Reliable Recs 03
October was busy, but not too busy for reading.
Greetings from your (not-so) Reliable Narrator. Yesterday, I turned 31. Tomorrow, I’m running the New York City Marathon. Today, I’m sharing what I managed to read over the last month.
October took me by surprise. I had grandiose plans for a lot of special essays and interviews to share with you all. Alas, they were pushed aside by big projects at my real job and an avalanche of Extenuating Circumstances1 in my personal life. Consider this letter confirmation that I am back in the groove and, after some reflection and re-organizing, better prepared for November programming! (For example: The Aesthetics of Ophelia letter I’ve been threatening promising to write is coming soon.)
Around half of the books I finished in October more reflect how bone-tired I felt by the time I could crawl into bed and read. Between the final segment of marathon training, international travel for work, and a whole bunch of things I’ve decided not to overshare online, I just wanted some low-effort entertainment. But! I also made it through a classic play; an excellent fashion-art biography; and a dystopian reality TV send-up that I haven’t managed to shut up about for the week since I finished it.
Happy reading! And if you’re in NYC, I hope I see you along the marathon route tomorrow! I’m number 52568. :)
Finished!
The Compound by Aisling Rawle: A few sends back, I mentioned this was the book on a lot of Fashion Peoples’ lips during NYFW. I finally got around to it on a sleepless night traveling to London for work—which was my mistake, because I just didn’t sleep until I finished it. From the first page, you’re dropped into the mind of a contestant on a freaky-familiar reality TV show, The Compound. Contestants are cut off entirely from the outside world and are forbidden to discuss anything pertaining to their real lives. They must complete group and solo tasks, assigned on a communal TV, that are unhinged and debasing by various degrees: sharing their biggest fears, spitting into each others’ mouths, banishing one contestant out into the desert. In exchange, the housemates receive prizes that first make their isolated compound more livable—before the challenges prey on their greed for more prizes, period.
You can guess from a scroll through TikTok how much people will do for the sake of stuff. This book pushes that kernel of an idea to its most WTF extremes. It’s a clever takedown of 2020s consumer culture—not to mention, un-put-down-able. If I can convince you to read anything, make it this one! For more corroboration, please see MJ Franklin’s NYT review.
Lee Miller: A Life by Carolyn Burke: I packed in a trip to the Tate Britain on my recent trip to London, primarily to scope out some pre-Raphaelite paintings for the aforementioned Ophelia edition of this newsletter. (Hehe.) I ended up buying a ticket to a limited-time exhibit on Lee Miller, the model and fashion photographer turned WWII journalist. I was so moved by the evolution of her work that I bought this biography from the gift shop on my way out. It goes several layers deeper than the exhibit I saw, in a thoroughly researched portrait of her life and influence, especially on the field of journalism.
Miller’s capacity for change and her unwavering curiosity inspired me. I felt silly when I finished it for knowing so little about her career prior; I think anyone working in fashion today needs to get better acquainted with her work and her legacy. A+.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: This latest time was really the charm. I finished re-reading this around the time I got back from Italy, alongside some select chapters from Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: Invention of the Human. I think we, as a society, should reread the Bard more often. The older I get, and the more I come back to these texts, the more I can appreciate. What a gift!
Also, I think the people who’ve been the most upset about a certain pop star evoking this play her latest album probably haven’t revisited the text in a minute. More to come!
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green: Want to feel bone-deep rage at the state of global health?! Read this! I listened to it as an audiobook on some of my long training runs. I had to pull over on the sidewalk a few times when it made me too emotional. Almost too timely and very necessary. (Also, I thoroughly enjoy when John Green writes nonfiction. Clear, conversational prose that packs in a ton of information!)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown: I can see why a lot of the guys are into this series, which opens on Mars mining colony and follows a reluctant rebel’s journey to lead a class revolution, by embedding himself within the highest sect’s space military school. (…) The lead, Darrow, is what a lot of men want to be/think they already are: stoic, strong, self-sacrificing in a conflict while also managing to spit zippy one-liners, et cetera.
To me, it felt like some elements were copy and pasted from a superior dystopian class-warfare trilogy of the mid-aughts, then retrofitted to fit an intergalactic setting. (And, pointedly, refabbed with dudes as all the main leads.) Don’t even get me started on the few women characters and how condescending their lines/presentation/overall demeanors read. There are six or seven more books in this series; it’s a pass for me.
Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine: This trope salad ode to the romance genre has everything: Jaded writers, forced proximity, hot guys wearing flannel, ice fishing, a B-plot that could be resolved with one conversation but dragged out over the entire book. The fish-out-of-water romance between an LA princess of a writer and the manager of a remote Alaskan inn was frothy and quick. (If you assumed “No WiFi?!” was a plot point, you’re correct!). It’s a Hallmark movie in book form. And on my more mind melt-y days last month, that’s what I needed. Sue me!
Mate by Ali Hazelwood: The best thing I can say about Mate is that I was entertained enough to read to the end—but in a semi-repulsed, "Well, I’ve already made it this far” kind of way. Then again, I also wasn’t a huge fan of its precursor (Bride). This was my lesson in not having to read everything everyone else is reading. :)
TBR
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor I loved Real Life; I finished The Late Americans. I’ve been excited for Minor Black Figures since Taylor began mentioning it in his newsletter, Sweater Weather. (The NYT Books review also helped!) I picked up my hardcover copy the day it came out. It’s what I’m going to read in my fluffy hotel robe with room service after the race tomorrow.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley I purposefully didn’t re-read the source text before seeing Guillermo del Toro’s film adaptation a few days ago. (Definitely go IRL if there’s a screening near you—it’s fun in a crowd!) I wanted to see how much mapped onto what I remembered from when I last read it, in a college course called “Literature in the Anthropocene.” Now, I’m running it back and will spend some time talking about Elizabeth x The Monster here, when the movie drops on Netflix later this month.
The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson Before he became CEO of The Atlantic, Thompson was a record-setting distance runner. This is his memoir about turning to running as a way of processing a whole host of speed bumps in life…which sounds familiar to me. I was supposed to hear him speak about this after a shake-out run with Nike on Thursday and I overslept. It seems I could use what sounds like a book about discipline, endurance, and always showing up.
DNF
I still have not finished Quicksilver. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m so sorry to everyone who loves this book/its main man.
Weddings and a funeral, among other things! Life was really life-ing, as the youths say, in full-circle fashion.