Close Reader: An interview with Michelle
On Middlemarch, empathy in books, and her infamous moka pot
In this series, I ask some of my favorite Substack essayists, Bookstagrammers, and writers to share their reading and writing processes and habits, and tell us about the literary ideas they’re spending time with these days.
Today’s interview is with Michelle, who runs the beautiful and artful @meeeshreads account on Instagram. Michelle slipped into my DMs just a few days after I joined bookstagram — and we became fast friends, sharing everything from our love of modernist lit and literary fiction to our dreams of academia and the readerly life.
Michelle is one of the warmest and most articulate readers I’ve had the chance to meet on bookstagram, and I’m absolutely thrilled to share her answers to our interview today.
Let’s start with an introduction! What’s your name and where are you currently living?
Hi, I'm Michelle! I live an hour north of New York City. I was in the city for nearly 10 years and moved this past summer.
What are you reading right now?
Right now I'm reading A Touch of Mistletoe by Barbara Comyns. Despite the title, it is not a cute, Christmas romance. It is bleak and depressing. It's about two sisters who leave home at the ages of 16 and 18 in the 1930s and move to London to start new lives. Along the way they encounter vicious dogs and predatory men and have sad meals of mostly cabbage. The writing is really good: "Only there was this feeling that they all came from such safe backgrounds, and Blanche and I were so alone. Sometimes I was afraid and thought how easily we could fall off the world." And I love Comyns' descriptions of eyes and faces: "oyster-like eyes"; "eyes jellied"; "he had a mad, bad face." But I've debated setting it aside temporarily for something a little less bleak.
The books on deck include: The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, Leave It to Psmith by PG Wodehouse, The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fischer, A Helping Hand by Celia Dale, and Dracula by Bram Stoker.
What are some of your favorite books or genres?
Middlemarch is my most favorite book. Everyone should listen to the Library Talks podcast episode titled "My Life in Middlemarch: Rebecca Mead LIVE from NYPL." Mead is a staff writer at the New Yorker, and back in 2014 she wrote a memoir about her love of Middlemarch and how it's shaped her life. This was my first encounter with Middlemarch. She speaks about it with such discernment, grace, and reverence that I think I fell in love with the book before even reading it. The book's subtitle is "A Study of Provincial Life," and it follows a handful of characters whose various expectations of life are upended. It contains perhaps the best conversations about life that I've ever encountered. And it's unexpectedly funny at times.
I will read anything that George Eliot has written, though some books are better than others. Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, and Scenes From Clerical Life are also fantastic. Other books that I've read recently and loved are The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, and Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz.
What's the best book you read in the last year?
The two that immediately come to mind are A Heart So White by Javier Marías and The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I talked about A Heart So White on instagram already, so I won't say more. I tried to write about The Summer Book, but I couldn't because it was so good and I didn't think I could adequately capture its goodness, which is so singular and special. It's about a grandmother and granddaughter who live on a small island together one summer. There's a candid gruffness to their relationship that feels like the pinnacle of intimacy.
What ideas are you studying or exploring right now?
I wouldn't say I'm studying or exploring any ideas, but I think I'm always drawn to books that center around emotions, empathy, and understanding, or lack thereof. Middlemarch falls into this category, but so does Sally Rooney's Normal People. Anna Karenina, too.
What is your reading method? Tell us about your reading routine, habits, quirks, anything you'd like to share.
I recently started waking up early to read before work, and it's magical. I wake up and make coffee and light a candle and read. But I also inevitably check instagram too :(
And then I'll read at night too, but there's no routine to that. Also I think it's important to say that I go through periods where I don't read. Not intentionally, but I will fall out of reading because I'm busy doing things or watching too much tv or I'm too tired or I'm reading a book I don't really like and instead of abandoning it I just stop reading.
Do you prefer to read hardbacks, paperbacks, or digital copies? Why?
PAPERBACKS, ALWAYS! I hate how clunky and expensive hardbacks are, and unless it's a book I'm dying to read, I will wait to read it til it's out in paperback. Or I'll order the UK paperback from Blackwells, and often the UK/European versions have better covers anyway.
What’s your annotation process like, while you read? Do you write in your books? Why or why not?
There is no method to my annotations. They're chaotic. Underlines, stars, asterisks, exclamation points, and the occasional "ugh" or "hah!"
Speaking of writing, what is your current writing project?
Other than for work, I don't write outside of instagram, and I probably haven't written anything on instagram for a few months. When I first joined back in 2020, I really enjoyed what writing about books did for my brain and for my understanding of the books I was reading. Writing about books helps me better process them, but I no longer feel motivated to write about them. I think part of this is because all of my thoughts about books started to sound the same.
What’s your current coffee or tea order?
I use a moka every morning which makes something that's between coffee and espresso. It's delicious and I love the ritual of making it. I add a generous amount of frothed (phrothed) half and half and a packet of splenda, which I don't usually tell people about because I'm embarrassed (but it's delicious and it doesn't impact my blood sugar as a type 1 diabetic).
Anything else you’d like to share about writing, reading, or annotating? do you have a general "philosophy" about reading or writing that you'd like to share?
Not about reading or writing, but I think there's so much good that can come from instagram and meeting Haley is one example. I saw that she had completed a PhD in modernist literature (which is my dream), and I forced her to have conversations with me about Elizabeth Bown and William Dean Howells.
(Note from Haley: I may or may not have gotten a little choked up reading this when Michelle sent it. Thank you. This means the world to me, as do all of our conversations about Bowen, Howells, and the rest of the modernists!)
Lastly, for those who want to get to know you better, where can they find your work? Share your @ for anyone who wants to follow along!
Thank you so much for letting us peek into your current reads, Michelle! You’re the best of the best.
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I love Michelle's instastories! And that comment about you, Haley, was just the sweetest!
Loved this interview! Thank you both :)