This is Show & Tell where I tell you some things I loved from the week and the one thing I hated, plus round up everything else going on around these parts. The first half of Show & Tell is free to all. The adoration and hateration are for paid subscribers only.
We are getting the National Book Award longlists this week and I cannot wait. I will be dropping my prediction reels this week, just as soon as come up with predictions. This year has felt so random on the book front, so I’m all over the place. Just to temper any expectations, I am known to get 2/10 correct on both my fiction and nonfiction lists consistently. Last year however, I had a breakout year and got a whopping THREE out of ten right on the fiction list. So who knows, maybe I’m building up to four this year. Unlikely, but possible.
Also, you’ve got exactly two weeks to get your copy of the 2025 Nonfiction Reading Guide. It will be gone after September 22nd. If you want a list of juicy, provocative, unputdownable works of nonfiction — both new and backlist— get on it!
The 2025 Nonfiction Reading Guide
Here we are, the end of May aka Summer Reading Guide SZN™. And I’m back, just like everyone else, with my own foray into the guidescape. We call it the Nonfiction Reading Guide aka NRG.
This Week in The Stacks
We announced our September pick for The Stacks Book Club and it is The Lilac People by Milo Todd. Grab your copy and read with us!
Last week was so weird you guys, I am still thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert.
The wonderful
is on The Stacks this week discussing both of her books that came out this year: When the Harvest Comes and Both/And.
I read 10 books in August and ranked them all here. I also talked about a memoir I hated and had to DNF.
Books I Read This Week
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
A romantic comedy filled with mistaken identity, love triangles, and pranks. This is one of my favorite Shakespeare comedies, like, it is actually funny. I also love the scenes between Olivia and Viola so much. And while it is a play ostensibly about love, it is really a play about grief and longing. There is an ache that resonates throughout that drives the play.
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
A biography of William Shakespeare that uses historical documents and his own writing to contextualize his life. From a research and detail standpoint this book is impressive. The way Greenblatt supports his arguments with text from Shakespeare’s plays is next level nerd shit. However, the writing overall is as dry as you might expect from a Shakespeare biography. I think if you love Shakespeare, like I do, you might enjoy this one, but it certainly gets into the weeds in a way that might not speak to everyone.
The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us by John J. Lennon
John J. Lennon is incarcerated for murder in New York for killing a man in 2001. He is also an active prison journalist writing for major publications about life inside. In this book, his first, he tells his own story and that of three other men who also were convicted of murder in New York. This is a powerful and searching examination of crime, punishment, and the impact of the true crime genre. It brought up a lot of thought provoking and important questions about redemption and entertainment. Why do we need to relive the worst moment of so many people’s lives over and over? I am so grateful to have spent time with Lennon and his own, very clear, grappling. Structurally I wished that Lennon had allotted himself his own section instead of infusing his memoir in with the other three men. It left me confused and muddied the waters of the other men and their stories.
Fave of the week!
Housekeeping
There are just a few spots left in my Understanding Shakespeare class. It starts September 17th, and it is going to be the most fun you can have learning Shakespeare, I promise.
This Saturday, September 13, catch me in Mississippi at the Mississippi Book Festival. I’ll be on stage with Jason Reynolds and Kiese Laymon. I can’t wait and I hope you can be there.
I am thrilled to announce I’ll be emceeing the Texas Book Festival’s First Edition Gala in Austin, TX in November. I’ll be sticking around for the festival over the weekend and doing a panel on Saturday. More on that to come.
Things I Love…
Substack
Normally I don’t do a lot of parent content, because I just don’t think of myself as a parent in a lot of ways. I know I am one, and the majority of my day/life is consumed with all things Mini Stacks. But, if you ask me, parent is like the fourth of fifth thing I would identify as. I also just don’t feel like I have much wisdom or insights to offer into the parenting space, some mostly I keep my mouth shut.
Anyway, this is a long way to say that I have been following and reading
for a little bit now. I like her stuff. Her piece on going back to school spoke to me at the start of a new school year. So I wanted to share it for any parents out there who are having back to school anxieties.Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming sans kids aka me being an asshole and judging everyone else. Enjoy!
Pop Culture
I somehow learned that Vogue found a replacement for Anna Wintour1. They picked Chloe Malle. Obviously, I had to Google this gal, because, who?
She is Candace Bergen’s daughter — yes, Murphy Brown. She is 39. She has been working at Vogue for a while now.
But I absolutely love that they picked this lady to lead the biggest fashion related publication on the globe and everyone is talking about how she has no style.
Do I care about this news at all? No. Do I think this is funny a hell? Yes!