the march report, plus looking ahead
a warm welcome to many new readers!
Hi, close reader!
It’s that time again. (Are the months flying by now that it’s no longer the Eternal January?) I can’t believe it’s time for another monthly round-up, and this has been such a fun one to put together.
Here’s the REPORT for March —
Reading, plus my recent book buys
Eating (actually drinking) the best spring flavors
Pinning garden inspiration
On all the time — the TV shows I cannot stop thinking about
Ranting about Ruby Franke and what to even say…
Treating myself to extra studio time
Reading & my recent book buys
I live in a home filled with books. My younger self would be so happy to see that every room has a bookshelf — and that, just like her, my favorite way to spend a Friday night is at a bookstore picking out a few new-to-me titles. My other favorite way to spend a Friday night is, of course, with a great story, whether I’m reading it, watching it, or even playing it.
This morning, I started Naomi Klein’s book Doppelgänger. I read chapter one at a coffee shop and had one of those lovely moments where I was vibing so much with the ideas that I was losing track of time and all the noise & people around me. I’m excited to keep reading!
She’s using the book to grapple with the fact that, as a very public thinker with the name Naomi, she is constantly mixed-up with another very public persona with the name Naomi who is her opposite in every conceivable way: from their viewpoints to their politics to their engagement with issues like climate change and the history of fascism. She considers the constant comparisons to this “double” of herself—this unexpected cultural “twin” who is her opposite in so many ways—as an opportunity for self-reflection. So she resists the urge to project onto her “twin,” and to push her away, and instead wonders how similar they might be and how they are each the product of the same basic cultural system in the United States…
So far, so fascinating.
Now, here are a few titles I’ve picked up lately…
The latest Hunger Games book
I loved this trilogy as a teenager. I have always had a soft spot for Haymitch. I can’t wait to read his backstory and see how the little breadcrumbs we got throughout the Katniss storyline become fleshed out here. I am soooo curious about how Haymitch becomes the jaded drunk he is in the first Hunger Games book.
The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
I bought her newest novel a few months ago. I haven’t read it yet, but I keep reading amazing things about it. I wanted to have her first novel, too. The brief summary on the back cover captivated me!
The Language of the Night by Ursula LeGuin
Years ago, I read an essay by LeGuin about the art of storytelling called The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. And I think about it all the time—I mean, I think about it at least once or twice every week since. I also have watched and rewatched her National Book Foundation acceptance speech.
I have not read any of her fiction (I know! She’s on my TBR!) but for now, I’m going to keep reading her nonfiction essays about writing and fiction.
Angela Carter’s adaptation of Charles Perrault fairy tales
During my PhD, I took an incredible class on literature for children — and we spent an entire unit of the course reading different translations, interpretations, and didactic retellings of fairy tales. I became so interested in different layers of reading the “morals” from these stories and how a single detail shift in a story could completely change the meaning a young reader was meant to take from it.
I found a slim edition of Angela Carter’s translations and retellings of Little Red Riding-Hood and a few other fairy tales that were popularized by Charles Perrault. This will be fun to have on hand when I eventually revisit my fairy tales research from that class. Someday! Someday.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
I keep hearing great things about Kristin Hannah. I usually don’t shop the recent releases (you know I love those 19th century classics…) but I decided to get this for upcoming summertime outings!
Eating & enjoying
I make a lot of decaf lattes at home with our Nespresso, but because spring is on her way…my favorite local coffee shop brought back my favorite specialty latte and I have gone to get it so many times.
It’s a rosemary-lemon latte and it’s delicious.
I could drink three a day. But I will stick to one or two per week.
I take it iced with oat milk.
It’s my favorite coffee drink of all time. I’m literally drinking one right now!
Pinning, or images that inspire me
I have been saving a lot of images to inspired gardening, planting, and other outdoor space design. It gets so hot in my area during the late summer, so it has been disheartening over the years to get a gorgeous garden growing throughout May and June…and then watch it all die and turn to dust by early August.
So this year, I’m thinking a lot more about sustainable garden plans and planting for the few patches of shade in the yard. We get so many birds (and yes, I’m fully entering my Bird Watching Era) that I’m also thinking about putting in a proper bird bath!
I’m also trying to figure out if there’s a workable spot in my yard for a miniature cut-flower garden area. Last year, I tried planting wildflowers along our back fence. I tended to the space for weeks but nothing ever sprouted; I think the soil was just too dusty— nothing could take proper root. This year, I’m going to try containers and hanging planters, as well as putting down a layer of compost under any new dirt to hopefully create a stronger base layer for things to grow in.
On all the time, or what I’ve been watching
Severance — I’m among the many millions who’ve been in a chokehold with this program for the last ten weeks. I am *devastated* that we’ve reached the end of season two already. But it was also one of the most perfectly paced and edited seasons of TV…maybe ever? Episode 7 will live in my heart forever.
My husband and I waited all three full, long years after the perfection of season 1 ended to come back to Lumon. (He was probably one of the first people to watch the series; he got into it as soon as it aired years ago—it took me a while to catch up and get into it, but now it’s pretty much all we talk about haha). I’m delighted at the surge of Lumon-inspired merch on Etsy because, along with our “the work is mysterious and important” mugs from season 1, I am positive that I need this tee shirt.
