8 Fun Things From the Lit Life

A Good Cry, Popular 90s Novels & the Lucrative Biz of Book Styling

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The Anti-Bucket List?

The best bookish read of the week goes to Sadie Stein for her piece “Closing the Book on Promises to Myself” in The New York Times. Stein’s sweet essay on her grandfather’s love of books was a tender take on the granddaughter trope; I adored the part where he left tombs on her bed whenever she visited him. But the article is really about the guilt many of us feel about the novels we will never read, what she calls an “anti-bucket” list. In the article, Stein challenges the reader to think about the books you know (and have forced yourself to accept) you’ll die without reading.

Of course, it got me thinking about my own picks. I gulp as I say this but Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is one. I’ve never connected to his voice, and I’ve tried, numerous times, since I’ve always loved reading the magazine coverage that followed him before and after his tragic 2008 suicide. Another one on my anti-bucket list: Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I actually pretended to read this one in AP English by scanning the pages in high school and talking to another Literature teacher for talking points. (Sneaky!) It has all the makings of the kind of story I adore — social climbing, haves and have nots, rich people behaving badly — but Hardy’s words smothered me. I will never read it! What’s on your anti-bucket list?

People Pay Big Bucks to Look Smart

Do people read as many books as they display in their magazine-styled social media feeds? I laughed out loud while reading this story on LitHub this week since it asks that very question, leading with an anecdote about a CEO of a bank who hired a decorator to install 2,300 books in her two-story, wood-paneled Manhattan library. Says the homeowner: “We go back and forth to the West Coast and here, and I work a lot. So no, I can’t say that I’ve sat around reading yet.”

This made me think of a friend of mine who visited my house once and gazed at the novels placed throughout — I think writers probably all decorate with books as part of our DNA. “I need to get some of these,” he said, running his hand along the book spines lined up on a bookshelf. “They really make a home feel cozy.”

Of course, he laughed, admitting that he had no interest in reading them either. For me, the books on my shelves are like old friends saying hello, reminding me of the characters and stories that I adore (and sometimes didn’t care for). I often move books around the house, too, putting some of my more recent reads on my kitchen counter, just so the story stays with me a bit longer.

What Saunders Said

Is George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo on my anti-bucket list? I hope not. I will read it someday! That being said, the lauded author (and fellow Substacker) answers The Proust Questionnaire in February’s issue of Vanity Fair.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? “Being aware and accepting of whatever the state of my mind happens to be at the moment (even if that state is unhappy).”

Which living person do you most despise? “Fiction writing is the practice of (through revision) coming to despise nobody.”

But (BUT!!) it was this question that was most illuminating.

When and where were you happiest? “Pittsford, New York, writing my first book when our kids were small, riding my bike to work because we only had one car…that feeling of being needed and loved and vitally involved in something artistic that I didn’t fully understand, everything still lying ahead of us.”

Ok, that quote had me reaching for a tissue. I talk about the “here and now” with my husband a lot — how we may just be living our happiest lives with our kids still young and our careers still building. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and stop time and stay right here, right now, with everyone just as they are.

Year of the Rabbit Means What For Writing?

According to Electric Literature, the Chinese New Year is bringing good news for writers. Here’s a forecast for the Year of the Rabbit for creatives: “For writers, the Water Rabbit is particularly significant. No other animal is so synonymous with sensitivity, creativity, and art. After all, the iconic Rabbit of Chinese myth is itself a kind of artist—working upon the moon at a pestle, grinding out the elixir of immortality, hoping to distill life.”

Okay, now we have ZERO excuse to finish that writing project!

What Books Do We Study From the 1980s and Onward

One writer used Open Syllabus to see which novels are most often studied from the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. It’s fascinating to see which books end up having legs, at least with English Lit profs. Have you read any of these? See below.

I Want to Read This One

Slate editor Dan Kois has a new novel I’m dying to read called Vintage Contemporaries. I’m always game to read about underpaid, overworked publishing types and this one follows Em in the early nineties and over a decade later as she struggles to figure out the kind of creative life she wants to lead. Plus, Booklist compared Kois to Emma Straub, so there’s that…

Bringing Back Feminist-Centric Bookstores

Listen to this fascinating bit of news, thanks to Ms. Magazine. In the 1990s there were over 130 feminist bookshops, meaning stores that carried a range of books by feminist thinkers (think: bell hooks) while supporting the works of LGBQT and women writers. By 2014, the number of those bookstores had shrunk to 13. An article this week reports however that, thanks to the backlash against the Trump era, there are now about 30. Baby steps, right?

Photo by Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash

One Last Exciting Piece of News

Beginning on Monday, DEAR FICTION will have a second contributor joining the ranks. My longtime fellow writer, editor and close friend Nancy Fann-Im will publish a post once a week and her first is a goodie. Nancy and I started a parenting blog together several years back, became reading & writing besties, and I’m so thrilled to be working with her again. You’re going to love her!

Happy Friday!

Brooke