Finished reading: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig 📚

A good chess story, but an even better story of the psychological dangers of extreme isolation and single-minded focus. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald 📚

A professor with a background in amateur falconry retreats from public life after the death of her father to train a goshawk. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li 📚

A heart-breaking memoir about losing two sons to suicide. There’s often little you can say to parent who’s lost a child. But sometimes the words from a fellow sufferer can get through. This book was one of those. ★★★★★

Finished reading: New York Sketches by E.B. White 📚

A collection of witty commentaries, short stories, poems, and essays, all originally published in The New Yorker, and each an ode to what I’m sure White would agree is the greatest city on earth. ★★★★★

Finished reading: Bag of Bones by Stephen King 📚

A reread of a classic ghost story set on a remote lake in western Maine. Like most King novels, the true horrors are all too human. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oates 📚

Joyce Carol Oates might be the least likely person ever to write a book about boxing. And yet she did. Like me, she developed a lifelong appreciation for the sport, ultimately growing to love it, by watching fights with her father as a child. But it’s clear that she feels a natural disquiet with her own fascination with the sport, and the essays in this book circle and dance around that central premise: why, in our modern, civilized society, is boxing still a thing? ★★★☆☆

If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say.

— Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Finished reading: We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough 💙📚

The premise and setting had terrific potential, but one-dimensional characters, plot holes, and poor editing hobbled the story. It felt like a book written under the pressure of an unrealistic deadline. ★★★☆☆

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finished reading: The Best American Essays 2024 💙📚

I’m on an essay kick, and the latest “Best American” series provided a wide range of thought-provoking takes and introduced me to some new voices. I share my five favorite essays in the full review. ★★★☆☆