Show & Tell: Is This How You Think "Never Again" Works?
Unstacked Digest for the week of July 21-July 27
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 am another year older and sadly I am not wiser, in fact I might be stupider. Can’t win ‘em all. I had a great week with my family in town, I got my giant baked potato with all the fixin’s. I also had1 multiple cake and/or ice cream situations. I truly cannot complain.
This Week in The Stacks
Remember Astronomer? That was only last week. Crazy right?
I think A Flower Traveled in My Blood is one of the most impressive books I’ve read this year, so it was a big honor to speak with the author Haley Cohen Gilliland this week on the podcast.
Books I Read This Week
I finished exactly zero books this week. Three things are to blame2.
My family was in Los Angeles and we did lots of hanging out. The best.
I became obsessed with a show3.
I am reading Demon Copperhead for a sort of impromptu book club for my monthly appearance on NPR’s Here & Now and it is truly boring me. I started it last Saturday and am still only on page 150 with 400 pages to go. I might have to DNF this sucker, which is not a great look, but I do always tell people you can DNF a book and still go to book club. You can just say why you DNF’d. Right? We will see. But at this current moment, I have a lot of questions for the lovers of this book. Starting with, how?
Housekeeping
I got to spend my birthday eve with my darling pal
doing their Messy Monday’s Substack live show. I talked about talking shit about books and my kids and Lorna Doones. It was a great time.
If you need check me out on this episode of Here & Now. We also announced our little sorta-not-quite book club convo for August. Host Scott Tong suggested Demon Copperhead for me to read, and I said he should read James4. So that’s the plan.
I got to go back on Caroline O'Donoghue’s podcast
to discuss the two prequels for The Hunger Games. We were supposed to do both books in one hour, instead we talked for two hours and twenty minutes and she split the convo into two episodes. Sorry, but I had a lot to say. Part one, mostly on The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is up now.And if you missed my review of that book you can catch it in this newsletter.
Things I Love…
Politics
What Israel is doing, blocking food from entering Gaza in order to punish and starve Palestinians to death, is depraved. Full stop.
I do not care what “reason” anyone offers up. There is truly not one single justification for what is happening.
This is what a genocide looks like. This is what a genocide is.
As many of you know I am Jewish. I spent much of my childhood being taught about The Holocaust. The horrors. The stories of the victims. The disturbing justifications. And at the end of every lessons I was told we would “Never Forget”.
And now, here we are. The idea of “Never Forget” feels a little like lip service at this point, doesn’t it?
I am begging all of you to please stand up and speak out against what is happening in Gaza. Do not worry if people say they won’t buy your book, or they unfollow you, or whatever “consequences”5 come with standing on the correct side of this horror, because your morality was never for sale right
Right?
And, obviously all of this is a hate (and I will have a more hate later). I just put it up front because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t behind the paywall and anyone who wanted to know where I stood on the man-made starvation of an entire population could get that information easily6.
I fucking hate it. I hate so many aspects of this. I am heartbroken that the only reason it seems some people care is because there are photos of children being starved, as if the adults are deserving of this kind of treatment. Or that the word of Palestinians wasn’t enough. I am enraged that there are so many morally bankrupt humans trying to justify these war crimes. There is no two sides. The time for “complicated” is over. There is genocide and then there is not.
Allow me to be me, and give you a quick book recommendation. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. I have already told you this is the best thing I read this year. You’d be a fool not to read it. It is hard to describe, but it is something you should read. I was lucky enough to speak with El Akkad about the book earlier this year, and he is thoughtful and principled beyond measure (both on the page and in this conversation).
If you want to support folks in Gaza I have donated to World Central Kitchen, as they have announced they are back in operation.
Books
This came out last week, but my guy, Patrick Radden Keefe has a new book out in 2026. It is called London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth. The reason it is in this week’s newsletter is because a few of you have DM’d or tagged me to see if I saw the news. And babes, of course I did. Do you think I am dating this man and I do not know about his forthcoming book? PRK. New book. Preorder.
The Center for Fiction released their longlist — and it is very fucking long — for their First Novel Prize. This is book related news that I like in theory, but I wasn’t really grabbed by any of the titles. I’m going to wait for you all to tell me what if anything I need to read from the list. You know novels aren’t really my jam, and first ones? I dunno, man. So if any were faves please let me know.
Pop Culture
As usual I am late to a TV thing you all already love. Good news? I am here now.