A List of Recent Reads to Review

This week, I owe many people many things. As we speak, I'm shivering on the lawn of the Harvard Business School (where my twin sister now goes—and thus I am bragging on her behalf because I'm proud of her.)

I'm in a striped shirt and jeans, sniffly, sleepy and suffering with a fountain Diet Coke in hand. It's the first day it feels like fall or winter that's not romanticized: rainy instead. It's 2 p.m., and I'm somehow not awake yet.

In some ways, I'm still coming off the high of my five-year college reunion this past weekend: also rainy, also in stripes (a sundress), with lots of equivalent small talk in small groups.

There were some memories reopened, a few scabs in the mix, and everyone was very happy, combined with the layered strangeness of saying "I'm glad you're doing so well" to people and hearing it in return and the dissonance of internally going "wait—I am but also there's so much you don't know, and am I?" It's nice to be admired, but strange to feel I'm far enough away, both in time and distance, that they don't get the detail. Many thoughts on this. I do miss roots and people who "get" me.

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Cue the post-five-year existentialism hitting. Time is so funny, and I also always have a profound fear of wasting it. It's both fun and horrible to wonder what I want next, who I still have, etc. and what has been "worth it." I can do anything now.

No wonder my brain feels scrambled enough that I haven't gotten nearly enough done. One day, I won't constantly feel guilty. But I have done everything I always said I would, so I have to trust my own stubbornness will get me to the rest of whatever I land on too, and hopefully some eventual rest.

Anyway, I've written a handful of paragraphs belonging to a scattered assortment of reviews, but haven't had the clarity or the time to assemble those over the myriad of other life, admin, and client tasks that rank above it in my triage. Unfortunately, I am behind. Still, I wanted to give a little hint—and a grand dose of accountability—by listing them below.

This is kind of phoning it in as far as blog posts go, but as far as I know, I care way more about Words Like Silver than anyone else does. A lot of my standards here are just unnecessarily high.

Books to Review

1. Gallagher Girls (series) by Ally Carter
2. American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag
3. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
4. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison
5. Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters by John Steinbeck
6. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
7. Maggie, Or; A Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar by Katie Yee
8. Courtroom Drama by Neely Tubati Alexander
9. On the River Styx: and Other Stories by Peter Matthiessen
10. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

On My To-Read List (That I Haven't Shared Yet—with Some Rereads)

1. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
2. Mythology by Edith Hamilton
3. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
4. The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
5. The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
6. Breaking Point by Mads Rafferty

Pray—for my sake—my brain kicks on enough for me to get done what I need to in the next few days, because this unproductive in-between of not-quite-resting, not-quite-enough always drives me up the wall.

But, I am very grateful to be on this coast, and to have gotten a taste of a social scene and an environment I've deeply missed. In many ways, being back at W&L, and being at Harvard for the week now, has been exactly what I needed.

Soon!