The Pitt — I never got into ER, because I was a little girl when it first aired, but I know the theme song like a lullaby because my parents never missed an episode. I remember seeing handsome Noah Wyle on my TV in his scrubs…and it’s a delight to have him back on my TV in his scrubs in this new medical drama.
I am loving the hour-by-hour story development and the pacing out of the emotional wear and tear of working in a high pressure environment. I love the flashbacks to Covid-era trauma and the tensions of a new intern class joining a well-oiled machine of attending and resident physicians. I love that it’s not a melodrama like Grey’s Anatomy (I love the first six seasons of that show; I think season 1 is a work of art), and I also really like seeing a really tight, smart character development across a single day. We’re getting to know fully formed people as their choices reveal them to us; they’re not being created by the episode, but have rich inner lives we get to peek into with each vignette-style moment with them.
Mel is the best character I’ve met on TV in a long time!!!
I think this is going to quickly rise to the top of my “favorite shows ever” list…along with Severance and Fleabag and Station Eleven.
Ranting about…
How on earth horrible people get away with so much, for so long, in general.
I watched that horrific Ruby Franke documentary, in particular.
I’ve followed the story closely because there are many intersections in it that feel familiar to me: Mormon perfectionism, abuses of patriarchal power, the lunacy of zealots, the dangerous bubbles of living in a “Happy Valley,” and the weaponization of wellness against individuals without any opportunity to develop an independent sense of self.
I find it fascinating that there’s a broader cultural interest in Mormon culture that seems to be on the rise right now — from the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to Litia’s stint on The Bachelor (don’t come at me, but I’m Team Juliana and think Litia had crazy lady eyes from week 1…) to this Ruby Franke documentary (and all the other bizarre stories of murder and abuse that come out of this particular cultural space; don’t get me started on Chad and Lorie Daybell).
I also find it quite triggering, to be honest. There is a part of me who longs to write about it, especially as someone who increasingly felt something was “off” in the church and who stopped going as soon as she possibly could as an adult.
But to be even more honest with you: I feel like I’m always torn between writing about my personal experience with my religious upbringing (it was truly fucking awful) and trying to remain so respectful toward those who haven’t had the same experience (and who defend the church as the best thing that ever happened to them). Perhaps both things can be true.
Maybe someday, I’ll figure out how to walk the minefield that seems to be this general topical area…All I can say for now is: I am so glad I listened to my gut and got myself hence when I did. I know that by leaving and creating as much distance as I could from that way of living and believing was the right thing for my heart, mind, body, and self. I guess…I’m more interested, most days, in honoring that choice than entering the minefield of trying to defend it.
Treating myself
On a much lighter note: my favorite treat this month is the ceramic studio.
I’ve started spending more time there throwing clay during open hours and just experimenting. I’m playing with shape, size, and style. Even super simple things like angling my hand slightly differently, sitting closer to the wheel, or using tools instead of my hands while the clay spins are teaching me so much.
Here are my fave things about throwing clay:
Hanging out with my best bud, my nephew, who goes with me to throw
Not wearing an apron and making a big, wet mess all over my clothes and hands and hair
Relatedly: finding clay on myself days later, like behind my ears or somehow on the back of my knee?
Having no idea what each lump of clay is going to turn into and figuring it out as I go
Nothing I make looks like it could’ve possibly been made by a machine; these are mistakes that only my little fingers could make and even the pieces I don’t feel strongly about end up being so cute once they’re glazed
That’s another thing: glazing!!!!!! The surprise of what comes out of the final firing will never not be hilariously fun for me!
I love that I’ve found a space where I can just fully let go of whatever is on my mind and focus on a little block of clay in front of me. My mind goes blank. My thoughts turn to putty. My hands feel like intentional tools. My jaw loosens; my lower back relaxes. It feels great.
It’s the coolest, funnest, funniest thing—throwing clay.
My Substack saves
A peek into the articles and essays I’ve saved on Substack this month…
Petya’s reading kinks — this essay is fantastic and I’ve been thinking about it ever since I read it!
Why you should talk back to your books
A roundup of gorgeous looking stationery shops in San Fran — I hope to make it to at least a few of these later this year!
Treating research as a leisure activity
A few bits from my own Substack…
Up next in our book club:
1 week with Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills
4 weeks with Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio
Both of these stories are perfect for readers who want to study working class literature, or American literature that grapples with the lived experience of the labor class more broadly. Review the full 2025 schedule here.
Coming this summer…
We are embarking on a very long and very slow of Middlemarch together through the summer months, and I’m already getting nervous-butterflies thinking about it!
I’m gathering my emotional wherewithal to revisit my dissertation and share excerpts and favorite bits of my analysis with you all here…Does that sound fun?
I’m also writing reflective pieces on my grad school experiences — anything you’d like to know about?
‘Til next time, happy reading!
Sooooo excited for Middlemarch!
The only way I can cope with life in the dystopian future we’re living in is by mentally living in the 19th c. -So I also am very excited for Middlemarch, and I am excited to read it with you, Haley! You create such a great experience around these books and part of that is the intelligent & insightful people who are your readers. Their comments during P&P were always just right.