If you’re in London, you’ll know—last week the temperature dropped twenty degrees, the sky opened up with buckets of rain, and everyone who owns a candle lit that sucker up. It is only the start of September, but autumn, we are indeed back.

I’m behind on my reading goal—just by two, mind you, but I’m starting to feel the thrill of the chase. I’m grateful for all the train journeys and long weekends I’ve got coming to catch up, and all the incredible new releases over the next few weeks.

So, here are the 10 books I’m most keen to get to this autumn.

This post is a paid partnership with Book of the Month. As always, all opinions are my own.

The Fiction of Fall

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman | Deesha Philyaw

Schar Freeman, wife to a megachurch pastor, knows a thing or two about power. Just before her 40th birthday, she receives an invitation and the opportunity to stick it to a clique of fellow wives. But scandal looms large, and at church as in life, not everything is as it seems.

Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, a short story collection navigating the lives of Black women across generations and the tenuous connections between the church and their own passions, first introduced me to Philyaw’s work. To see her come back after six long years (!!!) with her debut novel is just so exciting, and I was so thrilled to see this on the list of novels for September from Book of the Month.

Before You Were Anne | Emiko Jean

Detective Chelsey Calhoun faces an explosive new case—a mother is dead, and her daughter Naomi is missing. As Calhoun navigates Anne Walker, who the victim died as, she discovers the story of Rika Takahashi, who the victim was born as, and her hidden lives.

When I’m looking for a thriller, it’s always one like this: there is the search and the scares, but also a rich underworld of characters and connections to be discovered. I think there’s no shortage of mother-daughter thrillers, but this one that invites in the outside perspective and features journeys through time and place, is more my cup of tea. Additionally, my partner is half-Japanese and was born in Tokyo, so I think this read might be one we share.

American Hagwon | Min Jin Lee

In schools and churches, hotel rooms and nail salons, law firms and fried-fish shops; in dingy apartments and gated communities, men, women, and children from Korea to Southern California struggle to find purpose and satisfaction in an increasingly less forgiving world.

Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko is simply one of the best modern sagas I’ve ever read. The way she captures generations, movement, and familial bonds across the page is nothing short of a 21st century revelation, and I can’t wait to return to her style of writing.

Ghost Pains | Jessi Jezewska Stevens

A collection of Stevens’ acclaimed short fiction, originally appearing in the likes of The Paris Review and Tin House. The women of Ghost Pains throw disastrous parties, flirt through landscapes of terror and war, and navigate the labyrinths of the fractured American present.

Ghost Pains found its way on to my bookshelf following a whim in a Lake District bookstore. I’d heard of Stevens in passing, mostly through knowing she’d been published in The Paris Review, and am eager to experience the growing legend of her descriptions for myself. I believe she’s also a reporter out of Switzerland, so I’m interested to see if this collection has a bit more bite than I am expecting as well.

The Fantastical & Spooky

The Knave and the Moon | Rachel Gillig

For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know what a fan of Gillig’s I am—The Knave and the Moon, following last year’s The Knight and the Moth, is my most anticipated read of the year. The gothic atmosphere she crafts amidst fantastical and romantic elements is second to none, and I cannot wait to see how things end for Sybil, Rodrick, and Bartholomew.

A Complement of Scoundrels | S.V. Lockwood

Cracking the Elysius Vault should’ve made Myria the richest thief in all Carintheum. Instead, it shattered her crew and left her rotting in jail while her double-crossing master walked away with everything that should’ve been hers. But now she’s out, and it’s time to settle the score.

What is it about a fantasy heist that is so delicious? And a revenge plot to boot? The early reviews of this are excellent, and so I’m hoping it is one of the books with a perfect cast that I can devour over the course of a weekend.

The Witches of Cambridge | Alice Hoffman

Ava and Lauren, two young women from New England, arrive at Radcliffe College different as can be. But both start to find common ground once they are recruited by the Lilith Society, a coven of witches dating back to colonial times. Yet when girls start to disappear, it seems the witch trials of days past might not be as buried as they think.

If anyone asks, it’s an Alice Hoffman autumn. I don’t know if she has a lick to do with Practical Magical 2, perhaps she doesn’t, but it certainly means I’ve got her and her witches on the brain. Beyond the PM of it all, I am genuinely curious to see how she ties this coven to the era of McCarthyism in American history—oft-described as a kind of witch hunt, I think there are a lot of intriguing links possible.

The Mystery of it All

The Tainted Cup | Robert Jackson Bennett

A high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Investigating is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, and as the two close in on a mastermind, a scheme threatens the safety of the Empire itself,

I finished The Raven Scholar a few weeks ago (a read I adored, but in hindsight, wish I waited for fall for), and this series often pops up as a related recommendation. The blurb, I won’t lie, is a touch confusing on Goodreads (a nod and smile situation, really), but the Holmes and Watson energy to it all with a magical and imperial touch intrigues me.

Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel | Lucy Foley & Agatha Christie

High in the Swiss Alps, accessible only by a single, winding railway, stands the Grand Alpine Hotel. But not everyone is here for a winter holiday. Beneath the champagne and furs, dark histories simmer; old grudges emerge like cracks in the ice. And someone is watching from the shadows. A polite, unassuming woman with an extraordinary mind: Miss Marple.

Truthfully, I feel a bit mixed about this one—I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, and after hearing her speak last year, I quite like Lucy Foley on a personal level, if not a literary one yet. Touching Miss Marple does feel somewhat sacrilegious, but I would genuinely like to see the Christie Estate and Foley succeed, so I’m giving this a go.

The Library of the Dead | T.L. Huchu

When a child goes missing in Edinburgh's darkest streets, young Ropa investigates. She'll need to call on Zimbabwean magic as well as her Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. But as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

Not too dissimilar from the first title of this section, I love a mystery with a touch of magic, especially around autumn. I’ve heard really wonderful thing about Ropa as a protagonist, and Edinburgh is a city that looms large in my mind every autumn, so I’m hoping I come away loving this one and with a new favorite series.

This post is part of my 10-list series, a monthly post of seasonal book recommendations. This post is (and will remain!) free, but if you’d like to receive more of these suggested reads in the future, consider upgrading your subscription!

More than once, I considered deleting this draft. It felt disingenuous to publish this given how I’ve been feeling and that I stopped adding to this daily list halfway through. But I read it over a few times and realized that to say I spent three-months totally unhappy would be just as untrue as saying I was giggles the whole time.

I saw an eclipse. I saw my parents and brother, which was nearly as good. I ate some really delicious things. I saw some really cool stuff. My friends and family made me smile, even whilst I’ve been feeling down.

The road ahead will have its challenges, but that doesn’t negate all the positivity I am lucky enough to have around. Finishing this list and creating space to marinate on all the little pleasures found during the long days of this complicated summer, I found strangely healing.

So, let this be a reminder to me and to you: don’t delete the good from your drafts

Little pleasures from summer—

1. Catching up with an old friend, hearing all her adventures in Canada, and laughing over pints of cider until we’re sick.

2. Making my boyfriend and I’s favorite breakfast for the first time in ages: eggs with butter and parm, sourdough, avocado, and crispy bacon.

3. Making long awaited upgrades to my bed—covering my awful headboard in silvery blue fabric my mom bought 30 years ago in Egypt, paired with two new pillows and lettuce ruffled pillowcases.

4. My new green baggu purse with my shamrock Jellycat charm on it.

5. The breakfast tasting menu at Pavyllon was simply ridiculous for one as a solo birthday breakfast, but I left happy as a clam.

6. Starting a new book with your friend, and immediately complaining about it together. (Atlas Paradox).

7. A little girl, four or so, in a Belle dress, absolutely munching on a full-sized baguette in the aisle of the grocery store while her mom considered cheeses. Genuinely. It was as tall as she was, yet she had no fear. We all should aspire to her greatness.

8. A green garlic bun from Don’t Tell Dad.

9. Planning two of my best friends’ trip to London in July. The mayhem that ensued you could hardly imagine.

10. Trying a parenie and a venik for the first. Who knew getting hit with bundles of soaked leaves in a sauna by a bunch of Russian uncles could be so relaxing?

11. My new Bobbie Goods coloring book and Oahu markers that my boyfriend got me for my 26th. I’m going to color myself so unbelievably calm.

12. A birthday dinner at Lagana with dips as big as my head and cheesecake and crayons. I even forgive them for making me sick on funky pink wine.

13. My sister, brother, and parents mailing me birthday cards from all the way on the other side of the Atlantic. Bonus points for making me laugh because they wrote the wrong post code and it was crossed out and corrected in thick, angry sharpie.

14. Korean-fried chicken—one of the only hot foods that works on a hot day.

15. Hearing Lily King give a reading of Heart the Lover and an ensuing talk that left me warm, fuzzy, and inspired.

16. A box of pringle shaped chocolates arranged in a colorful flower, from my boyfriend’s cousin and wife.

17. A bucket of Pimm’s at a cricket game.

18. America’s Sweethearts and Sweet Magnolias coming out the same week on Netflix. Your girl was OCCUPIED.

19. The warm reception to my post about struggling with creativity, and my effort to do more paid posts as a #seriouswriter.

20. Planning my first book club meet up in London (EEE!) to discuss Taiwan Travelogue.

21. I went to Koia for an afternoon to have both a hot stone massage and a hydrofacial and I emerged reborn. What is it about having gunk sucked out of your face by a tiny vacuum?

22. At a really bad meal at a restaurant I won’t name, I had a scrumptious pear cider, which saved the whole evening.

23. Being starfished on my bed in the heat. I remember this winter, in bed under three blankets, shivering, feeling as if I’d never be warm again. As always, the sun came back around in diabolical force.

24. A strawberry iced matcha from Katsute—one of the best Japanese cafes in London!

25. An army of swans swimming through the canals of Canary Wharf, viewed from above.

26. Tomatoes. Tomatoes. Tomatoes (the green ones).

27. (See above) Two of my best friends visiting, especially considering it was when I was feeling my lowest. The love and grace they showered me with during some of my hardest moments I’ll never forget.

28. RAMSGATE, U.K. WAS A BANGER OF A TIME!!!

29. Visiting the world’s largest Wetherspoon’s. Disneyland for a fraction of the price.

30. Starting to go to the local farmer’s market again regularly. I feel like it has become a wonderful way to set up a week, and has made a difference in my health, skin, and diet.

31. An oyster shaped trinket dish, painted in iridescent colors.

32. Visiting Kew Gardens for the first time. Blooms as far as the eye can see.

33. Going to Towpath for the first time for Sunday brunch—yes, it is a line, yes, it is so worth it.

34. My two previous flatmates moving out, and my two new flatmates moving in. The previous ones were nice enough girls, but we never clicked. I get on with my two new ones like a house on fire, and if these are my last few months in London, I feel super lucky to finish them living with new friends.

35. Escaping to Majorca for a few days with family, and staying at a castle in the mountains.

36. Jumping from the tip top of a tall boat into the Mediterranean with my brother.

37. Seeing a total solar eclipse. Magical doesn’t even begin to capture how other-worldly it felt. My mom and I sat on rocks and cried.

38. A fresh blowout. Oh, how I bounced my way through the streets!

39. Getting to shower my boyfriend with love alongside all his friends for his 30th.

40. Puzzle mania for four solid days. It was a Jane Austen one and I nearly lost my senses.

41. BBQ for dinner everyday—the superior summer meal.

42. Having another of my best friends pop into town on her way back from Poland. We went to Canterbury, saw the Cathedral, had epic cups of tea, broke into a luxe school, and got wine drunk on a train. Precisely what the doctor prescribed.

43. Meeting a new friend for drinks and swapping stories all evening. Project 44 was the perfect coffee shop / cozy wine bar to do it.

44. Bright pink baby’s breath in the living room vase for all of August.

45. Finding this childhood quote that my mother used to repeat to me all the time growing up while cleaning out my desk yesterday:

The day I knew I had to quit my job, they called me into a meeting at 10am. It was supposed to last an hour and a half, but ended after 17 minutes, because I had absolutely nothing to say.

Tragically, I can’t tell you what it was about because being sued is not in the Breakfast for Dinner budget, but it makes for a really good story.

As does everything else that’s happened to me there for the last 8 months. But alas; pesky self preservation. Maybe when that NDA loses its shine in a year.

At the end of the day (because they told me to “Take a minute,” then keep working for the rest of it) I walked the entire length of London right to left, East to West, on the phone with my parents. They were driving home from the beach and as I ranted and cried, I could hear rain thundering on the roof of their car. I kept saying uninteresting and unoriginal things like “How could they do this?” and asking why why why.

My boyfriend found me in a Shake Shack, staring into space. As a woman, I reserve the right to be right about everything, but he was definitely right about this place. He told me to leave months ago. He’s about the gentlest spirit I’ve ever met, but god does he hate them. He made me eat a burger, despite the fact I wasn’t hungry (see above about being right, sometimes).

Then I went home, slept for twelve hours, woke up, and submitted my letter of resignation.

So, yeah. I quit my job and I have absolutely no plan.

