Where to go when you're lost
hint : books
I’ve been wrestling with a feeling of discordance with many of my peers. I don’t find myself disgusted, horrified or depressed. I also don’t feel naively optimistic or mildly indifferent. I feel more curious than ever about that which divides us. That which makes us feel different from each other. This fertile ground - this is where I want to explore. Books help. Here’s some I’ve read recently, and some on the docket.
JUST FINISHED
Taking place on San Juan Island, a landscape I know well, this felt like a return to the ferry hopping summers of my college years, while also sitting boldly in the knowledge that wildness, true wildness is accessible to all of us, we need only open our eyes to it. Loved how this novel framed sisterhood and the way our untamed natures show up in surprising ways.
Loneliness & Company - Charlee Dyroff
GO ON CHARLEE with your bad self. Such an ambitious first novel. This book takes place in a near future where the government employs people to help inform AI research and in this case specifically : how to solve loneliness. Our main character Lee is almost alien in the way she relates to her fellow earth inhabitants. Top of the class coming from a competitive graduate program she is astute and curious and throws herself into the task of recording human experiences. Whilst doing so she surprises herself by falling in love with a russian deli, the waitress who works there and peanut butter w chocolate sauce. In a world where more and more is becoming automated, Lee showcases that it’s the things that are hardest to put words around are the ones that make us human.
Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe
A potent offering from Roxanne Gay Books. Oliver takes us back to the beginning of their transition into a man , dropping us into their life as a harried mother of four holding it down in the domestic domain. In a seminal moment, a parade of motorcycles roar past them after a dinner out, and it takes Oliver back to their early twenties in a motorcycle gang in London. This glimmer plants a seed which we the reader get to carry as a lantern through the gradual unveiling of Oliver’s realization that he is a man. Beautifully told w sharp wit and tender clarity : a loving portrait of a mother who is in fact a man. *Pair with WILL & HARPER on Netflix for a real tear jerker of a time. Re: tear jerker MY OLD ASS on Prime also competely pulled the rug out from under me.
TOTAL PAGE TURNER. Set in the 1970s at a Summer camp in Upstate New York, this book takes us through the disappearance of teenage camper Barbara Van Laar, 14 years after her younger brother Bear vanished from the same place. At times hard because I have bbs now and anything about little ones being hurt or taken is PAINFUL in my body in a new way. But best believe I finished this with a vengeance. Tess saw me taking a walk with said babies and I had my head phones on and was ignoring any and all attempts at attention because when you get to the end of this book you CAN NOT PUT IT DOWN. Obama thinks so too (it was on his book club this summer or something).
UP NEXT :
Conversation, Language & Possibilities : A Post Modern Approach to Therapy - Harlene Anderson danka Luce for this recco. Some of y’all know I’ve been actively dipping my toe into the river that is getting an MFT. I am loving how Harlene Anderson asks the questions that generations of therapists before her didn’t think to.
The Flowering Wand : Rewilding the Sacred Masculine - Sophie Strand. I Got really into thinking about rot and how it’s a real fecund place to play. See this poem. Love listening to this on audio book and very interested in her work on myth and meaning making.
Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad : An actor goes back to Palestine and is roped into a production of Hamlet. Also looking forward to reading her latest Recognizing the Stranger
Raiders, rulers and traders : The horse and the rise of empires - David Chaffetz Did y’all know that the reason we don’t eat horse meat might be because of a 14th century catholic ban against German pagans? Lots of good stuff in here. Just starting.
Had the pleasure to participate in the inaugural OFF REGISTER Art Book Print Fair in Santa Barbara this weekend. Got to meet so many wonderful artists and completely reinvigorated my passion for print. YAY NERDS! Find me and Tess again at Pot Wars in SB on December 8th.
print by Owen Jenkins
One Grain of Sand by Pete Seeger is the mantra
Love you to pieces,
Kate
Delighted to read your astute, humorous, reflective, bad ass and thoughtful reviews!! Feeling the medicine of you, Kate.