Show & Tell: Gardens, Voting, and Cosplay, Oh My!
Unstacked Digest for the week of September 16-22
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.
I went to Atlanta this week for my niece’s wedding. It is always so good to be reconnected with family. I also finished my 99th book of the year, so that feels like something. It has been a really interesting year for my reading, and a lot of that has to do with the prompts from The Mega-Challenge which has forced me to read more backlist and more books outside comfort zone, which has been over all really enjoyable. I know it’s only September, and I still about 10 prompts left to complete, but I already can’t wait to do it again next year.
This Week on Unstacked
I talked about the National Book Award longlists, which I am trying to prioritize in my reading right now. A few reviews below.
Author and activist George M. Johnson came for a bonus episode to discuss their newest book Flamboyants and the latest on book banning.
Books I Read This Week
Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne
I picked this up because it made the NBA longlist in nonfiction. This critical look at fatphobia was solid, but it didn’t feel like anything special. I have read a handful of books on anti-fatness (all of which are cited in this book) as well as other writings on the topic, and Unshrinking felt like more of the same, and not something that really advanced the conversation on fatphobia. Where Manne shines is in her writing about the ethics and philosophical questions around anti-fatness. The moments when she engages the ethical lens is when the book is at its best. Unshrinking is an accessible book and a very solid entry point into the thinking around anti-fatness but it does not transcend the field or the genre in any way (which I only note because of it being longlisted by the NBA, and which is something I often expect in any book being recognized on that level).
Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Becky Kennedy
I revisited a parenting book this week. I read this last year and picked it up again to freshen up my approach in dealing with two emotional kiddos. This book is really helpful to me, she gives scripts and tips on what to do in emotionally fraught (for kids and parents) situations. That is so helpful in the most micro of moments. That being said, I struggle with Dr. Becky and her coopting of abolition language without explicitly talking about that work with her audience and without ever engaging with the macro when it comes to raising humans to put into the world.
The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson
Wright Thompson takes the murder of Emmett Till and explores why it is one of the most consequential events of the 20th century. He writes not only about the families involved, but also the land, the history, and the circumstances that led to that lynching in that place in that moment. Thompson is swinging big swings with this book, not only the scope, but also the prose themselves. Sometimes it lands perfectly, sometimes it feels too contrived. I was especially taken with how he weaved his own history, that of a white Mississippian, into the story. If nothing else, this is a great example of a white writer seriously considering American history and the way they are implicated in it. He does not just co-opt the story of Emmett Till, he embraces his own role in it and that of the generations before him. Thompson is really working toward something very very smart in this book. A heads up for my audiobook readers, there are also a lot of people mentioned in this book, a lot. I constantly was flipping back and forth between the maps and family trees at the start to stay oriented. This isn’t a knock, actually I really appreciated it, but because of how much I relied on those resources, I wouldn’t suggest this one solely on audio.
Fave of the week!
Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León
This is another book from the NBA longlist in nonfcition. An ethnography of the men and women who smuggle migrants north across the US and Mexico border. De León spent time and money to cultivate relationships and build trusts with the smugglers to shine light on a career that is often relegated to “criminal” and treated as disposable. While I enjoyed the book, it left me with so many questions on process and ethics. This is not journalism, it is anthropology, ethnography, and the rules are different there (like paying for access to subjects, for example). This complicated my reading of the book and also my thinking about smugglers. Am I so trained by “objective” journalism that my own reading of the stories of De León’s subjects leads me to be skeptical and ungenerous in my thinking? Soldiers and Kings does feel confusing at times because it profiles around eight people, which means I felt myself getting confused by whose story I was reading (I did the book on audio, which maybe didn’t help). Keeping it all straight was a challenge.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom
I read this book in 2004 for my “Living and Dying” religion class in high school. I reread it this week for a Mega-Challenge prompt. In fact, I read the exact same copy from 2004 (it still had the sticker from my high school’s bookstore). I liked this book then. I like it now. It isn’t profound to me, but it did get me to shed a few tears in the end. It is full of the kinds of cliche end of life wisdom you’d expect, the ones about loving people and being kind and money not mattering. Usually I find this kind of advice so saccharine and irritating, but it works in this book, maybe because the book is so fast at only 192 very small pages, but it works. I’m glad I reread it. Thanks again, Mega-Challenge.
Housekeeping
I spoke with the Scam Goddess herself, Laci Mosley, about her debut memoir, Scam Goddess: Lessons from a Life of Cons, Grifts, and Schemes and about the scammer ecosystem and more.
There is a new One for the Books coming your way Los Angeles. Save the date for October 2nd! I’ll be joined on stage by Danzy Senna and Zach Stafford playing games, talking books, and having a really good. Come through.
I’m thrilled to be moderating a conversation with Lena Waithe and Johanna Hedva about Hedva’s new books How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. The event is on Wednesday October 9th at the Barnsdall Theatre in Hollywood, tickets here.
I’ll be in San Francisco on October 19th for the Litquake book festival talking to friends of the pod Carvell Wallace and Morgan Parker, and National Book Award longlister Sam Sax. Get your tickets.
Things I Love…
Politics
Early voting has started in some states, which means we’re in the home stretch. I for one, am ready to get Kamala elected and be done with this fucking election season. Let’s vanquish the big orange beast once and for all. Be sure to see when early voting starts in your state, and then vote early (and often).
Here is a great resource for checking voter registration status and getting registered. Please talk to the young people in your life to make sure they are registered (don’t forget that the Libras and Scorpios who turn 18 in the next 42 days can).
I want to take this moment to encourage folks to vote early. It is great to get it done and get it off your plate. It is also great so that you can volunteer on and around election day. You can drive folks to the polls, make calls, knock doors, and do all sorts of other extremely important work that helps ensure a victory for your candidates. I promise volunteering is extremely not as scary as you’ve made it out to be in your head. But also, even if you don’t volunteer (you should), but voting early you make it easier for folks who show up on election day to vote because lines will be shorter, parking will be easier to find, etc. etc.