Or, well, I resigned, because my notice period is three months. If you just let out a gasp of horror in American, I get that. Most of my friends and family did too.

That’s why I haven’t been posting. I’ve been spending a lot of energy on halting impossible inevitabilities, like my spiraling sense of doom.

I’ll probably have to leave London, which sucks. My boyfriend, my apartment, my stuff, my lovely neighborhood, my life.

I really, really don’t know what’s going to happen to me.

In the recesses of my brain winks a little innate knowledge (or hope?) that I’ll be fine—I’m lucky to have a home to go home to, and good work experience, and a second job—but right now it feels like I’ve swallowed a frog that’s continually trying to crawl up up up and out to escape.

Therefore, I’ve composed a list of ideas for my life’s next steps, that include but are not limited to—

• Going to Paris to shop

• Going to Majorca, to sun and to shop

• Going to the Hollyhocks bookshop out in the Cotswolds when it opens in August

• Going to the Sun and Moon show at Saatchi Gallery to feel nice and small

• Going to Poland and seeing if I feel in my bones that part of me comes from there

• Going to Ireland and getting a stranger to buy my claddagh ring

• Selling all my clothes on Vinted and becoming a nomad

• Writing a novel about my experiences there called Funnny Farm

• Writing more on BFD because this is what I actually like and am good at anyway

• Moving back to America

• Moving to Edinburgh

• Not moving and finding a new job, because I would love to stick it to those suckers

• Reading every unread book I have during working hours until they put me on garden leave (I wish)

• Inducing the next worldwide pandemic except there are no actual consequences (method of doing so, to be discovered)

• Bringing back egging (I wish)

• Going to the park every day to watch my skin freckle instead of my spreadsheets

• Learning to make a good homemade mint lemonade

• Buying my boyfriend something really nice to make up for the last six months

• Scrapbooking until I can’t see straight

• Finding the next thing for me

For now, what I am actually going to do is to go on the trip I originally cancelled to see a lunar eclipse with my family. And I’m gonna start writing again.

But honestly, if you’ve been in this situation or something like it and have any insight on any point of this journey, I am more than a listening ear. Shout your advice at me like I’m a cavern. Genuinely. I think at this point, everyone else knows better than me.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to feel and be better by the time you read my next piece.

Hence, 10 anti beach reads: a niche selection of things to read on the shore for everyone from the environmentalist to the corporate goblin in your life.

This is part of a new series for monthly for paid subscribers, where I recommend a set of 10 books that somehow evoke the month or season in my eyes (for August, I’m already chewing on 10 books that embody the bittersweet end of summer).

What are you reading, beachside or otherwise, this summer?

A beach read for environmentalists

Is a River Alive? | Robert MacFarlane

Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.

Robert MacFarlane is one of the rare writers that captures both the beauty and wonder of the natural world and the threats it faces. However, he does so with such a tender, almost loving hope. Journeying through Ecuador, India, and Canada, along the rivers and with the people of each, takes readers across the globe and into environments scarcely comprehensible.

A lot of nonfiction books centered on the environment will break your heart on the beach, but Is a River Alive? will remind you there’s much still to fight for.

A beach read for the autumn girl trapped in summer

The Summer Book | Tove Jansson

An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Here, a fierce yet understated love emerges—one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty morning hours of May 2, 1981. Berendt interweaves a first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

I should have known I wouldn’t be able to pick just one book across at least a few of these categories, but here, allow me to defend myself—there’s more than one type of autumn girl.

For someone that enjoys the coziness found inside: ciders and crackling fires and puzzles and looking out at the world as the leaves change, there’s The Summer Book. As the name suggests, if you can believe it, it is set in the summertime but it captures that sort of insular feeling by being set on an island, as well as the warmth, loyalty, and complexities that come with family.

For someone who loves autumn for all the spookiness it brings and the mystery it tempts out of everyone, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the bet. The heat and slow creep of Savannah itself projects this nonfiction along, as do the dizzying array of characters the reader meets as we seek to uncover the whodunnit of it all.

Read more

For the past three months, I feel like a lot of my reads have been middle of the table—the almost but not quite five-stars that have nonetheless provoked some very interesting and specific streams of thought.

But for the rest of summer, I’m hoping to lean into more variety and more excellence. Sadly, I won’t be able to go home and to the beach this year, where I usually sit in the sand, freckle, and read about ten books in the row. But we have the beach at home (and by at home, I mean in a London park).

I’ve got Fever Dream as my current read for a little zest, and up next I have Taiwan Travelogue as the first read for my new London based book club (EEE!) that’s meeting towards the end of next month.

To see my first few reads of the year, see my January through March reading report. And as always, if you want to stay up to date with what I’m reading, you can follow me on Goodreads.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe | 5 F*CKING STARS

As stated, I basically consider PRK the Americana Lisan al-Gaib. He’s just that guy.

Like with all of his works, London Falling is seizing from the onset: Zac Brettler, a well-loved kid from a normal London family, goes over the balcony of a luxury apartment and into the Thames. It is only after his body is found that his parents discovered he had been pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch, set to inherit billions, and had fallen in with a crook and a gangster.

PRK paints a portrait of a gilded city with dirt, decay, and blood seeping through its cracks. If you have any interest in nonfiction at all, and especially if you are a Londoner past or present, I highly recommend.

One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig | 4.5 stars and 3.5 stars

Early in the spring, I needed a strong dose of magic and romantasy to soften the corporate creepies. Rachel Gillig’s unique worlds always deliver, so I was thrilled to dive into this duology as a reread.

The magic system in this one is particularly good and unique, but overall—story, romances, conflict, etc.—there are no weak points. I can’t wait for her newest book, The Knave and the Moon, to come out at summer’s end.

Heart the Lover by Lily King | 4 stars

Lily King absolutely knows how to write a gut ripper. It is difficult to write a love story that is serious and takes itself seriously, but Heart the Lover does just that. Something I love about the way Lily King writes is that she truly writes the way people think. Thoughts drift through memories and reminders and how one song will make you think of one thing, then another.

The moments in college brought me back to that time, when the thing that mattered most was each other and being brilliant. The middle and end sections were not quite as effervescent for me, but maybe that is life, but they were still warm chapters with lovely prose and feeling.

After finishing this book and having the opportunity to hear King speak in person, I wrote this essay:

Over the Water: Essays on Islands | 4 stars

I think there’s something about an island, near or far, warm or cold, that tempts every kind of imagination. After all, Odysseus took his sweet time getting home for a reason.

This was a brilliant little collection around a compelling central theme. Broken into three categories - island as escape, island as metaphor, and island home, the essays are as diverse and strong as the excellent writers they’ve asked to contribute. The writing was in turns poignant, and thought-provoking. It’s hard not to reflect on your own connections to islands, real or imagined.

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono | 4 stars

Perfect for a short afternoon when life feels a smidge gray, as how could anyone dislike this gentle book?

Following the life of a shepherd who seeks to restore life around him by planting trees, it shows the power of goodness, how nature reveals and conceals our private lives, and how actions reverberate across the bad (world wars) and the good (rejuvenation). Plus, it’s brilliant that this non-fictional fiction inspired copy cats around the globe.

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman | 3.5 stars

One of the few murder mystery series I will continue to buy and buy and read and read. It feels like visiting with old friends—emphasis on the old.

This book (number five, which I can hardly believe) felt like a very classic installment in terms of plot, reveals, and devices. However, I think with the cast expanding, while it makes sense not everyone can show up everywhere, I still missed Bogdan, Donna and Chris as larger presences. At the same time, I love that Joanna got to shine a bit more. Overall, the mystery was not as tight or compelling as past ones by a long shot, but most of the time, I was just happy to be back in this world.

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg | 3.5 stars

Beginning this story as it does, “I shot him between the eyes,” then meandering us through the relationship that leads to that truth, is as punchy as you imagine. Very satisfying, and although I didn’t do it in a sitting, you certainly could.

As the narration takes us through the back story of this failed marriage, you cannot help but track the unravelling of this woman and her marriage with an extra careful, watchful lens. By the end, you just about understand her.

After finishing this book and while in a man-hating mood, I wrote this essay:

The Serpent’s Shadow by Rick Riordan | 3.5 stars

After starting my reread of the Kane Chronicles earlier this year, I finished it with The Serpent’s Shadow at the start of March.

While I adore the Kane Chronicles and think they’re horrifically underrated in the Riordan-verse (please, please, get these lunatic children on screen), I’ve always maintained that this series deserved five books rather than a rushed three.

Thee is nothing inherently wrong with the storytelling here, but pacing is a major issue all the way through. But perhaps I just always want more time with this lovely bunch.

The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake | 2.5 stars

This book irritated me so much. Ugh. Atlas Six was by no stretch a perfect read, but it had stakes and drama and characterization, so I wanted to give the sequel a chance. Alas. (Slight spoilers, below).

Everyone basically spent the year wasting away and being horridly predictable. At least Callum had the good sense to admit it and be funny once in a blue moon. Parisa lost her bite, Nico is very uncleverly in denial, Tristan’s very cool magic was explained in a very boring way, even with a god complex Reina doesn’t develop much, and poor Libby is stuck in the past individually trying to give this book some intrigue in her Back to the Future scenes.

There are no stakes, there is no plot, and there is no way you could convince me to read the third one. Onwards and upwards in July!

At 4 am, I hear the pad of my youngest brother and his friends feet along the wooden grooves of the wraparound deck as they sneak by my bedroom. They are full of shushing and laughter and iced tea vodkas and have lost in the space of a June night the memory of what it was ever like to be quiet.

I roll back over and fall asleep. It isn’t quite morning yet, but soon buttery light will slip between the grooves of my blinds. My parents come down the metal spiral staircase at 6:30 or so—sometimes, I rise and quickly dress and join them for a long walk.

Sometimes, I let them go without me, so they can talk about business or travel or us kids or whatever it is that people who have known each other for four decades talk about on a calm morning when time stretches like the beach before them.

If I’m not working, I’ll read for the hours I wait for my siblings to wake up. Big fat books I’ve avoided for ages, or a mystery Julie has given me, or one of the romances my sister and I made a last ditch effort to engage with. When my parents come back, they’ll put on a pot of Dunkin drip coffee—none of the posh European stuff I’m stuck drinking across the Atlantic, and it tastes like nectar to me.

Often, I grow impatient waiting for one of my siblings, anyone of them, to crawl out of bed and join me on a muffin run, so I choose to go alone. The baked shop down the street makes the best muffins on Earth. The size of soft balls in symphonies of summer ripeness: berry ones full to the brim, peach and raspberry, strawberry and rhubarb, double chocolate for the boys. I bring them home in their signature pink box, which will live on the counter for days. In the fridge, I hide my key lime bar under a packet of cheese, lest it be spotted and seized by the crows.

From here, the rest of the day blends and stretches into the kind of infinity that can only be found in a long summer afternoon. We read on the beach, and swim in icy water, and try to get our Irish skin to freckle and tan though we know how bad it is for us to do so. Sandwiches full of Jersey tomatoes and salty chips, enough Surfsides to fill a river (if you’re a shore person, you’ll know what I mean), and the ongoing resistance to climbing back up the dunes. No one ever wants a day, any of them, to end.

But at some point they do, and we’ll kerfuffle up the hill dragging chairs and limbs and umbrellas to wash the sand from our slick bodies. Grilling is nearly always mandatory, and it is my father who is up and down the metallic spiral stairs once again, with my siblings and I running intermediary interference when required.

I’ll eat as much fresh corn as I can stomach before we all climb up onto the roof to watch the sun set over the bay, hoping to spy a green flash that never manifests.

For the first time in 26 years, including the period when I was just a mass of cells, I won’t be going home this summer.

My family will cycle through days like the one I describe, while I wait in London waiting for my visa to come through and my bosses to be less cross with me. All I can do is recall the way I spent these hours from memory, and in an uneven attempt to make myself feel better, share it with all of you.

It must be said that my family doesn’t always live in such idyllic pastures; even amidst the enchantments of summer, we have had savage fights, or bad weather, or bad times. Last summer, we had to drive through two and a half foot water all the way home, and our screams and laughter ring in my ears. This is more so the reality of it: sadness and happiness, terror and joy, like any life.

But more than anything, those summer days bring me peace. I said the same in my piece last year: when I am down the shore in summertime, all I can think is: Everything I will ever need is in this house.

As we continue to grow up and change, that might not always be true. Maybe I’m ruining that thought for my parents or my siblings by being away for these June and July weeks.

I just hope to find my way back next summer.

For even more nostalgia and whining, if you can stomach it:

The title of this essay is borrowed from Ocean Vuong’s poem in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Because It’s Summer.

And, if you’re like me, scoping out what everyone is reading.

I travel from West London to Shoreditch each day for work, and take no fewer than three trains to do so. This is when I do a lot of my reading, and I’m not alone in pursuing a literary-centered commute. So, for this last month, I decided to write down everything I saw other people reading on the train.

Quickly, I found out this was a lot harder than I could have guessed—people hold books at the funniest angles. But for the ones I did record, I found some incredible recs from the other lit-fans of London.

• Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage | Belle Burden

• Katabasis | R.F. Kuang

• The Other Boleyn Girl | Philippa Gregory

• London Falling | Patrick Radden Keefe

• Jumbo | Scott Bateman

• Book Lovers | Emily Henry

• Ogilvy On Advertising | David Ogilvy

• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay | Elena Ferrante

• Precipice | Robert Harris

• Before the Coffee Gets Cold | Toshikazu Kawaguchi

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck | Mark Manson

• Butter | Asako Yuzuki

• Wild Dark Shore | Charlotte McConaghy

• Hell Bent | Leigh Bardugo

• Broken Country | Clare Leslie Hall

• War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy

• A Rural Affair | Catherine Alliott

• Intermezzo | Sally Rooney

• Lublin | Manya Wilkinson

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow | Gabrielle Zevin

• Knife | Jo Nesbo

• The Executioner | Chris Carter

• Slanting Towards the Sea | Lidija Hilje

• Endling | Maria Reva

• Meditations | Marcus Aurelius

• Fair Play | Louise Hegarty

• The Wedding People | Alison Espach

• Circe | Madeline Miller

• Down the Drain | Julia Fox

• Heir of Fire | Sarah J. Maas

• Half His Age | Jennette McCurdy

• The Fraud | Zadie Smith

• Still Waters | Viveca Sten

• Babel | R.F. Kuang

• Four Thousand Weeks | Oliver Burkeman

• Giovanni’s Room | James Baldwin

In high school, I was part of a specialized creative writing program. There were six of us: three boys and three girls, and we couldn’t have been more different if they had pulled us from a bowl and reaped us. But that is a story for another time.

This one is about Heart the Lover, by Lily King, and the forward and backward of time. The presentism and the eternalism, as our narrator confronts. Is there only this moment, or is there one before and after? It’s also about boys.

More than a few moments ago, I was sitting in my high school classroom with the three boys; one of the girls was a chronic ditcher and the other had pneumonia. It was very awkward because a writer and a poet, Kevin Carey, came to visit. We were seniors then, supposedly or allegedly the best writers at our private school, so we had the good fortune of a visiting writers budget. I’m sure our teacher, Mr. H, knew Mr. Carey somehow and that’s how he ended up in our classroom. In turn, I’m sure Mr. Carey must have expected more than the four of us, but the four of us was what he got.

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My whole life, I have rejected the notion of being a Gemini.

It is because my whole gut concaves when someone calls me two-faced; I think it is one of the worst insults imaginable, even in jest. But as I’ve gotten older, my opinion on my Gemini state has evolved. If you’re not one for the stars, you might not attribute them any hand in how I am at all, but I do find it not without irony that in every situation, I’m able to see its twin, its mirror. The other side of the coin.

As this manifests pertaining to my writing, it is the anxiety-inducing reality that two things can be true:

1. To write is to work, to labor. Nothing of merit will ever grow from something without diligence and effort. On Substack especially, there is a pressure to generate content; this isn’t quite the same as a photo or a ten-second video, as content here is written. And still, writers, myself included, put pen to paper or fingers to keys as practice and send out one or more pieces a week.

2. To write is also to create something out of nothing. It is a delicate task, rooted in magic and imagination, as even the most technical and banal works must consider style and composition. To force a seed to shoot up before it is watered means that I haven’t had the time to sit with my idea and approach it from every side. It then feels less like a thought worth sharing and more like an output required.

Anthony Bourdain said, “Writing is a privilege and a luxury. Anybody who whines about writers block should be forced to clean squid all day.” In my day job, I work with chefs, and I know he’s exactly right. My best friends clean wounds and stitch people up for a living. Large chunks of the world still face illiteracy. For me to send you a newsletter from the comfort of my desk bloviating on whether or not I am inspired feels, I’m afraid, stupid.

But it is what it is, and I’d argue that it is important that writing can be considered both job and privilege.

I’m not embarrassed to say that part of me is desperate to have more paid subscribers, so that the volume of work I take on beyond this literary realm can decrease and I can focus on writing more. At the same time, the steps I would have to take now to do it—either sometimes blocking the one coherent piece I’m proud enough to get out each week, or ramping up my work which will almost certainly result in me writing without inspiration—feels like a betrayal to everyone involved. So, I haven’t done it. Therefore, my writing is work only because I say it is so—because the acts of ideating, developing, writing, revising have rhythms and consequences that are essential to the fabric of my nature. It is easiest, therefore, for me to think about writing as work, but only as a verb lurching into the future: working towards.

But the privileges folded within this are many. I’m able to write because my parents gave me unlimited access to books from the time I could read, because I was classically trained in creative writing from ages 15-22, because I have a weekend that creates space for me to create, because I have the general and gentle encouragement of those around me, and, whether or not you believe it too, because I believe I possess a bit of innate talent that I’ve had the good fortune to nurture due to all of the above.

For me to have the anxiety that I need to publish every week disrespects both the work and the privilege. And it especially disrespects my imagination, when it does fall from the temple in the clouds, or crawls out of hell, or wherever it gurgles up or down from, and strikes me.

To cut a long story short, I want to take the time to be creative and intentional, and also respect the work that I do, whether it ends up unpaid or paid. I might not be publishing as often. I’m definitely not going to force it, at least.

You don’t always have to have something to say, and that’s okay. It is cool, even.

II. IS ANYONE READING, REALLY?

My girl tore up the gallery with this observation recently:

She’s exactly right to call out the writers, not the readers on this platform. If you’re primarily a consumer, and you subscribe to many different Substacks as a sort of spectator sport, this is not in reference to you—I love that for you, babe. Reading is an act of leisure, and it is your right and prerogative to engage with works on your own time and dime.

This one goes out to the people that are publishing every single week (and then some), but seem never to engage with the works of others. I don’t know if it is an interest in self-promotion, chronic busyness, or what, but it seems to be a nouveau epidemic on this app.

If anything, in the spirit of the above, I feel an obligation to be reading more and writing less. Reading for me, besides acting the flaneur, is where I find the most inspiration.

So, I want to share the most killer Substack pieces I have read, lately:

Telling On Myself

How to know when it’s time to blow up your life

I remember it clearly…

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3 months ago · 168 likes · 22 comments · Maybelle Morgan

jennifer's bureau

BOG BODIES AND LIMINAL SPACES

20/05/26, 12.30pm. I flee home in search of a space to breathe deeply. To expel the gunk and grime from my soul and stretch my aching bones. To write like a woman possessed…

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3 months ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · jennifer

thoughts of andie

I want to be more than who I've become

I was 7 when my dad told me how good of a writer I was. It was a weeknight. I’d just finished reciting a short paragraph I’d written about global warming for a science homework. He told me I had a better grasp of the English language than some of the grown-ups he knew. There must have been something about the way he’d said it—the self-assuredness in his…

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4 months ago · 32 likes · Andie Ferrer

Since No One Asked

35 things I've learned in 35 years

Everyone cries the night before their birthday, right? I’m currently in Venice for the biennale, and I spent much of last night wondering why I’d decided to come somewhere totally alone for my birthday, when I’m lucky to have so many wonderful people back home in London and Cornwall. In the past ten years I’ve travelled to various places with friends – …

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4 months ago · 161 likes · 9 comments · Cat Sarsfield

Hamburger's Stand

An Open Letter to Chris Best, CEO of Substack

Dear Chris…

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3 months ago · 2033 likes · 487 comments · Robert M. Hamburger

What's Lit

short stories that will make you a better writer

This week, I set out to write a mini What’s Lit, so I thought it’d be perfect to talk about “mini” fiction — by which I mean short stories…

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7 months ago · 62 likes · 8 comments · mika

Well Good Blog

‘Small Treats’ Culture

There’s a lad in front of me in Greggs buying a butty, sausage roll, a steak bake and one of them iced coffees that tastes vaguely of cheap birthday cake icing. It’s 8:15 in the morning on a Tuesday and he looks absolutely shattered. A lady brushes shoulders with him by accident and he doesn’t even acknowledge it…

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4 months ago · 1666 likes · 119 comments · Well Good Blog

the haunted house

this is what happens in the group chats of popular girls

Around 3:29pm, while we are people watching over matcha, my friend’s phone buzzes…

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4 months ago · 231 likes · 7 comments · georgie

Embivalent

All-Consuming

“We are witches, dissociating into fortune tellers, predicting whether an outfit will get us asked out, or taken seriously, or simply left alone…

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4 months ago · 1725 likes · 282 comments · Emma Stephenson

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III. EVERY UNFINISHED IDEA I’VE HAD IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS

The title of this essay, now that I am a third of the way into it, I realize might be a misnomer. I’m not suffering from a lack of inspiration, but a lack of follow-through.

Increasingly though, I’m learning both in writing and in life, the only way out is through. Follow-through, if you will. These might not be finished, but someday, hopefully, they might be. Or, I’ll let them go, and that is okay too. Either way, I’m not going to rush them into something they’re not for the sake of a Substack post.

My notes app, as you can imagine, is a spare parts junkyard. I’m still sifting through, but these are the ideas I’m chewing on most at the minute:

1. I’ve just finished Over the Water: Essays on Islands, which has caused me to think about the many islands I feel connected to, or have felt a change in me when I visited—Long Beach Island, Hong Kong, Ireland, England, Hispaniola, Taiwan, Japan, and so on. The island as escape, the island as metaphor, and the island at home. It feels essential that Odysseus ties into this somehow as one of the first fictional island hoppers.

2. In my notes: “Everything I need to know about the human condition I learned at the Barnes and Noble. And everything else I learned at a marketing agency. The former a coniferous forest: resilient and resistant to change, full of lines and boundaries. The latter a deciduous: the leaves shake and fall, everything is reaching for life, things break or catch aflame but always grow back.”

3. A piece on the archives. I read a great section in a poem from Battalion Shaped Girl about the physical space and presence of the archives, and realized how much I have missed them. I imagine it might be more nonfiction than essay. I have one sentence so far: “And as I flipped through cat fights and bureaucracy, through people and the state, I understood better than ever my own smallness on the thin line of time.”

4. Joining mail clubs and reviewing them. I am desperate for a little more whimsy, so I have been thinking in extremes that I might join five or something to pro and con them.

5. An essay reflecting on how I feel like I’ll never have a friend group again.

6. Written down: “Evil hallmark fiancé week.” I saw this on Instagram, and this is what my life feels like nearly all the time with the demands of my job, and it is interesting to think about acting like such a loathsome character.

7. I’ve been thinking a lot about what a murder mystery might look like from my voice. I’ve thought a lot about a time travel one, because that’s what I like to read, as well as one titled “Summer House” (wink) loosely inspired by a friend group I went to high school with because I think they’d make an excellent cast.

8. An essay on female colleagues—the ones who have saved me and raised me up in love, and the ones that have let me down.

9. This could easily go wrong, but something along the lines thinking about the people who become peripheral characters to our existence. Not because they aren’t full people in their own right, but because, for some reason, there are some people that revolve just out of reach of our own circles, and our own lives, but still they puncture our realities now and then.

1. Bonne Maman’s raspberry jam on a slice of lightly toasted sourdough

2. Holding a wriggly, sweet baby while getting a pedicure, so her mama could relax and get her nails done.

3. Stopping to pet a cat on the street, and then having her jealous friend run up to your ankles for pets too.

4. Having your friends come back from a wedding, and hearing all the best stories over saucy and spicy Korean fried chicken.

5. Surprise tickets to My Neighbor Totoro from my boyfriend, followed by an evening of sparkly wine and kid hecklers.

6. Buying gifts (coffee, in bulk) to bring back to my family in the states.

7. Ordering a plain pizza pie (+2 slices) from my hometown slice shop.

8. Being around my sister, which means we can split everything again: a beer, a yogurt bar, an order of fries (and still not finish anything).

9. Eating all of my favorite foods in the Dominican Republic with my family: fresh fruits, las banderas, tostones, coconut flan and so on.

10. Running up to my mom to show her a seashell I found and tell her about a rainbow fish I saw (I’m 25).

11. Finding croissants leftover from Christmas in the back of the freezer, and suddenly a random March Saturday is fun.

12. Opening my suitcase back in London and seeing the odd array of things I have brought back with me: mouthwash, moisturizer, 15 boxes of girl scout cookies, lip liner, my mother’s clothes for a work trip in Singapore, Justin’s peanut butter cups, John Muir’s Our National Parks.

13. Trying a new stall at the market (Hoho, at Broadway) and it being even better than you imagined.

14. Reconnecting with a friend I haven’t seen in ten years at a random pub in Kensington, and suddenly the drinks and the boyfriends and adult lives disappear, and you’re just girls in high school again.

15. Conquering my fear of going back to the gym. (I only went twice, but still).

16. Learning how to light a wood fire for the first time, and feeling the warmth and crackle (all this despite whatever bad stuff I definitely did breathe in).

17. A really delicious vanilla bean rice pudding, with roasted rhubarb and crunchy oat crumble from Black Bear Inn, in Usk.

