What I’m Reading
Book Reviews
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson: Click here to read my review
Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs: Click here to read my thoughts on instagram
Normal People by Sally Rooney: Click here to read my review
Other
“My Three Fathers” by Ann Patchett | The New Yorker | September 28, 2020
“Every Mr. Darcy Ranked” by Emily Temple | LitHub | October 15, 2020
“The Art of Holding, Letting Go and Learning to Golf” by Sarah Parcak | The New York Times | October 27, 2020
“TIME’s 100 Most Influential People” | September 22, 2020 | TIME Magazine
“The Many Beginnings of Louise Glück” by Walt Hunter | October 10, 2020 | The Atlantic
“Who’s the Reader? How Medieval Manuscripts Reveal the Reading Communities of the Early Middle Ages” by Mateusz Fafinski | October 10, 2020 | History Today
What I’m Listening To
The Book
In anticipation of Tuesday’s election and the imminent publication of A Promised Land, I wanted to share an old interview between former New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani and President Barack Obama. In the interview, Obama discusses all things BOOKS — from the immortal power of literature and the connectivity of science fiction to his own experiences writing speeches, short stories, and, of course, Dreams from My Father. With prophetic insight, he identifies storytelling as a key ingredient to building bridges, particularly across our nation’s political divide:
“When so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.”
Doug Mills/The New York Times
In the interview, Obama also describes his personal relationship with writing, offering it as an antidote to fear and uncertainty — as “a way to rebuild” oneself after losing one’s way. He tells Michiko how his writing saved him, reconnecting him to the person he truly was and the person he wanted to be. To him, writing is:
“A way to figure out who you are and what you think, and what you believe, and what’s important, and to sort through and interpret this swirl of events that is happening around you every minute…[It] was the way I sorted through a lot of crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.”
Obama’s interview was published three months after I decided to write my book. I remember reading it at the time and feeling like I had just stumbled upon a precious gift. Every few months, I re-read it to remind myself of the gift — to remind myself of the why.
The journey of writing a book can be absolutely crazy, but I would not trade it for anything. Writing Bessie’s story has helped me to “rebuild” and uncover the deepest, truest, and best parts of myself.
I can’t wait to share her story with you. Thank you so much for following along.