Show & Tell: The Pulitzer, the Pope, & Me
Unstacked Digest for the week of May 5-11
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 took one week off and then everything happened. So I have a lot of catching up to do. This is a long one, gird your loins. Before I dive in, can I just say I took a few days off to relax in Lake Tahoe with
and it was a delight. Sometimes just reading and hanging out with a friend is all you need. Reminder to self.Also, while I was “off” we did Stack the Shelves and it was absolutely amazing. Thank you to every person who donated, volunteered, and spread the word. We could not have provided the safe space that we did without the generosity and commitment from this amazing community. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Last thing, The Nonfiction Reading Guide (NRG) is coming up in just a few weeks. It will feature 30 nonfiction books for you to read this summer and beyond. Not one of the books has been featured on the podcast. So this is my reminder to you to join as a paid subscriber so you don’t miss the guide in all its glory1.
This Week in The Stacks
I know I took last week off, but I want to make sure that The Stacks Book Club episode with Tiana Clark about Lucille Clifton’s Blessing the Boats gets it due. I hate to play favorites but I think this is the best poetry book club we’ve ever done. All credit to Tiana for her smarts and her patience.
This week Kara Brown came on the podcast, she is an OG dream guest for The Stacks and she did not disappoint. We talked about her problematic faves, what makes for a good adaptation, and her origin story for becoming a reader.
Books I Read This Week
A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne
Interconnected stories and poems set in New York City amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. All the characters we hear from have a unique voice that shape this work of YA fiction. I was very charmed by this book. As you all know I am not really a young adult reader, but Browne is able to tap into the voice and heart of her characters. She tackles some extremely difficult subjectsbut finds ways to layer in an optimism that gives her characters (and the book) a depth that is critical for its success. This isn’t really helpful for a review, but here’s what I can say, Mahogany Browne just gets it.
This Thing of Ours by Frederick Joseph
Ossie is a Black basketball star at a predominantly white prep school. He suffers a career ending injury and has to figure out who he is going to be without sports. I was genuinely surprised and delighted by This Thing of Ours. Joseph manages to tap into the "all at onceness" of the issues of our day without overdoing it. He captures the way problems compound, exponentially so, for teenagers. There is a bit about social media and good intentions that rings very true. The characters are potent and their relationships feel nuanced and authentic. I was fell for Ossie and the entire cast. The only piece of the book that I wasn't totally into was the pacing, it slows a bit in the third quarter, but by the time we get to the fourth, it all comes together.
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
In 2017, Yiyun Li’s eldest son, Vincent, died by suicide at sixteen. In 2024, Yiyun Li’s youngest son, James, died by suicide at nineteen. This is her meditation on these facts of her life. This book is fantastic2. Yes, this one is sad, but maybe not in the ways you’re thinking. It isn’t weepy and searching. It is a look at grief that is much more thinking than feeling, by design. What moved me most was the clarity with which Li discussed grief; not just what she went through, but also how she dissects grief language and art. The writing is poetic and repetitive, it is incantation-like. It is loving tribute to her two sons that I feel lucky to have been able to read.
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst
In 1972, a married couple, Maurice and Maralyn, set sail from England to New Zealand. After months at sea a whale crashes int their boat. They must abandon ship and figure out how to survive on their emergency raft. A Marriage at Sea is propulsive as hell, and their journey feels pretty hellacious, too. I was locked in early, and understand why the book if getting so many raves. It moves fast, is packed with danger, and satisfies our curiosities about why some people do crazy shit. It also has a central love story and explores the will to survive. The last chunk of the book was not nearly as interesting to me as the early sections. We didn’t need it. But, since the book is super short, its over before it gets tedious. This is the perfect nonfiction read for fiction lovers who want their nonfiction to read like a novel.
Fave of the week!
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Easy Rawlins is a Black WWII vet in Los Angeles in 1948 who is approached to find a missing white woman. As with the best mysteries, murder and chaos ensue. I wasn’t sure what to expect here, I have never seen the movie3, but was mostly pleased with the book. If I’m being real some of the plot was a little confusing for me, like why were people doing these things? The twists were mostly good, some came out of a left field, some I saw from pretty far out. The writing is so smooth and propulsive I wanted to see how Mosley put it all together. I loved the humor that is infused throughout. It reminded me a lot of my dad who would’ve been a teenager in California when the novel was set. This book has left me with a lot to chew on before we discuss it with Kara Brown on May 28th for The Stacks Book Club.
Housekeeping
For this month’s apperance on Here & Now I talked with Scott Tong about what I’m reading during this extremely fraught political moment.
Spectrum News did this beautiful feature of Stack the Shelves. If you want a sense of the day, you’ll get a pretty good glimpse here.
I know its old news now, but I did manage to get off my book recommendations for the Cardinals in the Conclave for my Required Reading column. I am particularly proud of my suggestion for the new Pope. Though of course I wrote this before he had been picked.
Things I Love…
Book News
The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on Monday. My four biggest loves in no particular order are:
I basically knew none of the nonfiction winners or finalists this year, which means I have a lot of things to check out since I generally love the Pulitzer in nonfiction categories.
Past guest of the podcast, poet, and essayist Mosab Abu Toha won the Pulitzer for his series of essays on Gaza in the New Yorker. In case you missed it, here is Mosab’s episode.
Cole Escola was a finalist for Oh Mary! What a time to be alive.
Pop Culture
It feels very odd to me that the naming of a new Pope would fall in my “pop culture” category, but the way the Conclave took over my life for the last little bit. It was everywhere.
It started with a lot of memes and videos that were mostly silly but made me laugh very hard.
Starting with this song that I could not get out of my head. Just ask
I was singing it day in and day out.I also loved this, because it felt so relatable. Who hasn’t had this fear? Shout out to my guy
for keeping the Conclave content flowing.
Ok but then we get our (short) Conclave and it leads to a frickin’ US American winning the whole thing? In what world?
It quickly became clear that he does not fuck with Trump or JD Vance, which is hilarious and also the only correct answer.
Then we come to find out he is Black. His maternal grand parents are Creole and of Hatian descent. Now, let’s not get crazy, old Bobby5 and them said they didn’t really talk about their maternal grandparents. I wonder why? But look here, if we have been tied to the one drop rule for centuries, we’re not going to turn our back on this whole thing now that our6 holiest of holy men is Black.
And yes, babe, I am playing the race card all the way to the Vatican. Take it up with God.
I generally do not care about the Pope, and yet here I am wrapped around the Hunger Games Pope’s little finger7. I am loving this for now, but I already see a lot of people trying to expose him or whatever, and I don’t care that much. So please dear internet, do not ruin this for us.