18. The first sunny day in London each spring feels like a little miracle. My boyfriend and I met friends at the park and had ciders and kimbap until it was long after dark because we didn’t want the evening to end.

19. Mint green nails.

20. A Tom Collins I didn’t have to pay for from one of the best bars in the world, The Connaught Bar. It is every bit as beautiful and glamorous as one would hope, but the little pleasure is how a Tom Collins still tastes like just a lemonade when made by a master mixologist. Just a really, really good one.

21. Flying to Asia on business class for the first time, and everything feels like a dream, from the seat that goes flat to the china they serve your meal with to the gorgeous ladies with perfect makeup that keep bringing you peppermint tea for your sore throat.

22. Seeing the Jewel’s waterfall for the first time.

23. Sitting in the back room, eating all the leftover canapés after the event I was running finished, and happening across a really good one.

24. An extra large kumquat iced tea.

25. Luckin Coffee’s iced ong lai latte. I had three in one day.

26. Going to a wine bar named “Big Wine Freaks”—I mean, it is just a brilliant name, isn’t it?

27. Having the opportunity to visit Capella Singapore, where I laid by the pool and got a massage where the kind woman worked the knot in the back left of my shoulder until it (slightly) evaporated.

28. Coming back to London at the end of April, and finding it sunny every day.

29. Walking through the park and seeing two women holding a proper glug. of Chardonnay each (they brought their own glassware) dancing to Afrobeats.

30. A new cookie recipe: brown butter chai snickerdoodles.

31. Visiting Salad Day Markets in London and being utterly swamped by girlhood and trinkets as far as the eye can see.

32. Trying a shandy (half beer, half fizzy lemonade, for the non-Brits reading) and it being sunshine in a glass.

33. A perfect date night at a dumpling restaurant followed by a wine bar where you can try about a dozen different wines at 5 quid a glass.

34. MY SISTER COMING TO VISIT LONDON! And a perfectly planned week.

35. Matching bunny Jellycats from said trip, named April Showers and May Flowers.

36. Getting to go home to see my youngest brother graduate from college.

37. Baking my favorite cake, chocolate with whipped cream and strawberries, with my mom.

38. Getting to go back to my hometown’s Greek festival hosted by the local Orthodox church. They have yiayias slinging some of the best food I’ve ever had, including gyros and loukoumades. I haven’t been back since I moved to London, and I just got lucky in being there this go around.

39. I got a haircut, and it is the shortest my hair has been in almost four years. The last time I saw myself with hair brushing my collarbones, I was younger and at a lot more peace. They say hair holds memories, so I’m hoping this helps me forget some and make others.

40. A day out with my mom and sister. It was for eyebrow waxing, yes, but then we had lunch and I can’t remember the last time it was just the three of us.

41. After a few tense days, my cat came out of surgery alright.

The first time my sister came to London, she did so directly following her high school spring break in the Bahamas. She was tired, certainly, but also had the kind of all-encompassing flu that only strikes down teenagers in close proximity to one another.

She got off the plane, she got in bed, I got her an açai bowl on her fourth day or so to try and revive her (not a lot of açai to be had in London, frankly), and after a week, I popped her back on a plane to the tender care of our mom.

All that to say, we had a lot to make up for on this trip.

We’ve never had the opportunity to travel just the two of us, sans parents and sans brothers, so in many aspects, this was always going to be an aspirational and intentional girl’s trip.

Originally, I set forth intending to formulate this guide the way I have in travel essays past—days one, two, and three, breaking down what we did each day. Then, I realized we spent extensive afternoons sitting around and reading, drinking cappuccinos and sparkling wine. Which rocked, but is not very interesting to read about six days in a row, unless you’re interested in a bad case of envy.

So, instead, I’ve formulated it to be our highlights—the aspects of the trip we, one local and one not, enjoyed the most.

I have also recruited my sister, however reticently, to give her two cents. It makes sense that she’s a straight shooter when her sister is a waddling writer waxing poetic, so you’ll have the honest review from both sides of the coin!

1. An afternoon in Marylebone

Marylebone is one of those neighborhoods in London that’s composition is simply good. It has got everything—good coffee, good shopping, good books, good pubs.

I brought my sister to the bottom of the street after wandering the posh pharmacy John Bell & Croydon, where we bought manuka honey drops for our dad (who’s got a psychosomatic cough) and jasmine mint Marvis toothpaste.

Daunt Books was the critical endeavor, as my sister also loves to read and this location is simply the prettiest. She bought Cassandra at the Wedding, and I opted for a collection of essays focused on islands. We were both well behaved in not getting another (she wanted The Lamb and I wanted Ten Cities that Made an Empire). We wandered in and out of shops, looking for rings mainly, but also walked away with some skincare with a side of perfume samples.

Sister’s favorite shop our whole trip was the Daunt Books Marylebone location

2. Jellycat shopping (and otherwise) at Selfridges

My sister and I, like most insufferable twenty-something young women, love Jellycats.1

While I know there are other spots to get them now, my first love for Jellycat perusal is still the toy department at Selfridges. I take all my friends when we go, which has been a positive experience for the heart and not the wallet.

Bopping around that top floor, taking in every absurdly cute option together, was decidedly delightful despite the even more adult adults body-checking the youngins’. In the end, we went for a bunny each and a penguin key chain for her best friend. We’ve named them April Showers (implication: meteor showers for mine, the star bunny) and May Flowers (implication: obvious).

Selfridges more widely I also consider one of the best places on Earth to shop. We browsed all the makeup, clothes, condiments, and skincare, but very demurely did not purchase anything else—only wrote things down for Christmas (Phlur scents and Sister and Seekers sets). If you’re headed to London with another PYT that likes to shop, this is a must.

3. A day trip to Bath

One of my sister’s main requests for her trip was that we would leave London, at least for the day. While York is my favorite city in the U.K., it is a bit of a haul, so instead we settled on the much nearer Bath.

We took a train in the morning, and set about wandering the city. After a coffee it was the shops: Austen for me, Frankenstein for her. We also ventured up to the Royal Crescent for an obligatory picture, followed by pizza, cider and a coke zero (we are American after all). Persephone Books was a major highlight, as was our jaunt around Prior Park, which felt decidedly Pride & Prejudice, 2005.

The Roman Baths were our one and only mistake, as the smell and the stale air in the basement museum made us both queasy, and I was borderline dry heaving by the time we reached the surface. But hey, history, right?

Sister would actually like me to note that she was glad we did the Roman Baths. “The smell was gross but I thought it was cool.”

Visiting Prior Park was her favorite activity she did / place we visited on her trip!

4. Strawberries and sandwiches in Borough Market

If you’ve ever looked up ‘What to eat at Borough Market,’ there is a fair chance you’ve seen the damn strawberries we’re talking about. Bright red and covered in layers from a Willy Wonka sink faucet of chocolate, they’re one of the most viral treats in London. The seriously annoying thing is that they really are that good.

My flu-ridden sister had one dream last time she was here, which was to get those strawberries, but alas, it was not meant to be. This time, it was a mission. We ate there first, but the other recs for a morning of serious eats were:

• The original sandwich from The Black Pig (beware of both pick pockets and sandwich stealers, as we came across both in the span of 25 minutes)

• A coffee from the Columbian stand in the front

• A donut (plain, or jam, don’t mess with the fussy stuff) from Bread Ahead

• If you’ve possibly got the room, mac and cheese with extra crispy onions from The Bath Dairy

5. A night at the theatre

Another request from my sister was a show on the West End; I’m always down for a night at the theatre, but over the years they’ve been mostly of a murder-mystery play persuasion (I’m nothing, if not consistent) so I was excited for the chance to see a musical.

We both love Hamilton, but it seemed slightly blasphemous to see that as Americans in London, so I wanted to pick something with a bit of Brit bite and spirit. So I went for Six, which reimagines the six wives of King Henry VIII as a girl group of pop stars.

My sister on the way over looked up some reviews that scared us both, but really, it was a good time! Perhaps more of a concert than a proper Broadway-style show, but it was fast-paced, fairly sharp, and only took up half an evening as there was no intermission.

Getting sushi after, we both agreed it was well worth it as girlie show to see while in London (however, the older gentleman seeing it with his wife sat diagonal from us seemed to be having the best time of all, the way he was boogeying down).

Sister takes back her premature criticism. “Lowkey” it was one of her favorite things we did!

6. Eating, and eating some more

I am the first one to stand on business and say London is no New York—nothing is touching the Big Apple’s food scene, but the Big Smoke really does hold its own. There’s something for everyone here, and I was excited to have my sister try a few new spots, as well as a few favorites. The best way to get to know a city is to eat your way through it.

As already stated, Borough Market was a big hit. The other morning we did an external brunch was at Abuelo Cafe where we opted for their ‘Build a Breakfast option;

• Me: sourdough & butter, potatoes, avocado & lime, an egg, feta, and miso fig jam, paired with their chai

• Sistar: sourdough & butter, potatoes, avocado & lime, an egg, and hot honey stracciatella, paired with their dulce de leche iced latte

And while their sourdough is thick as building bricks, it is an unreal breakfast with fairly good value for money.

Our other highlights were an afternoon tea at The Goring Hotel (my favorite in London), some unreal KBBQ at Soom, and my sister’s first visit to Din Tai Fung where we simply had to order a second round of dumplings and spicy cucumbers.

7. Ghost tours and other histories

At the start of our ghost tour, our guide asked each of our party whether we had ever seen a ghost, or had any sort of supernatural occurrence. After everyone proudly shared, she said “Nope, I’ve never seen anything.”

She…didn’t quite seem to understand what she was hosting, or what we were all there for, which made for an interesting vibe. Nevertheless, we got a few good stories, and got to see London from a different perspective.

We also made it to the British Museum, where their very helpful color-coded map helped us speed run the ten or so best things in the museum, plus my personal must-do’s: Sutton Hoo and the mummy rooms. My sister and I played the timeless game of verbs the British Museum uses when they don’t want to say “I for sureee stole this stuff!” Hours of entertainment, I assure you, in a very cool museum full of the world’s stuff.

My sister wants to defend the ghost tour we did, because she’s nice. She said even if our tour guide was a bit awkward, “I liked just being guided around and hearing stories.”

8. An evening in Richmond

My sister and boyfriend were kind of confused as to why I made them haul ass out to Richmond—there are many lovely places to have a good Sunday roast in central London.

But Richmond has got something about it; that little bit of distance from the center of it all, that little bit of elevation that helps you see things from a different perspective. Its got a touch of magic.

We headed out there for a wander and a roast, and spent the full evening hopping pub to pub. My sister not only had her first English roast, but her first pint of Guinness, of which she split the G perfectly on the first try (my boyfriend way overshot, I way undershot, so she’s clearly got a gift).

Admitting I haven’t had the best start to this year is hard, especially when I know how lucky I am to have the life I do. But I think I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that feeling down is a state of being that hits us all. You can be grateful for the life around you, and still feel like shit sometimes.

But having my little sister with me in London was a balm. I felt normal, like the self I’ve always been. We’re different as the sun and moon, but as anyone who’s got one will tell you, there’s just something about having your sister around.

When you write or speak about books on the internet, there is a fact you quickly learn: everyone has got different taste.

There are some incredible creators that post round-ups that simply boggle the mind: they dive into heavy, intense, beautiful literature back-to-back, and rack up eleven or twelve books a month.

As cool as it would be to be one of these people and as much as I appreciate their recommendations, I am not that girl. To vary your reading, first, you must know thyself as a reader. I know that:

• I can’t ever really read the same genre back to back

• I need a fantasy or a murder mystery at least once a month for a touch of whimsy

• I can only read about 4 books a month, and that’s if I’m hustling

• Reading voices different from my own is important to me

• I’m trying to prioritize my back catalogue / physical TBR

One of the things people tend to comment on most when consuming my content is just how diversely I read. This is incredibly flattering (and kind of categorically untrue, as I feel like I could be doing way, way better), but I kind of see where they’re coming from. This year, out of 21 books and 2 current reads so far, I’ve read about nine-ish different genres across nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

As I said, by no stretch at all does this make me a sufficient authority on varying your reading, but I will say that I think a lot about it and try pretty hard to do it. So perhaps the way I have come to think about my own reading might be helpful for you too.

Below, I try and illustrate five key concepts that have helped me to develop my “I’ll try anything once,” mentality. As always, if you want to keep up with what I’m reading, you can follow me on Goodreads.

1. The call is coming from inside the house: read what you like, then one step removed

I really feel like this is the most simple way to try and expand your reading: think of what you like with great specificity, then go one step removed from that core genre. That step can be in any direction—maybe a different time period (literary fiction to historical fiction, or modern romance to classic romance), a different author (a translated work of poetry rather than poetry in your native language), or a slight genre shift (thriller to murder mystery, or science fiction to steampunk fantasy).

There will be familiarity in what you know and love from your core genre, but there will also be the slight differences that hopefully encourage (and empower) you to continue going one step further, until you find you’ve found your niche passion in a totally different genre from where you started.

