This Week In My Library 11.14.23

marriage, yellow luggage and reading out loud

Life of a Bookman

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Body Talk: I'm devouring Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Mate. My longtime readers probably remember the year I lived in Bali. Weekly sessions with healer Jim were transformative for me during that time and taught me a very important lesson: emotion gets stored in the body. This book has been a beautiful extension of that work – a gut check on the pressures of everyday living and how to resolve the pain of our past before it becomes the problems of today. Reader beware of the beauty here; it's a very long read. And it def excavates old experiences.



What I'm writing: I'm currently sitting here with 281 PRINTED pages of That Novel. This week I'm embarking on the final read (out loud) after 7 months of revision. I've had a lot of fun showing glimpses of the notes and edits I was given, and how I've gone about handling them. If you're writing-craft curious, follow along (the stories highlight #ThatNovel has a bunch of the stuff from the last few days)!

Women’s Studies

What gets passed down becomes our history. A few for the canon: Over the last few months, I've seen a ridiculous amount of high-profile thought leaders writing about “the importance of marriage” for high-profile media outlets. I've read every single one of them and groaned. Not because I'm against marriage, but because I'm like Hey 65-year old white guy who wrote this, have you ever talked to a woman about what it's like to date right now? Because I have. And I'm convinced there's something off at a systemic, gender dynamic, matchmaking level. So, when I read Anna Louie Sussman's Why Aren't More People Marrying? Ask Women What Dating is Like I cheered through most of it.

Take this:

 “But unless we pay attention to the granular experiences of people in the dating trenches, simply advising people to marry is not only, frankly, obnoxious for the many women out there trying; it’s also just not going to work.“

This piece is majorly worth a read. And I think men could write a similar but different response, from their own POV. Sussman reiterated what my gut has been pretty worried about: it's so much bigger than lame dating apps and preferences changing around the institution of marriage. Many other factors are at play keeping great people from finding each other. It's like the polarization of politics but in love.

Pass it on

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine: I spent a good chunk of the last decade on more airplanes than I care to comprehend. So let's just say I'm fussy and particular when it comes to my luggage. I've never understood why great suitcases needed to be so darn expensive!? Well, my dear friend Tina Wells has changed that with WNDR LN (available at Target online and nationwide). This carry-on suitcase was a rolling dream on my trip to Charleston a few weeks ago. The packing cubes! The overnighter! The colors! I can't get over how much I loved traveling with it, not to mention the value. It's a REALLY good gift for the traveler in your midst.

xx