may's monthly musings

what I've been reading, watching, and listening to this month

Welcome to this month’s musings, where I share mini-essays, reading lists, what’s in my bookshop cart, and other ramblings.

Monthly musings newsletters are designed for paid subscribers and drop on the last Sunday of every month. To gain access to all the thoughts here, plus the entire Closely Reading archive, upgrade to a paid subscription.

What I’ve been reading:

On Substack

• Jade’s essay about crafting your very own MFA degree

• Kate’s essay about what makes a classic

• Petya’s essay about mood readers vs. readers who plan

• Meredith’s essay about building your own internal safety spaces

Online

• This wonderful profile of Catherine O’Hara from 2019

• How Daniel Radcliffe outgrew Harry Potter from The Atlantic

• This fantastic essay about E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Sandman

• This recipe for chocolate chipless cookies, which I never ever want to lose

In print

• This smart review of Taylor Swift’s latest album in the New Yorker

• The fantastic new profile of Miranda July in the New Yorker

• And The Age of Innocence, obviously

On my nightstand

• The Memory Police

• Cleopatra and Frankenstein

What I’ve been watching:

• That final James Bond movie with Daniel Craig (I cried like a damn baby)

• American Fiction - totally brilliant with lots of lovely surprises and my only sadness was that Tracee Ellis Ross didn’t get more screen time because her character was a giant heartbeat