Something I was thinking about doing following writing this piece is a “If you like this, try that” type of post—if you’re interested in this, please leave a comment of what type of books you like, and I’ll pull this together!

2. Lower and/or shorten the stakes

For people buying books, there is, of course, a monetary investment in the fun and joy to be found there. After all, why take a chance on purchasing a book you may not like , when you know for certain picking up the next book by a favorite author is a more sure-fire bet?

This is more than fair, so first of all, when reading new genres, I recommend borrowing from a friend or a library, so the pressure to spend on and therefore enjoy a book new to you is alleviated.

Then, to further lower the stakes, admit to yourself it is okay to put it down. We only get so much time on this Earth—why suffer through a 400-page book you can’t stand (unless it is a title related to a personal goal, in which case, more power to you)?

Additionally, shorten the stakes of trying a new genre or type of book by selecting titles that are intentionally on the shorter side. There are great short stories of every genre already published on the internet, if you’d like to try before you buy. And even if you do want to jump right in, there are plenty of titles of all types sub-200 pages.

3. Make like the winners: read the prize lists

In all of human history, no generation has ever been this spoiled for choice when it comes to literary material. The sheer volume and accessibility means that it is incredibly easy to “try anything once,” but also perhaps, incredibly overwhelming.

If I find that I haven’t touched a genre for a while, or I am out of the loop, I turn back to the classic prizes to see what they’ve pointed to as the best books of the year. By no means is this a perfect science—plenty of brilliant books are overlooked by these committees every year—but in reading these lists, I have found new favorites almost every time.

There are the true leaders of the field, covering multiple categories:

• The Pulitzer (ever heard of her?)—fiction, general nonfiction, history, memoir, poetry

• The Booker Prize—a prize for the best original long-form novel written in English (there is also the International Booker, for a work of translated fiction)

• National Book Award—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature

Then there are the more category specific prizes, whether for genre or identity:

• Women’s Prize for Fiction—an annual prize to a novel written by a woman author

• Hugo Awards—awarded to a work of science fiction or fantasy, in the categories of novel, short story, novelette, and novella

• Nebula Awards—awarded to the best science fiction or fantasy published in the U.S. in the categories of novel, novella, novelette, short story, comics, and poetry

• Stonewall Book Award—awarded to books of exceptional merit related to the LGBTQIA+ experience in literature, nonfiction, and young adult

• Edgar Awards—named after Edgar Allan Poe, the awards honor the best in mystery fiction and non-fiction

• John Newberry Medal—awarded to the best children’s novel (don’t sleep on this, I’ve read some brilliant books as an adult from this list!)

4. Take a recommendation: from the Internet, or perchance, your librarian

Back when I worked at Barnes & Noble, the most fun part of the job was when someone would come in, not really sure what they wanted, and asked me to take the wheel. I’d wander table to table, tugging out things that they had mentioned offhand: “Uhh like a girlie beach read, but kind of scary?”

It is truly awesome how steeped Internet-culture has become in book recommendations—one of the post-Covid shifts in the store was people knowing exactly what they wanted when they came through the door (Fourth Wing). Obviously, this spins wider than romantasy, as across Substack, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc., there are great readers and writers recommending all sorts of books.

However, I would also recommend to expand your interest in genres, practice in-person curiosity. In bookstores, booksellers spend ages thinking about strange curations for tables (one of my favorites I ever did was “Life is a Game”—Hunger Games, The Glass Bead Game, The Queen’s Gambit, etc.). Furthermore, your local librarian is probably about twice as knowledgeable as most booksellers, especially when it comes to books published over the years rather than just more contemporary offerings. Go in and ask about what you’re most interested in!

If you want to see curations from me, I have ones on the classics, speculative fiction, murder mysteries, and nonfiction linked below:

5. Intention is nine-tenths of the law: practice ongoing effort

The last thing anyone wants to hear from a white woman in her mid-20s is the importance of not only varying your reading, but reading diversely. It is the bare minimum, y’all. If the argument you’d like to make is that you only like science fiction or only like lit fic or only like romantasy, there are brilliant authors with a variety of lived experiences writing books they’ve poured their hearts into for your consumption.

Some of the best things you may ever read are things you might not have expected you’d connect with. I really believe reading is not only an act of pleasure (though it certainly should be, some of the time), but also an act of learning.

Effort, empathy, curiosity, and intention will take you far.

The first classic I ever really remember reading was To Kill a Mockingbird in sixth grade. I was eleven, young for our year, and though my memory is spotty at the best of times, I can picture the classroom—my seat, the boys at my table, Mrs. I at the front of the room—like it was yesterday. That could be down to a good teacher, which I was lucky to have, but also, to a good book.

Classics, since then, have been woven into the light and shadows of my life. Reading A Midsummer’s Night Dream at thirteen, the chorus of our silly voice filling my eighth-grade class, helping me to understand the nature of a play. The absolute catfights I witnessed about Anna Karenina. Finishing Beloved for the first time, sick from crying and dazed in amazement. Reading Persuasion just after I moved to England, drifting.

The definition of what a classic is, exactly, is fickle. Many of the greats over centuries have argued to the genre’s existence and merit, but also to its fluctuating identity.1

I define a classic as a book of great import, and has been for a respectable length of time. You could crack any part of that sentence open with a pick axe to critique it, but I would challenge you to come up with one more succinct than that. An answer that seeks to further explain such a mercurial concept, you might find, means you’re four paragraphs into a Substack essay without much substantive argument beyond gut feeling.

Realistically, essays about what a classic is and who gets to decide so and how this fame comes to be and whether universities are uplifting texts or poisoning the wells and how marginalized voices come into play and whether anyone has actually ever read In Search of Lost Time without skimming at least a little bit could fill Substack’s halls for years. I don’t aim to build Rome in a day; only to highlight a category of texts that have changed my life, and so many lives.

In his essay, ‘What is a classic?’ Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve writes:

A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth, or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known and discovered.

I’m inclined to agree—the measure of a classic, or anything really that seeks to stand the test of time, is a book that advances us a step in revealing our hearts and minds.

Below, I recommend 25 books that I believe do this. They come from all over the world, from a variety of generations. There are novels and plays and short stories and one odd poem. They can be intimidating, sure; classics famously are. But in the pursuit of treasure, I ask you to do like the old man says, and try an advance a step.

(A note that this is too long for email—I recommend reading on your desktop! x)

1. The Odyssey | Homer (via the Emily Wilson translation)

The Odyssey is perhaps one of the oldest stories there is, handed down from storyteller to storyteller, text to text. Following Odysseus’ ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War, the myths and legends he confronts resonate still today. Emily Wilson’s translation, namely her attention to female characters, makes her version the most interesting and compelling I’ve read yet.

2. The Hounds of Baskerville | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Many consider the fifth book chronicling the mysteries and adventures of Detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion John Watson the best of all the originals. Moody, atmospheric, and full of ghostly canines, this is an excellent entry point to the classics for someone who already loves modern thrillers or mysteries.

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston

This novel has that most dangerous thing: language, a character, and a plot that each feel like a literary bucket of ice cold water. In short, it’ll wake you up, seize your senses, and make you think. The prose is sublime. It follows Janie and the story of her life: the ebbs and flows, trials and tribulations, and through three marriages.

4. Emma | Jane Austen

There are people that will disagree with my selection of Emma above the other Austen’s for this list. They’ll say Pride and Prejudice is more romantic, Persuasion more melancholy, Sense and Sensibility more grounded. Alas Emma, which follows a clever, rich, and beautiful girl’s misadventures in meddlesome match-making is all of those things, as well as decidedly funnier.

5. Seasons of Migrations to the North | Tayeb Salih

Reading this book, I felt as though I was caught up in a storm—it was so gripping, especially the ending, that I could hardly look away from the page. There are aspects to the story and storytelling that are uncomfortable, often intentionally so. But in the story of the narrator and Mustafa, and of Sudan and European colonialism, it forces you to confront that which is uncomfortable.

6. Cannery Row | John Steinbeck

Of course, John Steinbeck is best known for his self-appointed magnum opus, East of Eden, but Cannery Row offers a short, tonally different entry point to American classics. Set in California, it leans into humor and ironies for a more optimistic look at the American West, while still retaining all the glow of Steinbeck’s usual prose.

7. Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina has undoubtedly been a pain in my ass, however, it is one of the titans of Russian literature for a reason. Following the life of a married woman who thrusts herself headfirst into a doomed affair, as well as the circles and lives of family and friends that rotate around them, it is a proper epic and time well-spent.

8. Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that Mrs. Dalloway is my favorite book. To this day, I truly remember reading it for the first time in a sophomore English class, awe-struck by the language and its movement and use of time. Following a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway and others in post-World War I London, it is the book I recommend most.

9. Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe

The first of three novels in Achebe’s African Trilogy, Okonkwo is the leader of a fictional Igbo clan in colonial Nigeria. It is one of the best novels detailing the clash between African culture and colonial rule, and as the title indicates, it is a story that spirals downward. Another book considered a magnum opus on this list, Achebe’s unique prose, seen in his ability to blend oral tradition with written English, is just one of the many reasons he is a true great.

10. Snow Country | Yasunari Kawabata

One of the classic stories of doomed romance, a wealthy man and a geisha meet at a remote mountain hot spring blanketed in snow. This is one of those books where the setting and weather are interwoven with every character and plot point on the page, which is all the more remarkable given how short this book is at 175 pages.

11. Beloved | Toni Morrison

As far as my experiences in a classroom, there has never been a book that has devastated, compelled, and lingered in a room as much as Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The full Morrison canon should be on your list, and I would love to argue with anyone who disagrees that she is the great American writer of the 20th century. But if you’re going to read any of her books, Beloved, following Sethe, an escaped slave still trapped by memories, is the one.

12. We Have Always Lived in the Castle | Shirley Jackson

Horror, just like any other genre, is worthy of the classic label. And Shirley Jackson sets both the tone and bar. The Haunting of Hill House is (rightfully) considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written, but We Have Always Lived in the Castle pushes the boundaries. Following the narration of Merricat, the windings and frights one family can contain will consume you start to finish.

13. The House of Spirits | Isabel Allende

Another family epic spanning across generations, The House of Spirits follows with a closest eye three women: Clara, Blanca, and Alba. Set in Chile, the combination of magical realism and historical fiction makes this book accessible and engaging; after all, who doesn’t love stories against severe social and political upheavals?

14. The Wasteland | T.S. Eliot

The Wasteland is a poem, technically, but it takes so long to read I feel it fair to include it amongst the rest of the literary fiction on the list. It is personally my favorite poem, and in its modernist chronicles are heavily in response to the devastation of World War I. The five sections are each simultaneously overwhelming and exciting, with some of the best turns of phrases of any work on this list.

15. Notes of a Crocodile | Qiu Miaojin

One of the great queer classics, this book, set in 1980s Taipei is “a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire.”2 Following an anonymous narrator nicknamed Lazi and her attraction to an older woman, the strange and multi-faceted friends she turns to propels the book forward

16. The Lord of the Rings | J.R.R. Tolkien

Is there anyone who isn’t at least a little familiar with the wonderful world J.R.R. Tolkien crafted in Middle-earth? Many great fantasy books start the same—with a quest—but what makes this series different is the sheer detail with which the journey is realized. The world-building in this classic fantasy is simply unparalleled, and if you find yourself a fan of fantasy currently, I urge you to do some epic homework.

17. Giovanni’s Room | James Baldwin

Frankly, I was absolutely itching to put Notes of a Native Son on here, but I’m already cheating by including a poem and short stories, so nonfiction felt a step to far. So, I’ve opted for one of Baldwin’s best fictions here, set in Paris and the confined space of Giovanni’s apartment. The doomed relationship between David and Giovanni, and the exploration of love, shame and guilt, is all illuminated in his signature, tender prose.

18. A Midsummer’s Night Dream / Macbeth / Richard III | Shakespeare

Picking just one Shakespeare as a launching point was simply not realistic for me, so instead I’ve opted for one of each category—a comedy, a tragedy, and a history. I reread A Midsummer’s Night Dream almost every year and routinely fall in love with the magic and mischief there. The witchy tragedy of the Scottish play in Macbeth, and the Machiavellian machinations in Richard III, all make these brilliant places to start.

19. Franny and Zooey | J.D. Salinger

I’m sure there are those that will disagree with me here, especially as Catcher in the Rye has one of the most unique narrators and voices of the 20th century. But where I think Franny and Zooey is a great place to start is that it is not quite so insular; I’d challenge you to find a young woman who is not quite so mixed up as Franny. Seeing her relationships, especially told through Salinger’s usual emotional clarity, just works.

20. A couple of truly great short stories, rapid fire:

• Yellow Wallpaper | Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Tell-Tale Heart | Edgar Allan Poe

• Hills Like White Elephants | Ernest Hemingway

• The Dead | James Joyce

• The Gilded Six-Bits | Zora Neale Hurston

• A Good Man Is Hard to Find | Flannery O’Connor

21. Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh

There are many books about the rolling hills and great houses of England, but the nostalgia, memory, and decline of the aristocracy on display in Brideshead Revisited gives it just enough disillusion to render it all the more potent. With Charles Ryder’s infatuation with the various Flytes ahead of World War II, it does seem to signal a certain end of times.

