is relatively technical but extremely readable, and my copy is tattered and torn from being lugged around D.C. and underlined with abandon.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett: Here, then, is the less technical of last month’s writing books — and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys essays or Ann Patchett’s work in general. Much of what’s in “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage” has been published elsewhere online, so you could certainly cobble this one together on the world wide web if you wanted. Only about a quarter of the book is actually about writing and Patchett’s career, and the rest is simply about life and its quiet lessons. If you happen to subscribe to Granta, you can read my favorite of the essays, The Mercies, online. Another of the best pieces, about Patchett’s dog, has been syndicated across the Internet — so widely that it was even published in the Daily Mail, of all places.

Memoirs and personal essays by non-famous people (this is my favorite nonfiction genre)

No One Tells You This, by Glynnis MacNicol: I became aware of MacNicol when I read a review of her newest memoir, which came out this year and which has had a pretty sizable waiting list at my library. In the meantime, I figured, I’d catch up on her previous work. (Oh, to be a person with an interesting enough life to have written two memoirs by 50!) “No One Tells You This” is the story of MacNicol turning 40 at the same time as her mother battled aggressive Parkinson’s. “If a story doesn’t end with marriage or a child,” the book’s front flap reads, “then what?”

Was the main reason I loved this book the fact that MacNicol seems aggressively, accessibly cool? Maybe. In my early 30s, single and childless and with a long history of poor choices of men, I wondered if I might be headed for a life like MacNicol’s — obligated only to my nuclear family and friends, with a nontraditional, consuming job. I like to think that didn’t scare me, though I’m probably looking back with rose-colored glasses, ignoring the titanic, persistent pressure for straight, cisgender women to marry and procreate. Anyways! I ended up taking a different path, and reading this book let me imagine, for a second, a different formula for happiness.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley: My binge through Crosley’s memoirs has concluded. I actually read this one, her first, when it came out in 2008. Loved it then, loved it now. I’m actually going to see Crosley speak next week at the Kennedy Center, where I will aggressively fangirl from the nosebleeds.

I liked these books a lot

Sandwich, by Catherine Newman: My introduction to this book came on Fresh Air early in the summer, when Maureen Corrigan, the NPR book critic, called it “the perfect summer novel: shimmering and substantive.” The bar was set high — and for me, I’m not sure it quite lived up to perfect. But it was very, very good, with believable, relatable, kooky characters, whose emotions were so palable, they made me shudder with discomfort at times. I liked the writing a lot, and I loved the ending. That said, consider waiting until next summer to read it; this book would be wasted on the fall or winter.

White Fur, by Jardine Libaire: I have no idea how I ended up checking this book out at the library. It’s not a new release, I’d never heard of the author, and the subject matter — a girl who grew up in a housing project meets a trust fund kid and they fall in love — isn’t exactly unique at first glance. But there it was, on my bedside table, getting auto-renewed over and over because no one else had requested it — so eventually, I started reading. Right at the start of the story, readers become aware of the potential for a Romeo and Juliet-type ending, and I had to resist multiple times the urge to page to the end and see what had happened. I didn’t, and I’m grateful, and I really want someone to make this book into a movie. It’d be even better on the screen.

I liked these books slightly less than a lot (but still plenty)

Blue Sisters, by Coco Mellors: Everybody on my Instagram loves “Blue Sisters.” I really liked it, and I read it quickly, a testament to the pace and ease of Mellors’s storytelling. But I couldn’t quite believe in the characters as real people, and the ending was too neat for my taste.

Happy Place, by Emily Henry: This was really lovely! I understand why everyone goes wild for Henry’s novels, and the themes in this one really spoke to me — so much that I started it at 10 p.m. and stayed up reading until 3 a.m., finishing the whole thing in one sitting.