2020 has been… a strange year. But if I’ve learned anything from my (nearly) five months of sheltering-in-place in my little house in Tucson, it’s that reading good books is more important than ever for maintaining my sanity. I’ve also learned that my hair grows faster than I thought (says the person who had a pixie haircut in February), wearing jeans everyday has kept my extreme snacking in check, Zoom-fatigue is legit, and I can (seriously) binge watch pretty much any TV show for HOURS at a time. As a bookish person, I was embarrassed that I wasn’t reading more during quarantine… and then I decided to get over it. Seriously, I think we should all be ok with, I don’t know, revisiting the entirety of Battlestar Galactica, catching up Schitt’s Creek, or getting lost in Hulu’s The Great, just for example. Although I haven’t been a shining example of a quarantine reader, getting lost in a good book sneaks back into my life when I need it most.
Even though the world has been tossed on its head, authors and publishers are still putting out a mountain of amazing work. So today, I’m highlighting five books that will be released on August that I’m excited about. With book tours being cancelled, put on hold, or moved to a virtual format, it seems like so many authors and their books are not getting the exposure they normally would. So, here’s my little contribution to getting the word out! These books each look amazing, and I’m excited to (hopefully) get my hands on them this month.
Tomboyland: Essays, by Melissa Faliveno (released August 1, 2020)
Blurb from the publisher: “Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It’s a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines. But what happens when those lines become increasingly unclear? When a girl, like the land that raised her, finds herself neither here nor there? In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she’s traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we’ve left. Part personal narrative, part cultural reportage, Tomboyland navigates midwestern traditions, mythologies, landscapes, and lives to explore the intersections of identity and place. From F5 tornadoes and fast-pitch softball to gun culture, strange glacial terrains, kink party potlucks, and the question of motherhood, Faliveno asks curious, honest, and often darkly funny questions about belonging and the body, isolation and community, and what we mean when we use words like woman, family, and home.”
Why I’m excited about it: A book about the intersections of gender, class, and the midwest? How could I not be interested? Just a few days ago I read Melissa’s recent essay (which is an excerpt from the last essay in the book, “Driftless”) published in The Paris Review. If you’re on the fence, give the essay a read. I was immediately drawn in: the perfect sense of place – of “midwesterness” – hit all my nostalgia buttons, and now I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the complete collection.
The Fixed Stars, A Memoir, by Molly Wizenberg (Released August 4, 2020)
Blurb from the publisher: “At age 36, while serving on a jury, author Molly Wizenberg found herself drawn to a female attorney she hardly knew. Married to a man for nearly a decade and mother to a toddler, Wizenberg tried to return to her life as she knew it, but something inside her had changed irrevocably. Instead, she would discover that the trajectory of our lives is rarely as smooth or as logical as we’d like to believe. Like many of us, Wizenberg had long understood sexual orientation as a stable part of ourselves: we’re “born this way.” Suddenly she realized that her story was more complicated. Who was she, she wondered, if something at her very core could change so radically? The Fixed Stars is a taut, electrifying memoir exploring timely and timeless questions about desire, identity, and the limits and possibilities of family. In honest and searing prose, Wizenberg forges a new path: through the murk of separation and divorce, coming out to family and friends, learning to co-parent a young child, and realizing a new vision of love. The result is a frank and moving story about letting go of rigid definitions and ideals that no longer fit, and learning instead who we really are.”
Why I’m excited about it: I have been a huge fan of Molly Wizenberg since discovering her blog, Orangette, back in 2006. Although she no longer updates her blog, it continues to be an amazing resource for food-based storytelling – her recipes can’t be beat, and the stories that go along with them make you wish you were hanging out with her in the kitchen, chatting over a loaf of freshly baked banana bread or something. I’ve devoured her prior two memoirs and I love everything Molly… so if you haven’t read her work, I suggest you give this one a read, as I’m sure it will be just as intimate and gorgeous as her prior two books.
The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir, by Sara Seager (Released August 18, 2020)
Blurb from the publisher: “Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets—especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager’s husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe.As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match, not in the stars but here at home. Probing and invigoratingly honest, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own kind of light in the dark.”
Why I’m excited about it: I’ve always, ALWAYS, had a fascination with space, astronomy, and the search for life outside of our planet, but I was never brave enough to study it seriously. I admire Sara’s professional work as a planetary scientist (a woman who is a leading astrophysicist in a profession largely comprised of men…), and am even more impressed to read how she interweaves her professional life with the vulnerability of working through the loss of a spouse. Just read this excerpt from her book – I was immediately hooked.
Invisible Differences, by Julie Dachez (Released August 18, 2020)
Blurb from the publisher: “Translated for the very first time in English, Invisible Differences is the deeply moving and intimate story of what it’s like to live day to day with Asperger Syndrome. Marguerite feels awkward, struggling every day to stay productive at work and keep up appearances with friends. She’s sensitive, irritable at times. She makes her environment a fluffy, comforting cocoon, alienating her boyfriend. The everyday noise and stimuli assaults her senses, the constant chatter of her coworkers working her last nerve. Then, when one big fight with her boyfriend finds her frustrated and dejected, Marguerite finally investigates the root of her discomfort: after a journey of tough conversations with her loved ones, doctors, and the internet, she discovers that she has Aspergers. Her life is profoundly changed – for the better.
Why I’m excited about this one: I’ve always found graphic memoirs to be uniquely absorbing. Although Julie’s book was originally released in France in 2016, it is being released for the first time in English translation this month. I think that any story that helps us reframe narratives of “disability” is important if we truly want to become an inclusive society. In Julie’s bio, she shares that, “After being diagnosed with Asperger’s autism at the age of 27, I decided to change my life. Far from being a burden, this diagnosis allowed me to learn to love myself and to express my personality as I had never dared to do before… I show another vision of autism, far from clichés and sensationalism. Considering autism not as a disability but as a difference, I seek to make a voice heard that is still a minority.”
Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, by Rebekah Taussig (Released August 25, 2020)
Blurb from the publisher: “Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.”
Why I’m excited about it: I originally discovered Rebekah through her wildly popular Instagram account, where she “1) reflects on what it means to live as a disabled woman, 2) connects with others who are also processing what it means to live from a particular body, and 3) shares more beautiful, nuanced photos of a body that looks and moves differently than most.” She’s a beautiful human doing important work of breaking down stereotypes and altering expectations of what it means to be “disabled”. Read her book.
Truth Over Fiction 