22. Arabian Nights

King Shahryar, believing all women unfaithful, marries a new woman each day and executes her the next. Strangely enough, Scheherazade volunteers, and beguiles the king with stories rooted in Persian and Indian literature without telling him the endings, forcing him to keep her alive to hear them. Ultimately, it takes her 1,001 nights and famous stories such as Aladdin and Sinbad to protect her fate permanently.

23. The Left Hand of Darkness | Ursula K. Le Guin

If you read my guide to speculative fiction, you know my respect and admiration for Le Guin, one of the great science fiction writers, knows no bounds. As far as a classic goes, this novel chronicling a lone human ambassador’s journey to an alien world largely without gender is a symphony of psychology and societal themes.

24. Chronicle of a Death Foretold | Gabriel García Márquez

100 Years of Solitude is often regarded as one of the classics, it is true, but I believe the shorter, punchier Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the place to start in the Márquez canon. The entire town knows the murder at the center of this book is to occur, but no one stops it. Told in non-linear structure, it’ll hook you in from the start.

25. To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee

The classic that started it all for me, and an icon that I think is accurately labelled so. The characters in this book: Scout, Jem, and Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, Boo Radley and the wider, evil backdrop of Maycomb County just twists your gut. It tackles racial injustice in the American south through the lens of a child, and this Southern Gothic is just unlike any other book I have ever read.

If you liked this post, I’ve got two others in this series. Consider checking out:

You can also keep up with what I’m reading on Goodreads.

These are the opening lines of Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart.

You might be able to imagine, somewhat, the story that follows this matter of fact opening. A woman, driven to it over time by her husband’s philandering and flighty ways, chronicles the brief but undeniable journey towards the certainty of a murder. Very quickly, a dull, loveless marriage spirals towards this doom, which by the end of the book, doesn’t seem to be an unhappy circumstance at all.

Ginzburg’s prose is unsparing and unsentimental. The book is perfectly suited to be read in one afternoon, cover to cover. There are themes of loneliness and isolation, love and the lack thereof, and how friendship and marriage can sour.

All of these things are well done and interesting. But the thought that consumed me most while reading, especially in the first half of the book, is this: the wrong man will steal your imagination.

The narrator of The Dry Heart, after she reveals to us that she has killed her husband, seems to think it only appropriate that she gives us the backstory to her decision.

At its start, her imagination is her salvation. Everything stems from what she creates in her own mind, which is, understandably, ripe with possibility: potted plants, comfort, and a husband who loves her.

Her life doesn’t interest her, and therefore her imagination is seemingly boundless. It is true that the fantasies are often rooted in love and marriage. But even still, her life is defined by reaching forward, by seeking what is or what could be different.

It is her imagination that fuels her job as a teacher, it seems, as well as her care for her students.

This world dissipates when she meets Alberto, and later marries him.

Suddenly, the fuel of her imagination is not what could be for herself, but rather the centripetal force of her husband. All of her thoughts rotate around him and his mistress. The only thing that offers her respite from this, briefly, is her child; her daughter again allows her to imagine, to employ creativity to think of a different life and world. When she dies, the narrator is plunged back into the same cycle of thoughtlessness, and it is this that destroys her.

She describes herself a “weak and unarmed victim of imagination” without realizing it was her imagination that had been buoying her. It is when it ruptures, most decidedly so when she meets Alberto’s mistress and there is nothing remarkable to her at all, that seals her and her husband’s fate.

I also recently finished Our Spoons Came From Woolsworth by Barbara Comyns, which illustrates much the same idea. That narrator, just the same, is trapped in an increasingly loveless marriage with a bad artist. She goes from painting furniture aqua and sculpting, to the range of her imagination and creativity being rooted in her husband and her child. It is only when she leaves him that this cycle ruptures, and an imagined future again becomes accessible.

This is not a unique literary theme, real or imagined, by any stretch. Echoes of it are littered across the great stories. Its apparent in The Woman Destroyed to Mrs. Dalloway to The Vegetarian. Daisy in The Great Gatsby hopes her daughter will be "a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” or rather, without imagination.

I’ve seen it happen myself; brilliant friends of mine have fallen for a man, and the volatility and hostility and uncertainty that plagues their days robs them of any differently imagined future, any ounce of creativity, any love for the world as it is and how it could be.

A man, or any partner who does not love you and respect you, will steal your imagination. And by doing so, it will feel like they’re stealing your very breath.

This is a very bleak essay, I’m aware, but it doesn’t change my reading of The Dry Heart or the things I’ve seen with my own two eyes.

But, in all fairness, I have seen the other side of the coin. I’m lucky enough to be living it, and I hope you are too.

Love and respect, from a partner or otherwise, will fill your imagination like champagne bubbles fizzing up a glass.

Cover image via The New Yorker, primary photo via Pinterest

It had been under scaffolding since I moved in a year and a half ago, but in March it finally reopened to the public after a long refurbishment.

Inside it was airy and clean, with a good display of books and plenty of space to work. Eagerly, I looked at the advertisement wall; I’ve always loved a bulletin board, with its motley assortment of colorful posters, calling out to the community void.

Diabetes support groups, ESL, Arabic classes. All good causes on the calendar, but what I couldn’t see was a book club.

I really want to join a book club.

When I moved to London, one of the very first things I wanted to do was join a book club.

My job up until I moved here was working in a bookstore, so I was constantly (and at times against my will) discussing books with my colleagues and customers. Before that, I was a college student in the humanities, where dissecting books in painstaking depth was a regular biweekly class.

I thought I would have no trouble continuing this tradition in London, famously one of the most literary cities in the world. Londoners are constantly consuming culture of all sorts—art, music, dance, theatre, and of course, books. It is one of my favorite things about the city. On my commute alone, I often get a recommendation or two just by watching what clever-looking people are reading as the train lurches on.

But really, despite all the literature I’m drowning in, I haven’t really found anyone to talk about it with.

For some reason, I thought it would be easy. A weekday evening, or perhaps a Sunday afternoon, sat in a pub or church with a strong cup of tea and a couple of biscuits some longstanding member had kindly baked. 10 to 15 of us sat in a circle, of all ages and all sorts, discussing some sort of classic title or punchy new release.

I don’t know where such a (potentially delusional) fantasy stems from—probably the pesky books I’m so looking to discuss, or movies or shows. After all, does such a group exist outside of Hallmark movies and romantic dreams? But the reality is, when I’ve looked for a book club in earnest, I’ve found it a bit difficult and I’m not sure if the groups I’m seeing thus far are ones that are what I’m looking for.

Part of it is down to me, and my own shyness and expectations. Some of which I write about in this essay, which seemed to resonate with a lot of you:

Sometimes, when I’m looking at book clubs online, it’s daunting.

Newsletter sign ups and drops for the opportunity to maybe get the chance to talk about a book in a physical space. Discussion groups that are more than 50 people in one room. A book club that is ticketed only. Maybe these are all just practicalities and I’m naive; after all, I imagine having a community that big feels like a huge blessing. But it is still intimidating, and I worry about going through the trouble of joining only to never be able to react to a drop fast enough to actually go to an event.

I’ve also spent plenty of time scrolling through Meet Up. There’s one group named “London’s Friendly 20- and 30-Somethings Book Club!” I love that! And then I see that the group has 6,962 members. Plus associated costs. Which again, is any organiser’s right if they’re putting time and effort into the group, not to mention potential location fees. But when I don’t know what I’m walking into yet, it does feel like a teeny deterrent.

So, dear reader, I’m turning it over to you—

Are any of you in a book club in London?

Have any of you tried the Instagram famous ones, or the Meet Ups, or have found one that’s a secret worth keeping?

Is it worth making an account to the Meet Up website, just to try some out? Are there any on Substack that I am missing? Do you run one yourself?

Are there any digital or Zoom room ones that are totally worth it, and are so good that they supersede the need for an in-person version?

If so, please leave a comment! Share the love!

On the flip side—

Should I start a book club in London?

I am wondering if this is a crazy and/or narcissistic question to even pose considering there are already so many, but I can’t help but think there might be others out there who feel the same about seeking a cosy nook and a few other people to chat with in a park or a pub about some book we’ve all voted on.

I’ve spoken a bit about this with , who just hosted her first Proust book club in NYC and had nothing but glowing things to say about the experience.

Generally, I have spent so much time thinking about joining a club, that maybe all the shy gyals need to just band together and start a low-stakes one to see how it goes.

If this is something you’d be interested in, please leave a comment. And even if it is not, I would sooooo appreciate you liking and restacking this post so it can reach the people it might resonate with.

Thank you! <3

Cover image via Pinterest

All my favorite films are about problem-solving white guys.

There, I said it.

Before I can explain why, if I can, I have to define more so the what and the how.

As a baseline, it is my belief that in the current time economy, you can be a movie person, a book person, or a television person. To be well-versed in one seems more and more like a miracle these days, while to be accomplished in all is a rarity bordering on impossible.

Inarguably, I am a book person. That is where my energy goes, so I don’t watch many movies or television shows.

When I do, it is usually background noise as I cook or clean—thrilling stuff, this adulthood—and usually it is films that are old favorites.

National Treasure (both one and two), the Jurassic Park series, Night at the Museum (one and two, never three), The Mummy (see previous point, Rachel Weisz get behind me), Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Jr. version), the Indiana Jones series, The Da Vinci Code, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

If you’re noticing, uh, certain parallels, yeah…me too.

Before writing this article, had I been asked why I like this selection of films so much, I would have said it is because they’re family favorites—movies I have watched with my parents and siblings again and again since I was a kid. But recently, I’ve tried to push myself deeper on why exactly I am drawn back to these movies.

The seed for this article stemmed from a note I saw from writer here on Substack discussing Indiana Jones.

I agree with some of his points—namely, the appeal of a character rooted in academic intelligence, while still being a “tough guy” and that no other actor aside from Harrison Ford could have pulled it off.

Growing up, Indiana Jones was a family favorite in my household. We watched the classic films essentially on a loop, as there were few film series a house evenly divided (three men and three women, with six seriously different personalities) could agree on.

Now, with the benefit of adulthood, I think Kostas has a sunnier view of Indy than me. He discusses excellence and moral righteousness, while I’m of the opinion that Indiana Jones is morally grey at best. There is a dangerous streak of white saviorism as well as his “protection” of artifacts by moving them to Western countries.

Even still, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, flaws and all.1

This note sparked an evaluation of why that is, especially as I clearly don’t necessarily love Indiana Jones himself by any stretch.

As I considered other movies I watch at least once a year, the list is short, but the overlap is undeniable:

• National Treasure—following Nick Cage in some of his best work (I said it) as a American historian and cryptographer solving mysteries and finding treasure.

• Jurassic Park—the original follows Drs. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcom, who are a paleontologist, paleobotanist, and a mathematician, respectively.

• Night at the Museum—an inventor-wannabe turned night guard for the American Museum of Natural History discovers everything inside of it comes to life each evening.

• The Mummy—a treasure hunter, his Egyptologist love interest, and her useless brother face down, you guessed it, a mummy.

• Sherlock Holmes—not sure if this one needs explaining, but following a detective with a propensity for observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning solving crimes in Victorian England.

• Indiana Jones—similar to the above, but if I had to, Harrison Ford portrays a character that fits the archetype of a hero; college professor of archaeology by day, and treasure hunter when duty calls.

• The Da Vinci Code—an American symbologist in Paris goes down a rabbit-hole mystery solving clues to uncover a mystery related to Christ himself.

• Pirates of the Caribbean—no academics here, besides Carina (astronomer and horologist from the fifth film) but plenty of swashbuckling and on-the-fly decision making.

The women that star in these movies, because inevitably the hero needs a romantic foil, are nothing to jeer at. Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler—empathetic, brave, and funny—was a hero to me as a kid. In The Mummy series, it is Rachel Weisz, not Brendan Fraser, who’s the brains behind the operation. And Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann is an iconic damsel turned pirate.

But these films undoubtedly center problem-solving, academic-ish, white men.

Movies I’m compelled to rewatch, therefore, appear to have the following key traits (besides the men) in common:

• Escapism and exploration

All of these films play on the imagination. Some, with dinosaurs or pirates, more so than others. They are shot and set around the world, and therefore pull the watcher with them in a way that feels all but impossible to the common consumer. The main characters are curious about their surroundings as they work through conflicts.

• A tangible sense of history, where it constantly resurfaces or even comes to life

The past truly comes to life, of course, literally in Jurassic Park and Night at the Museum, and through legend in National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code. But all of these films, though they play with ahem reality and the historical record, look to the past for inspiration, if not accuracy. History and learning it is a thing to be valued, not discarded.

• Cleverness and puzzle-solving

This is more prevalent in some of the films compared to others, but I do think this goes back to the root note that sparked the idea for this piece; these characters use their academic identities and cleverness to confront conflict, not necessarily in tandem with brute strength or guns blazing like in other action-adventure films (ones that appeal to me decidedly less).

