A friend casually left this for me to read—when I finally dove in I was shocked at the clarity and energy of Amy Liptrot’s writing. What a gem of a book. The revelations of her new found sobriety are woven into her explorations of the rough and wild Orkney islands. 
Category: Book jackets
Soulful writing
I read about Sanora Babb in the New York Review of Books and was intrigued by her story. That led me to buy this book and I was swept into her elegant, soulful writing. 
She is an original, yet seemingly not very well known. I’m so happy I found her!
A sublime novel
This novel by the African Nobel-prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah is a dream story — a well-told, riveting plot, filled with extraordinary characters and adventures.
Flea
I enjoyed the musician Flea’s new memoir, Acid for the Children—and amazed that he lived to tell the tale of his growing up in Hollywood, given the constant risks he took with leaps into pools from rooftops and needle drug use.
The style is offbeat, intelligent. Good for his editors to let him do it his way because it feels authentic, and very close to his heart, his truth. And it’s got that magic ingredient that makes it a compelling story.
So great to read how he was saved by music, access to instruments, musicians he met through his family and the freedom to try out different sounds, to listen to all kinds of music. Music was his path.
But he also talks about the books he read while growing up. It was his escape, and gave him big ideas, ways of looking at life beyond his family traumas, a structure he could climb into when his life was full violence and fear. Reading was his safe haven.
In this pandemic time, I am so hungry for books in that same way. They give me what I need—humor, peace, hope. Such a joy to read great sentences. I have recently read Deacon King Kong by James McBride. The sentences in that book! Long and lavish sentences that encompass individual feelings with the bigger world as it was. How have I not known about this fantastic writer? I was surprised and thrilled to read that he lives in New York City and Lambertville, New Jersey, where I grew up.
That’s it, just a praise note for reading, especially fiction.
Go ahead, judge books by their covers
I judge books by their covers — who doesn’t, really? I fell in love with this cover and the book has lived up to its promise. It makes the subject of these creepy things totally fascinating.
Sentences like this intrigue me, whether I understand the material or not: “Beetles consume everything—plants, animals, and their remains. Larvae and adults are found in the soil, where they function as tiny recycling machines that return organic materials to the soil, making them available again for use by plants and other animals.”
I see people reading everywhere—my method for gauging the state of publishing. My favorite sight is that of a person walking and reading at the same time (but somehow seeing people walking and texting just makes me feel sad).
Here’s another book cover I love, Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. First few sentences: “I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifth-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes, the result was satisfactory. “Aren’t you Nick Charles?” she asked.
I said: “Yes.”
Reading protects my brain by orienting my thinking to the long narrative, rather than scattering my concentration which is what happens when I spend time on social media. Following a good novel’s story path allows me to relax into a multi-layered tale that triggers feelings from the past and present, and challenges my mind to make sense of it all. I love that.
Some people love curling up with a Kindle, but I’m not one of them. I like a book I can slip into my bag, lend to a friend, keep on my bedside table, read when I have a moment in the early morning or late at night. And if I’m too tired to read, I can just gaze at the cover.