👜 The synergy is getting out of control, y’all. First, a Cuyana handbag literally came in clutch in the new Dan Brown novel, and now, the brand has partnered with Reese’s Book Club to offer a splurgy leather tote monogrammed with “Books and Things.” For $258, it can be where you keep your books and some of your things. (IYKYK)
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NEW RELEASES
Family matters
🧵 At first glance, this week’s highlights couldn’t be more different, but they’re all about the ties that bind.
Bryan Washington’s Palaver takes us to Tokyo, where a young gay man and his mother see each other for the first time in a decade.
Oyinkan Braithwaite plays with family curses and sibling rivalry in her highly anticipated follow-up to My Sister, the Serial Killer. See the Recommended Reading section below for books that influenced Braithwaite’s writing.
Salman Rushdie explores the back nine of life in a quintet of short stories. As avid fans of the “old men waiting to die” genre, we couldn’t be more excited.
The holidays are coming, which means it’s time for a home refresh. Anthropologie has everything you need to elevate your space, from elegant glassware to chic table linens, to this handwoven cotton wool rug that is basically a hug for your floor!
ON AIR
It’s all Greek to me
It’s the GOAT of Greek tragedies, but you don’t have to take our word for it. Aristotle said so, too.
Writtenas the Greeks were developing history (someone had to invent history!), philosophy, and drama in the West, Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is about a man trying (and failing) to escape a horrible fate. It’s also about pride and the new-at-the-time concept of free will and the persistent threat of tyranny in a democratic society. There’s something very grounding about reading a Really Old Book and being reminded that the questions that define our lives today—Who am I? What is the good life? Is this all there is?—are anything but new.
🎧 Listen as we have way more fun than you’d expect discussing an ancient text on Zero to Well-Read.
BOOK HEROES
What We Need Diverse Books Does
We Need Diverse Books started out as a hashtag in 2014 and has become a leading voice in broadening the kinds of stories that get told, the kind of books that get published, and the kinds of readers who get to see themselves in reading.
Caroline Richmond, Executive Editor, told me that the organization has evolved to serve three main communities:
“It starts with diverse creators themselves, who usually have many more systemic and financial barriers in getting published. Part of our programs are offering mentorships, grants, workshops to help diverse writers and illustrators learn about the industry, hone their craft, and get published.
The second community would be the publishing industry itself: all the people working at publishing houses and literary agencies, who are the ones deciding which books are getting acquired, edited, designed, produced, and published that end up at your library or bookstore. We realized that if we wanted diverse books, we needed to help diversify the industry that creates them. So we are helping college students and grad students get their foot in the door of a very competitive industry, helping them get onto that ladder in the first place.
The third community we work with are the teachers, librarians, students, and readers all over because they’re the ones who are reading the diverse stories. So we also have programs that are providing diverse books to classrooms and libraries and also providing resources and grants to educators so that they are able to make their shelves more inclusive.”
Find out more about the programs We Need Diverse Books offers and how you can get involved. – JO
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LITERARY TOURISM
Portland, Oregon’s best bookish destinations
Photo courtesy of Visit Portland
“Readaways” are on the rise as some 91% of travelers express interest in a trip focused on reading, relaxation, and quality time.
Portland, Oregon offers literary culture, creative vibes, natural beauty, and some of the country’s best coffee. Plan a dreamy reading retreat with this suggested itinerary, and don’t forget to leave plenty of room in your suitcase for all your new books.
🛍️ Stock up for your getaway with a bookstore crawl. Start at the world’s largest independent bookstore, Powell’s Books, pick up a swoony romance read at Grand Gesture Books, and find LGBTQ+ books for all ages at Always Here Bookshop.
🍁 Get comfortable for an unforgettable fireside reading sesh in The Heathman Hotel’s iconic library.
Photo courtesy of Heathman Hotel
🍻 Have a beer and a bite to eat at Rose City Book Pub, and round out your adventure with a nightcap at Treebeerd’s Taphouse, where you might luck into a LoTR-themed event.
Oyinkan Braithwaite is the author of My Sister, the Serial Killer and Cursed Daughters, out now from Doubleday. Here, she shares three works that inspired her writing.
Swim by Titilope Sonuga (spoken word poem): The first time I listened to “Swim,” I remember thinking – I have got to write about water. So much of what was said in that poem resonated with me, and it is such an exquisite piece. Titilope does a wonderful job of capturing the power and the complexities of womanhood; and though I haven’t listened to the piece in years, I still remember how deeply it stirred me.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier : I knew from the outset that I wanted to create a novel with a gothic energy, and I also sought to create this idea of a character who was long gone, but whose presence was ‘haunting’ another because the individuals around her were constantly recalling her into existence. The novel that I knew had done this and done it well was Rebecca. So large is her presence in the present that the novel is named after the long-dead first wife and we are not even given the name of the protagonist.
The Apothecary Diaries (anime): I always note when I see female characters depicted in an interesting way and Apothecary Diaries stood out to me because it features many mini-stories about women set in a period of time when women had little to no power; and yet, these women claw power and manipulate everything and everyone around them in order to survive. The women are flawed, desperate, artful, and clever.
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START HERE
Where to Start with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison wrote books that became Hollywood blockbusters (Legends of the Fall), but his is not a name that most book lovers will immediately recognize.
Those who do know and love Harrison’s work do so intently. As another great liver of life, Anthony Bourdain, said of Harrison: “ [he] got up and wrote each and every day—brilliant, incisive, thrilling sentences and verses that will live forever. He died, I am told, with pen in hand. There were none like him while he lived. There will be none like him now that he’s gone. He was a hero to me.”
This week sees the publication of the first full-length biography of Jim Harrsion, Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life by Todd Goddard. I had a chance to talk to Goddard about Harrison and ask him which of Harrison’s many works a new reader might try.
Legends of the Fall: “Jim had conflicting feelings about it. But at the same time, he was very proud of it. It’s a really interesting, diverse, sort of smattering of Harrison. That’s a really nice place to start because you can pick around, you can read one novella and then put it away and pick it up again for another novella.”
The Woman Lit by Fireflies: “I think this is one of his best novellas. It’s just super sharp, incredibly sensitive. Harrison writes in a woman’s voice, as he had started doing, and shows sort of remarkable sensitivity and beauty and touches on a lot of Harrison’s key themes.
“Counting Birds”: “You could find it might be like one entrance into Harrison and then another and another.”