• Action and adventure through the lens of the academic

The sword-fights in the rain. The dinosaurs chasing you through feels. The mad dashes through ancient temples, or old school London, or museums across the globe. These films, at their base, are within the action and adventure genre, and generate a sense of excitement from start to finish.

The guilty pleasure (emphasis on the guilty) nature of my love for these films, therefore, is rooted in their sense history, mystery, and fun. They respect the past, often ask a viewer to understand a reference (or induce them to Google it, to make the context given all the better), and delight in a sense of adventure and play.

I love to follow along, to relive the escapades I already know, to solve the dilemmas I’ve seen dozens of times.

And beyond watching them each year with my family, I think we turn back to them again and again because of nostalgia, but also because there are very few films and television shows that centre women or people of color as the heroes of these stories.

I’d argue every single one of these films fails the Bechdel Test spectacularly.2 If they were to be evaluated on the Duvernay Test, I think the results would somehow be even worse.3

So, why aren’t there films of this nature starring women and people of color?

There are a lot of academic concepts that name these phenomenons—systemic bias, unconscious bias, representation gaps, whitewashing—but it generally boils down to what you’d expect: sexism and racism.4

Of course, if you dig, there are some exceptions to the rule, but the picture they paint is bleak.

Lara Croft is roughly the equivalent of Indiana Jones.5 The star of the Tomb Raider video games, she is an archaeologist and adventurer who travels the world, hunting treasure. In her initial character design, she was conceived as Lara Cruz, a Latina hero.6 But she came out as British Lara Croft and has since been portrayed by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander in some very bad movies, and will be portrayed by Sophie Turner in a series I hope is better.

There is Relic Hunter, which stars Tia Carrere as Sydney Fox, who is intentionally characterized as a sex symbol. In the wide casts of The Librarians and Warehouse 13, there is one person of color that receives (one Asian man, and one black woman, respectively).

Yet, it isn’t all disastrous.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, a French film with all the adventure and exploration and whimsy of the previous list, is incredibly underrated. The Alex Cross adaptations, while a little closer to traditional adventure or the spy genre, accurately casted black men in the titular role of the films from the early 2000s as well as the show currently airing on Prime, but only after author James Patterson turned down repeated offers from studios that wanted to whitewash Cross in the 90s. And Young Sherlock introduces the excellent Zine Tseng as Xiao Wei, a new character to the long utilized Holmes-verse.

I’m not sure if that last section works as being hopeful. I’m not sure if I feel hope myself about my favorite genre evolving.

Realistically, I know two things can be true at once.

I’m not going to stop rewatching my favorite movies. As strange and male-centered (ugh) as they are, they’re comfort watches. I remember curling up with my dad the first time I watched Raiders. I remember my cousin and best friends laughing at us down the shore, how our family was watching Pirates of the Caribbean from start to finish again.

However, it is not enough to sit and marinate in nostalgia; as a fan, it is essential and advocate for more.

There is a long overdue reckoning for my beloved genre. And I hope to see it soon.

1

Fighting Nazism is tough to argue with, but Temple of Doom and the orientalism it employs is difficult to watch in the year 2026, to say the least. (https://lwlies.com/article/indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom-racist-indian-characters). Also consider reading this great interview on the film:

5AM StoryTalk

Vinay Patel and the Temple of Doom: What Should We Do About Problematic Art?

In anticipation of the release of INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, I decided to introduce my eight-year-old to the first four Jones films. But when it came to the franchise’s second outing, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984), I had to repeatedly pause the film to explain to…

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3 years ago · 43 likes · 4 comments · Cole Haddon

As always, one of the key things I try to do as a reader is to engage with as wide an array of genres as possible.

I think the first three months of the year were pretty representative of that—memoirs to war history to novellas to mysteries to lit-fic to dark academia to fantasy and back again.

With about five 5-star reads, I would say I’m off to the races.

One of my goals for the year, alongside with stepping back from the extra hours at my 9-6, is to partly use that extra time to keep reading. To not surrender to the scroll, and instead read during the in-between. I can’t say I’m perfect, and I do kind of want a Brick and to change the color-grading on my phone like everyone else, but I think it is a decent beginning. Start as you mean to go on, and all that.

As always, to keep up with what I am reading in real time, I log everything on Goodreads.

And, what has been your favorite read of the year so far?

Stay True by Hua Hsu | 5 stars

Stay True follows author Hua Hsu’s college years, notably his friendship with a young man who seems like his complete opposite to the alternative Hsu in every way—kind, preppy, outgoing Ken. Then, about halfway through their undergraduate, Ken is killed in a car-jacking.

The events of Hsu’s life are no secret—going into this, as the reader, you’re waiting for the other foot to drop. But Hsu’s storytelling is so strong that you’re easily pulled into the spiral of college, friendship, jobs, dates, and life that unfolds when you’re eighteen and somewhat fearless.

It is written with searing clarity and sensitivity to what it is like to be young, and the vulnerability and patience required to share such memories is not for the faint of heart. Luckily, Hsu is pretty brave. I easily see how this won the Pulitzer.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan | 5 stars

I forget who it was that said short stories (I’m including novels under 200 pages here) are perfect little bodies, but this one from Claire Keegan is exactly that. A perfect little body.

I read this at the bittersweet end of the holiday season, and it made me think deeply about my own father, the nature of work and religion, and what it means to do and be good. To accomplish that in a book where not a single sentence feels superfluous or wasted is no easy feat, but Claire Keegan consistently makes it look like a breeze.

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson | 5 stars

Erik Larson, a titan of narrative nonfiction, does it again in this history of the brief period between Lincoln’s election and the Battle of Fort Sumter, which ignited the long, bloody American Civil War.

As always, Larson loves a story of heroes and villains, and above all else, characters.
The men of Fort Sumter, of course, are the heroes. Buchanan is so ineffectual it is maddening, while Lincoln’s portrayal is earnest: good-natured, conciliatory, overwhelmed, and tough when it mattered. Ruffin is as vile as they come, and is certainly the most villainous of the Southern set, alongside a nauseatingly awful Hammond. Diarist Mary Chestnut offers a biting lens to the indulgences, cruelties and hypocrisies Southern life and English-reporter Russell offers a view perhaps most familiar to the modern reader—one that details just how insane everyone was going (and how gross their tobacco habits were).

The story of Fort Sumter is impressively detailed, but never feels tired. Instead, Larson does a brilliant job of embodying how citizens must have felt as events unfolded in real time, with rumor and changes by the hour.

Echoes in Time by Julie McElwain | 5 stars

With only 67 reviews on Goodreads, I know my audience with this one is limited, but Julie, I don’t care! Get behind me girl!

The Kendra Donovan series is one of my absolute comfort series, and I was worried after book six and a two-year delay, the series had come to an end.

However, book seven was well worth the wait; it can be challenging to find ways to freshen up such a lengthy series, but Echoes did just that. The setting in London, with the always intriguing murder mystery plots running parallel in the theatre and the medical communities, all against the backdrop of a request from the Queen made this one of the best of the series.

Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe | 4.5 stars

My very first read of the year definitely didn’t start on, shall we say, a positive note with all the doom and gloom and crime I was consuming, but one of my mantras in life is that in his writing, Patrick Radden Keefe can rarely do wrong.

This book functions as an essay collection of Radden Keefe’s work across nearly two decades for The New Yorker. There are some obvious updates needed to some pieces (which are offered in brief afterwords at the end of each section), but each one reflects the careful investigative quality his work is now best known for.

There is wine fraud, mining fraud, data fraud, healthcare fraud, and more, as well as a good deal of murder and mayhem. Each tale is told with seriousness that begets the subject matter, while still staying grounded, accessible, and brightly interesting.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake | 4 stars

There was a lot of things I liked about this dark academia on a group pulled into (ostensibly) protect sacred knowledge through their magic: namely, the six.

They are as morally gray and interestingly realized as promised. There are ones I liked more (Tristan, Reina, Nico) and ones I liked less (Libby, Callum, Parisa) but that’s certainly the goal. Most of the book is spent following their conversations, so it is nearly miraculous it drives forward at the pace it does.

I’m neutral about the lack of plot. Theoretically, it is because so many doors are shut to them that the world-building can’t grow beyond a certain point, despite there being a world of history, connections, texts to explore. However, the writing can be self-important, self-indulgent, and reads like the writer thinks she’s the smartest person in the room. Much like her characters.

The ending is weak and uncommitted, likely because Blake wanted the assurance vagueness offers to do whatever she wants in the sequel. I already own the second book (I’m just waiting for a friend to catch up), and hopefully it pays off.

The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan | 4 stars

The second book in The Kane Chronicles, the first of which I review below, book two succeeds where book one falters as its only job is to continue pushing the reader towards the final conflict in exciting and dynamic ways.

Journey-wise, I think Carter and Sadie facing down the houses of night is one of the best quests Riordan has ever written (oop!) and I love the role the wider cast—Bes, Zia, Walt, Jaz, Anubis, Desjardins, Amos—play in this book and the rest of the series.

Just what the doctor ordered in terms of a literary cheer up!

Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns | 3.5 stars

Barbara Comyns writing style is addicting; the naivety and trickle along thoughts of our narrator simply can’t be stopped, and there is simply no way you can read the first page without reading the first twenty or forty.

Despite moments of casual cruelty, grinding poverty, and a birth experience that is positively medieval, the effervescent prose bubbles along as if nothing could possibly be wrong. Comyns writes like she has never read another book before, and I mean that as a compliment; for both its strengths and weaknesses, the novel feels singularly original and I’d like to read more from her.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan | 3.5 stars

After reading two (quite long) books about war and one book about poverty, I was ready for something to lighten up the mood, so I turned to Riordan’s Kane Chronicles, which follows a magician brother-sister duo facing down the Egyptian gods.

I find this series is horribly underrated in the Riordan-verse; I adore both Sadie and Carter, the wider cast is excellent, and the magic system is creative even by adult standards.

Where The Red Pyramid struggles is that it is rushed, and there’s not a full understanding of the plot before we jump into our mega-final-boss conflict—I think this is because previously, Riordan had experience with five-book series as opposed to three, but this is easily forgiven as the plot continues on in the second and third books.

Peter Rabbit & Ginger and Pickles by Beatrix Potter | 3 stars

While visiting the Lake District this fall, I stayed in Bowness-on-Windemere, which is where Beatrix Potter is from. There are several attractions based on her, including a sweet as pie gift shop that stocks the classic hardcover versions of her beloved books.

Elle picked up The Tale of Peter Rabbit, while I picked up The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

Peter Rabbit was a as sweet as pie lesson in listening to your mother, while Ginger and Pickles was and unexpectedly niche lesson in watching the volume of one’s generosity and running a cash-first business. I enjoyed both of these by the fire enormously.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood | 3 stars

I feel like The Penelopiad might have felt very revolutionary when it first came out, but reading it in 2026, I’m not sure it has necessarily stood the test of time.

Following the life of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife (and soon to be played by Anne Hathaway) as well as the short lives of the twelve hanged maids following Odysseus’ return, the book knocks on the door of a feminist retelling, but never really cares to follow through on giving anyone much agency.

It is smart and creative, especially as it came well before the tidal wave of Greek retellings that have plagued us all for the last ten years, but it isn’t very memorable.

Go for the Song of Achilles or Circe instead.

The Book at War: Libraries and Readers in an Age of Conflict by Andrew Pettegree | 3 stars

This book makes the valiant attempt of charting how literature and literary culture have influenced and been influenced by war in the modern age.

Pettegree is exactly right in his argument that books are key resources, in several definitions of the word, during war. Consistently, he falls back on the appropriated Roosevelt quote that: “Books are weapons in the war of ideas.” Overall, he does a good job proving both the above points are true.

However, the somewhat misleading title did lead me to believe the lens would go beyond Western Europe (with a side dish of Russia) during World War I and especially World War II. I felt that the novel needed either a.) to expand its lens to the rich literary and reading traditions of the wider world during World War II, namely the East and Arabic-speaking countries, or b.) focus on a wider span of history beyond using these points as contextual references to 20th century notes.

Although at times some of the points are circular and repeated, the nitty gritty of this novel, chapter by chapter, is well-researched and very interesting.

A Wallflower’s Guide to Viscounts and Vice by Manda Collins | 2.5 stars

Although I enjoyed Manda Collins’ previous books in this series, which follows bookish and bold women solving crimes and falling in love in Victorian England.

However, I did not like this one at all. The writing style felt notably different, the love story was not very compelling, and the book struggled with telling us rather than showing us as readers everything going on.

I may or may not finish the series, considering there’s only two girls to go. Time will tell on that front.

The Darkness by Ragnar Jónasson | 1.5 stars

I luckily very rarely read a truly awful book, but this mystery as just terrible.

Iceland was a dull uninspired landscape for a mystery (although I haven’t been personally, somehow, I doubt it), the culprit was obvious (I mean, how many people in this book spoke Russian?), and that ending was one I will carry with me in the worse possible way.

