The essay “New Year, New Writing Updates!” originally appeared on Jeannie’s Substack, Constantly Curating. Subscribe here for monthly updates! Happy New Year! If you’re a long-time reader or you’ve subscribed to my newsletter in the past, you may have noticed I’ve migrated my essays and letters to Substack. Introducing… I hope to share writing monthly, […]
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell If you loved Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, this one is a bit of a let down. — dead sister’s intended husband. He is a cruel duke and she senses she is in danger in the palace. Little is known about the real Lucrezia except that her suspicious death was […]
The Stark Beauty of Last Things by Celine Keating The Stark Beauty of Last Things is a poetic novel that emphasizes the fragility of the worlds we occupy- relationships, lives, places – are all fleeting. The problem is that humans often fail to understand this until it is too late. Told from multiple points of […]
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson A well done biography that allowed the reader into the room. An intimate portrayal of the whole man, trying to get at the root of what makes him tick, displaying his wounds and obsessions. It was made even more fascinating as the subject matter seems to reach all the way […]
Wellness by Nathan Hill I loved The Nix and when I heard Nathan Hill had a new novel coming out, I preordered. I toggled between reading and listening to the audiobook because it is narrated by Ari Fliakos who is my all time favorite reader. His tone captures the wry wit of Hill’s characters so […]
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson This is a work of science fiction that reads like it could be true. It is very long book that offers many thread lines and points of view as well as the ministry for the future’s ideas with regard to advocating for beings that can’t speak […]
Tom Lake By Ann Patchett I listened to this on audio, such a delight as Meryl Streep was the narrator. Her performative and soothing voice combined with Ann Patchett’s writing resulted in a most pleasurable experience. The story was well done too. Well suited for me as a mother who had three grown children at […]
The Twenty: One Woman’s Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail by Marianne C. Bohr A great read which will inspire you to get out of the chair. Bohr does an excellent job of honestly telling recounting the ups and downs of completing one of the world’s iconic hikes with her husband Joe, both in […]
Trust by Hernan Diaz After learning this work shared the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction with Demon Copperhead, I had to read. I listened to the Audio which was narrated by four different voices, amplifying this novel’s theme of perception. Indeed a story changes so much based on who is telling it and Diaz makes this […]
The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman This review originally appeared in the New York Review of Books. With a truly imaginative structure, Alice Hoffman delves into what has become her trademark theme of magic. The Invisible Hour asks a grand “What if?” Not so much the question posed on the book’s jacket: What if Mia Jacob never […]
