Tonight I've watched
the moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

(Sappho, trans. Mary Barnard)

My kids and the neighbor kids had six-feet-apart picnic lunches on the sidewalk during their Zoom schooldays.

I read an AI-generated obituary in the paper this week.

It said the man's numerous surviving family members loved him.

Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy! (I like lots of fresh herbs in the gravy, especially dill.)

Huge thanks to all the workers who fill our tables year-round.

THE TRUE TRUE STORY OF RAJA THE GULLIBLE (AND HIS MOTHER) by Rabih Alameddine. Sure, a cranky-old-man-learns-to-accept-love novel is a nice kind of novel, but rarely such a surprising, delightful, enraging feast of a read where an indignant fury swaddles everything and warms my cranky soul.

This is excellent. Thanks for it!

Grades due on Monday.

HELLO SUNSHINE by Keezy Young. A beautiful, consuming, emotionally demanding story that blends fantastical horror and magic with the very real isolation and terror of undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. I accidentally bought two copies; now I'm glad I'll have both for my classroom library.

I am loving this book a lot so far. Thank you for writing it, and congratulations on the excellence!

THE HUNTER by Tana French. French's pacing is a joy and a surprise; I keep thinking I know where the beats of her stories will fall, and I keep being delightedly wrong. I love a book that makes me flip back to a pivotal scene one hundred times without that scene ever letting me down.

ISOLA by Allegra Goodman. I tend to love a story of a plucky woman forced to make do, and this one has it all: human again human, against nature, against self, against God. My favorite parts are on the barren rock of the island--a terrible place to live, but a great place to refine the soul.

Skipping the start-of-school comfort rereads.

THE SEARCHER by Tana French. A cozy, warm-hearted mystery in a cold and green place. I liked French's ease at conveying menace in what feels like almost innocuous conversations. I look forward to the sequel.

And then not only was it Sutter, but the answer specified "surname." I was overcome, and tragically had no one to celebrate with me in that momentous moment.

Anyway, thanks and lmk what I owe you.

THE SURVIVALISTS by Kashana Cauley. Lots of good laughs in here, as well as serious reflections about the erratic shit that can happen when there's no reliable social safety net.

FATES AND FURIES by Lauren Groff. A well-written exploration of the combined lives of two people with whom I didn't really care to spend my time. There was a lot I really liked! and I often felt sympathetic and curious and interested--but it just wasn't quite for me.

Heck yeah. Thanks for this! It's always so hard to gauge crowd size when I'm in it.

It's so good! (I was already a subscriber but am super grateful for it.)

THE FATED SKY by Mary Robinette Kowal. Very annoyed at the characters sometimes, as in the first book, but it's always hard to know whether I'm mad at them or at the circumstances that circumscribe their lives (even as they rocket through space). Anyway, a fun read. I even cried a little.