There’s a certain stretch of my porch that goes untouched by sun all winter long. It is only halfway through March or so, when things start their thaw, that a ray or two will finally start to light up the back left corner.

My family will start making declarations about setting up outdoor furniture, though it won’t happen for a few more weeks, and that’s how I know it is spring.

In the next few months, I’m lucky enough once again to be traveling quite a bit. Singapore, Monterrey, Mexico City, and Dallas are certain, but depending on how things go with my visa, also potentially the British coast (balmy temperatures certainly not guaranteed), Vienna, and Spain.

As such, a lot of the below has travel needs, namely figuring out how to bear the scalding heat, at the front of my mind. I’d love to pick up a few things, if paying for adult responsibilities (my Roth is really killing my vibe) doesn’t get in the way.

More importantly, if you have any recs for Singapore, Monterrey, Mexico City, or Dallas, please let me know!

As always, this list is aspirational rather than literal. I’m a 25-year-old girl on an average salary; it isn’t realistic by any stretch to purchase all of this stuff.

It is still fun to make a list though.

Clothes & Accessories

• New walking sneakers, ready for 20k steps a day in the heat. Potentially:

  • These ones from New Balance

  • One, two, or three from Salomons (I knowww, boo hiss, basic!)

  • One or two from Asics

• Made by Nelly makes these voluminous scrunchies in gorgeous color combinations; so many are sold out, but I’ve got my eye on the khaki

• A white linen button down

• Everything from Beasha Studios is made in the U.K., and I’ve had my eyes on one of their sleeveless polka dot tops for ages

• For spring / summer bop arounds, a green shoulder bag from Baggu, a darker in leather or lighter in nylon

  • Also, a set of reusable bags for all the impending further shopping

  • If I’m in the mood for a splurge, this gorgeous green tote from Melie Bianco

• Tank Air's pricing is evil, but I was influenced to get the System Tank in milk

• Gap has such cute skirts this season: this one in dots or this one in stripes

• I still have my eye on these black Teva sandals

• Sheer black pants from Massimo Dutti

• For Overlap Studios denim shirt, I am patiently waiting for the sale price to drop

• Office semi-appropriate denim shorts are still top of the list

• The Ant Elias Athena top

Beauty

• L’Occitane almond shower oil

• For Singapore and Mexico, I know I’ll be sweating up a storm. To try and survive:

  • Naked Sundays hydrating glow mist setting spray SPF 50+

  • A hefty Laura Mercier setting powder restock

  • Oil blotting sheets (very much looking into a more eco-friendly version of this, if anyone has recs)

  • Tower 28’s SOS rescue spray

• Abib Jericho rose cream nutrition moisturizer

• I am still working my way through what was once an infinite amount of Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer my brother bought me years ago, but I’ll soon be in need of a restock, and I’ll go for Noshinku’s refillable versions

• Dr. Althea 345 relief cream

• Palmer’s shimmer oil radiance body oil—for summer sparkle

• Torriden dive in hyaluronic acid serum

• Undo Hairware have the most beautiful claw clips I have ever seen, I want No. 5

Books

• The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time | Helen Gordon

• Cassandra at the Wedding | Dorothy Baker

• Ten Cities that Made an Empire | Tristram Hunt

• Golden Hill | Francis Spufford

• Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara | Judith Scheele

• This Land is Your Land | Beverly Gage

• Discipline | Larissa Pham

• On Witness and Respair | Jesmyn Ward

• Now I Surrender | Álvaro Enrigue

Follow along with what I am reading on Goodreads.

Homeware

• Van Gogh’s palette coasters from the National Gallery

• A new pair of Ikea pillows, stuffed inside the gorgeous scalloped ruffle pillows from Tekla

• I’m ready for a spring candle restock: I’m torn between Tomato from Malin + Goetz and Bergamot & Hinoki from Salt + Stone

• Countess Grey tea bags from Fortnum & Mason

• I know sunrise clocks are capitalist propaganda, but I still want one

I don’t want to be one of those writers that waxes poetic in a phony, self-deprecating way—Who allowed this?! Jokes over!!—because that fails to take you or I seriously.

I will say, one of my favorite games to play is to open the subscriber and stats sections of the Substack dashboard. At the time of writing, there are 4,939 of you.

You’re from 45 states and 123 countries; some of those are places I recognize and consider part of the fabric of my being—New York and California and the United Kingdom.

A lot more of you are from places I don’t know and have yet to visit, but ones I would love to one day. The hundreds of you in India, I’m sending major love. Nigeria and Chile and Latvia and Vietnam, too. There is even one singular person subscribed to me from Iceland, so I’ll keep an eye out for you when I’m there next year.

All this to say, and I hope it is quite obvious when I do, is that the most special part of writing is the community it builds.

In my first ever post, the goals I outlined for myself were suspiciously nonspecific.

Really, what I think one-year-past-me was wishing on a star for was for writing to feel a part of her life again. To have something that punctures the highs and lows of corporate life, of being away from most of my family and friends, of even the daily rhythms when life is lovely. After all, there is nothing worth writing about, unless life is being lived.

Most importantly, my life feels a lot bigger now because I am writing again, so thank you for letting me shout down the hallway of the void towards you.

I could never have predicted how much that would mean to me.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Tonight, I’m having pancakes and bacon for dinner in your, and BFD’s honor.

I hope to see you for the next one, and all the ones after that.

To celebrate one year of Breakfast for Dinner, I also wanted to put together my own hall of fame—a collection of the essays I am most proud of.

If you haven’t read one of these yet, I hope it isn’t diabolically egotistical to ask you to consider checking out any one of these beloved babies o’ mine:

Near my office, there is a circle of trees on a hill.

It seems strange and quietly remarkable that such a thing could puncture the grit and grime of East London. I often walk there at random intervals throughout the day. Sometimes with company, but often alone, to step away for a moment of fresh air or a quick cry.

On walks, generally, I have a tendency to fade into my own thoughts, even when with others. The habit has only worsened since I moved to a city where I no longer recognize people on the street; there is no one for me to know, or to know me, here.

All there is for me to see are ghosts, and my mind tries to cast these faces from my past onto strangers I see on the street.

Reading Italo Cavino’s Invisible Cities, the narrator, Marco Polo, reaches a city where although he is visiting for the first time, every person he meets wears a face from his past.

Whether they are stranger, or memory, or friend, is not quite clear:

Certainly, Cavino makes a point about grief, an idea I am lucky enough not to understand much of yet. I am still at a point where my family, my friends, the small circle of my life are all alive and well.

Nevertheless, I recognized myself in the experience he describes; the almost stubborn refusal of my mind to process that I am in a new place, to accept new faces, despite the inherent knowledge that it must be true. Instead, I look to print the old on the faces of strangers, to find them the most suitable mask.

By no stretch would I say that it is conscious. Nor would I say that it is linked to people I even miss presently.

I do see people that I care for: the red sheen of my mother’s hair in a woman commuting, the thick braid of my best friend’s when hers was at its longest, the shape of another older man’s cane in a restaurant is my grandfather’s before he passed.

Yet there are also those I see in crowds that I’ve never cared for or known at all, beyond that they were once a person with whom I shared space. The square shoulders of a strong swimmer I went to high school with and never spoke to, the purple flounce of a skirt on a child is someone in a grade school class, though I can’t quite remember her name.

When I caught onto these strange flashes, it became a game I played—who are you, to me?

It is a dangerously self-centered coping mechanism, I know. In my heart, I am more than aware that everyone belongs to themselves, and to those that love them.

I tell myself it’s harmless, a ghost there and then not, as harmless and lovely and fleeting as the Northern lights. But I also wondered if I was alone in this search.

Because I am a researcher by training if not trade, and the daughter of scientist by training if not trade, I turned to texts to see if there was any scrap of truth to this phenomenon.

Of looking for faces you know are not there.

It turns out there are a few things.

There’s heuristics, which is the process by which humans use shortcuts to arrive at decisions. After visual input, it may be quicker to arrive at a face you know than process the new visage of a stranger you don’t. There is also research that reflects that faces perceived as “attractive” might be inherently more familiar to us, which might make me even more shallow than I could have possibly imagined.1 Luckily for me, there’s a great deal of variance.2

There’s also apophenia, which is the tendency or instinct to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.3 Think along the lines of a contrarian argument to Jeff Goldblum’s chaos theory speech in the original Jurassic Park.

But I think there is something nice about the fact that humans exert so much time and energy looking for order in the chaos. Or, more poetically, figures in the clouds.

The first time I did recognize a face in London, properly, I was on one of my walks to the hill. I had left my office alone, and therefore had not expected to run into anyone. Why would I?

Coming around a corner, I thought I heard the shape of my name, but ignored it.

“Elle,” is a sound that can sound like nearly anything: wind at the right angle, the clatter of a truck, even a whoop of laughter from a passerby. It is one of those single syllables that, while I claim it as my own when relevant, could really belong to anyone at any given time.

But I heard it again, this time yelled sharper and more directive. I looked up and saw two girls from my office, looking at me and waving. They had come after me to try and catch up, so we could all walk together.

After a moment, they started to laugh. “What’s wrong?” one asked.

“Honey, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said the other. It was a sunny afternoon, and they didn’t quite understand, of course. To them, I just looked lost in thought.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing,” I tried again, tried to swallow it all; how being looked for, and called to, and found for the first time in two years made me feel. Like I had suddenly grown roots on the spot, there in the leaves on the pavement.

I blinked and willed the moment to wash away. “You just surprised me. Let’s walk.”

One time, years ago now, while working in the bookstore of my hometown after graduating college, a boy I went to middle school with came up to my register.

Or, perhaps I shouldn’t say boy, or girl. By then he was a man, and I a woman. He and I played on the school basketball teams at the same time, at thirteen and fourteen.

I started to ring him up when he said, “I know you, don’t I?”

Even now, I couldn’t say why I did it when I knew exactly who he was: his name and his older sister and the position he played. But I said, “I don’t think so.”

“No,” he insisted as I bagged up his items. “We went to high school together, didn’t we?”

When he said this, I had thought I found my out; I had left our school district the year after we had played basketball at the same time, and we had never attended high school together.

“I didn’t go to high school in this town,” I said. “You must be thinking of someone else.” With that, certain I’d won, I handed him his bag.

“No,” he said, refusing to let me get away with it. His face was almost scrunched with concentration, I could see he was searching for my name in the recesses of his memory. He failed, ultimately, but said. “I remember your eyes. I don’t think I could forget those eyes.”

He was right; my eyes, big and owl-like and gray blue, are the most distinct thing about me. My heart dropped into my stomach, but he said no more. He took his bag and left the store, and I never saw him again.

Looking back, it seems like a little cruelty I wish I could undo. I turned myself into his ghost, for no good reason at all.

A more specific version of apophenia is pareidolia, which can be defined in a gross oversimplification as finding patterns where there are none. Specifically, faces: on the moon, in an ink splatter, in the clouds, on the drips of water on a wall, in a cactus climbing a cliff face.

This is no new phenomenon. Take a very sane Hamlet, for instance:

Yet while this reflects faces in many strange places, it doesn’t allude to the lowest hanging fruit: searching for faces in faces.

The most apt phenomena, perhaps then, is recognition memory, which is the ability to recognize the things you come across. However, experientially, this can break down further into two categories: recollection and familiarity, or more colloquially, “remembering” and “knowing”.4 This breaks down into several functions across several parts of the brain, but the premise is the same in that humans can subconsciously or consciously recall past people, places, things, etc.

So my little game has quite a neural basis. What I’d call hunting for ghosts, the more scientific-minded might call desperately seeking pattern recognition.

Or perhaps, a commitment to remembering and a refusal of knowing.

The second time I recognized someone in London, it was one of those moments where time slows down a bit.

I had forgotten what that had felt like, and thought it a type of occurrence mostly reserved for romantic comedy movies where time slows down, but it happened at 8:43am on a cold Tuesday commute.

She was getting on the train, and I was getting off. How startled we both were to find each other 3,500 miles from where we’d left one another.

My first year of college, we were close friends. People even said we looked alike.

Spring break of 2018, we were in San Francisco together with a few of our friends. The fun we had, at nineteen and fearless and tireless. All of us ate little else besides thick, warm burritos. We danced constantly. We laid in wet grass, watching the fog rumble over hills, backlit by the setting sun, until it grew dark.

I remember walking on the beach, our red-brown hair in wild flight. There’s a wonderful photo of her and I and my best friend, squeezing each other close, with the expanse of the Pacific as our backdrop. Her brother took it far away, so we look like three penguins huddled and interlocked against the elements.

Nothing remarkable happened—COVID descended, and we grew apart, but we’d always say hello when we eventually came back to campus. We never grew close again, but it was always nice to see her.

But at some point, we stopped talking. This is unremarkable; there are thousands, millions perhaps, of friends from college that you don’t speak to but think of fondly.

That you wish well from a distance.

Until the distance is a thick chunk of glass on the Elizabeth line.

I waved, and she waved, and we both smiled, and that was it.

No ghosts at all.