Show & Tell: The Sins of the Father
Unstacked Digest for the week of April 21-27
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.
This weekend was the LA Times Festival of Books aka Bookchella aka my favorite bookish weekend of the year. It is also the most exhausting weekend of my work year in the best way, but also yeah, I’m tired as hell. This week’s Grown-Up Show & Tell is truncated because I need to have a meeting with my comforter.
Quick heads up! I am taking the week of May 5th off from this newsletter. Between Bookchella and Stack the Shelves I am fully exhausted. I am going a on a short girls trip that week to read and chill. I am giving myself permission to log off. We will still have podcast episodes but no new Unstacked content. Here is what the schedule will look like.
April 27 - Grown Up Show & Tell
April 30 - Blessing the Boats episode of The Stacks
May 2 - April Wrap-Up and May on Deck post
May 7 - New episode of The Stacks
May 12- Grown Up Show & Tell
Speaking of Stack the Shelves, that goes down this coming Sunday. We are in the homestretch for donations. Every dollar is going directly to getting books into the hands of people impacted by the fires. If you can give a little something now is the time.
This Week in The Stacks
Thoughts about the ladies in space trip.
I really enjoyed speaking to Brian Goldstone this week on the podcast about his new book on the “working homeless”, There Is No Place for Us.
I wrote about memoirs and why and how they can be bad, and why that is okay for you to say.
Books I Read This Week
Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton
I finished this month’s book club pick. I didn’t love every poem in this collection, but the ones I did love, I really really loved. A few even made me teary, I’m especially thinking of “Heaven” the last poem in the collection. I was drawn most to Clifton’s humor and simplicity, and the ways so many of the poems still feel urgent some 25+ years later. And I can’t forget the voltas. Clifton knows how to work the turn at the end of her poems. Grief, pain, love, politics, it is all in this one. Tune in to The Stacks on Wednesday, April 30th if you want much more of me talking about this one with the great Tiana Clark.
Fave of the week!
Housekeeping
The amazing folks at KCAL, a local news channel here in LA, had me on to talk about Stack the Shevles. I am so grateful they spent a little time with me and this event. Coming up in a week! Have you donated? Can you donate again?
Things I Love…
Book News
The Los Angeles Times announced their book prize winners this weekend to kick off the Festival of Books, and while I was surprised James didn’t win best novel, I always love that their prizes seem to honor books that are not as prominent on other lists. Also, the LAT prize winner list usually includes at least one or two that end up winning a Pulitzer. We’ll see if that trend continues on May 51.
Politics
I don’t know that Catholicism is considered politics, per se, but I read Conclave2 (and I saw the movie) and those Bishops were politicking left and right, so I would say yes it is politics. This week, The New York Times, like the rest of us, could not resist the papal mess. Not event 24 hours after the Pope died (RIP) they released their list of front runners for the gig. I love it here. It’s Conclvae SZN. Let go, and let God.