Show & Tell: Nooks, Crannies, and Other Things
Unstacked Digest for the week of October 7-13
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.
My ballot came for the 2024 election. Shit is getting real. Also I had a stellar event with Johanna Hedva and Lena Waithe this week. There has been major sprouting action on my carrot seeds in the garden. It appears I am the greatest gardener to ever live. All and all, a solid week.
This Week on Unstacked
Another week another Show & Tell
dropped by to talk about her latest book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration and how one Google search of a family member changed everything.
Books I Read This Week
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
A novel about a senior at Harvard, Catalina, who is undocumented and navigating her own family history and the future she hopes to shape for herself. This is the book The Stacks Pack picked for me to read for the Mega Reading Challenge. It was pretty big disappointment for me. I am holding a grudge against TSP. There is very little plot, and what plot there is is so thin it barely registers. I don’t like “vibes” books, but the truth is this book isn’t even really vibes. I would describe it as a situation with musings. Catalina is our narrator and she shares a lot of her observations and thinking while telling us about her day to day. I know fiction is not an author’s life or opinion, but after reading Villavicencio’s nonfiction and this novel, I would’ve much preferred a collection of essays with real punch to this mild novel.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
I love Ina Garten’s recipes. I have a been a fan for 20 years at least, so naturally I had to read this memoir. Here’s the good news, if you do the audiobook you get to spend almost nine hours with Ina and that is delightful. Here is the bad news, this book is super boring, not juicy at all, there is barely any conflict (except her fucked up childhood — the first 90 mins), and basically a bunch of lists of ingredients and interior decorating choices. And somehow, I didn’t hate the book. I maybe even liked the book. But, it is not good. Also, Ina Garten is so fucking rich. I can’t review this book, even in just one paragraph, without driving this point home. Her wealth is ever present. Even before she was the Barefoot Contessa, she was rich, despite her acting like she wasn’t. I don’t know. This book was so confusing to me. I loved it. I hated it. I was bored out of my mind. She is rich. That’s it. That’s the review.
Fave of the week!
Housekeeping
Jesselyn Cook, the author is The Quiet Damage: Qanon and the Destruction of the American Family came on the podcast to talk about conspiracy theories and QAnon.
This month on Here and Now I talked about books to read to get better versed on major issues for the 2024 election. You can find the full list and audio clip 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…
Book News
Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature. She is the first ever South Korean writer to win the award and the first ever Asian woman. That is so wild to me. It is incomprehensible. But, then I remember that in 1993 Toni Morrison won a Nobel in literature and was the first Black woman to ever win a Nobel prize in any category. Since then only three more Black women have won the prize and none of them were in literature.
So, I am shocked that Kang is the first Asian woman and South Korean, but also I am not. The prize is a huge honor and yet still it remains a deeply disappointing award.
I am thrilled for Han Kang, though I have never read her work (it looks too scary for me) but I plan to remedy that shortly. She is best know for The Vegetarian and has a new book coming out in January 2025 called We Do Not Part.
It should also be said, Kang is refusing to hold a celebratory press conference because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. A great writer and a principled human? We love to see it.
Politics
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been making the podcast rounds as of late. The interview Kamala did with Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy has gotten a lot of attention. Rightfully so. It starts off pretty lackluster but by the end we get a substantive conversation on women’s rights, healthcare, and policy. But for me, the standout appearance is Harris on All the Smoke with former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. It is funny and smart and Kamala seems relaxed and confident. They ask different questions from everyone else, including a really lovely moment on step parents and a Warriors bit for all the Oakland folks. It is worth a listen for sure.