curledup roundup: Sep & Oct
Book recommendations! and more! from the last couple months!
As fall turns into winter, let’s take a lil stroll through the leaves down memory lane and the many moons since we last met. Enjoy!
September
I’ve been patiently waiting for this new Coco Mellors book, and it did NOT! DISAPPOINT! A story of four sisters, three of which are grieving the death of the other. Coco ties the beautiful, painful, intricate threads of sisterhood so perfectly in this book. It was perfectly descriptive and masterfully told, hitting on themes that are universal and powerful whether you have sisters or not. I am constantly impressed by her ability to write a book that is equal parts swift and deep. THEN! I got to see her! She did a stop with Books are Magic on her book tour at a glorious church in Brooklyn Heights. I came away from both the book and the talk with this pervasive sense of hope. That no matter what you’ve been through, are going through, are going to go through—life is worth not only living, but worth feeling and experiencing as deeply as one possibly can. Pure magic, this book and this author.
Will put the heavy hitters up top here. Next, the hottest book of the season!!! Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. There was a literal midnight release party at Greenlight Bookstore near me, a fact that I am utterly obsessed with. This one is about two brothers, that’s right: men. But fear not, the drama and ennui and existential dread that Rooney is known for is still very much present here. You will still feel infuriated and annoyed with her characters, just as much as you’ll come to deeply understand them. Interestingly and uncharacteristically, I felt a sense of hope emanating from these pages too. This book was romantic and budding, if not optimistic.
Another great book I read this month was Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso. This one is about a young girl observing everyone and everything around her in her (very cold) town in New England. Throughout the book, you slowly see her peel the layers of the onion away, the onion being the idea that adults are just as clueless as she. Some impeccable writing in here. The sentences are concise and forceful. It was a little bit like a darker version of the movie Eighth Grade.
I did a little wander over to the movie theater, saw My Old Ass with Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella (of *THE* Lennon and Maisy), and was floored. In the movie, Maisy’s character does mushrooms with her friends during the summer of her senior year of high school, about to head off to college, and meets her 40-year-old self, Aubrey’s character, while tripping. The particular season of life that this movie is about is inherently nostalgic: the desperate yearning to finally get out of your hometown and the knowledge that things will never be the same, and the ignorance to know that those feelings are a little dramatic in the grand scheme, because you do not yet know the grand scheme. But the style of the movie feels nostalgic too: the contained story, the life lessons. I really enjoyed it, and felt it didn’t get enough hype, so am giving it the shine it deserves here.
Loved this idea — training my brain for more glimmers.
October
I listened to I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman on audiobook, a science fiction story about a woman trapped in a bunker with 39 other women and no memories of how she got there. A different world entirely, but it was giving off Handmaid’s Tale vibes. Originally published in 1995, it felt wildly experimental and very chilling. The book itself was captivating, and left me with more questions than answers, in an illuminating way. The author was a French psychoanalyst, which checks out based on my experience reading the book. I’m curious to know who and how the decision to re-release a book like this decades later comes about, but I’m glad it came about for this one!
I was in California for a large part of October and visited this amazing used bookstore in Sherman Oaks. Just an incredible selection considering the very unassuming storefront. We walked away with a really cool coffee table book about… books, and the history of them from the very beginning, and an art book on Magritte that is SO cool to flip through.
On another leg of my October tour de California, I visited San Francisco for a work trip. I used to live in SF for a few years before the pandemic, so I used it as an excuse to hit a few of my old haunts, one of those being the Russian Hill Bookstore. I have spent COUNTLESS hours in there and it was nostalgic to be back. It made me think about how devoted and attached you get with your local bookstore, and despite the ever-changing inventory and the years that pass, that comfort never wavers.
I’ve only scratched the surface on her, but I just love Deborah Levy. I read August Blue, her newest novel and adored it. It’s about a piano prodigy who has given it all up after decades in the spotlight. She has to funnel that obsession somewhere, making for a perfect spectacle of a novel. It’s a very different vibe from the other book of her's I’ve read, Hot Milk. Where Hot Milk was sparkly and scintillant, August Blue was mature and existential.
Romeo and Juliet on Broadway! Rachel Zegler and Kit Connor star in a perfectly Gen Z rendition of the Shakespeare play that is oh-so entertaining. The juxtaposition between Shakespeare’s words, which they stayed entirely loyal to, and the stage, body language, other cues used to bring the audience in and give context and clarity - was so impressive. I saw an interview where Zegler said that the director pitched it where a bunch of kids “broke into the Circle in the Square theater to let something off their chest”. And it really feels like that! There were people vaping and inflatable furniture and baggy clothes and some serious chemistry between R & J. I also love the branding of it all—so modern and intriguing, just like the play itself. If you’re in New York, I highly recommend.
See you soon!
Thanks as always Shelby. Some great suggestions here. I have one for you - and for all of the New Yorkers in your life. It's "Here is New York" by E.B. White. An extended essay written in 1948, it is both a love letter to the city and a thoughtful piece about the positives - and negatives - of NYC. Some of it is dated of course but it is amazing how much of it still rings true. Be Well, Mike