Welcome to another edition of Amateur Bibliotherapy, my newsletter about book-y things. Use this Google Form at any time to tell me about what you’re reading—you might be featured here or on my Bookstagram! I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, which means that I may make a small commission if you make a purchase through my affiliate links. That commission will be donated to Welcome To Chinatown before the year’s end.
Hi. A highlight of my recent weeks has been making grilled pimento cheese sandwiches with the goods from Brooklyn Larder, a provisions shop with all kinds of snacks and treats including little bags of cheese babies. I hope you’ve found something equally enchanting in recent days.
Action Items
The team working at Old Town Books, an independent bookstore in Alexandria, VA that brought my mom a lot of joy when she would visit the area for work a few years ago, has been helping to resettle refugees from Afghanistan. You can send them an Instagram message with your email address to be added to their volunteer list or donate furniture, gift cards, and/or money directly.
Yesterday, the Romance for Haiti Auction for Earthquake Relief launched. You can bid on signed book sets (including all of the Bridgerton books, Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters trilogy, and others), a customized podcast episode about a romantic topic of your choosing, fan art, and more as part of their fundraiser through September 1.
It’s hot out, and the air conditioner at radical bookstore Blue Stockings is broken. They’re losing business over it, and their workers are exhausted and overheated. You can buy books from them online or become a sustaining member to help them raise $2,500 for the repair.
The Book Revue, Long Island’s biggest independent bookstore, is planning to close its doors after 44 years in business because of unsustainable rent hikes. They’re no longer accepting online orders, but if you’re in the area in the next few weeks you can browse their discounted books and grab a bite in their cafe. This one hurts.
My planned getaway to Candlewood Lake in Connecticut was slightly delayed given the potential wreckage of Hurricane Henri (though it was obviously nothing compared to losing power for 5 days last summer). I recently learned that Candlewood Lake was created as a reservoir to produce electricity in the 1920s, when the local electric company decided to siphon off bits of several towns and flooded their tobacco fields, cattle farms, homes, and other buildings for the project. Next time I’ll bring my scuba gear and hunt for an underwater church at the bottom of the murky depths.
The Books
Before setting out on Metro North for the staycation, I read my fourth 5-star book of the year: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans. She notes that her stories are all “thematically about apologies, or corrections, or trying to make things right” in some way, with each one spotlighting a “particular problem faced by Black people in this country: invisibility, classism, the tensions of being multiracial and the whitewashing of history.” Some stories are quite tender, while others are frank and sarcastic; the titular novella is particularly masterful at building suspense. Evans’s variegated sensibility made this book one of my favorites this year.
Once I finally made it to the lakeside, I mostly gossiped and sunbathed. I did rifle through the August edition of The Bridge and Tunnel Crowd, a weird little periodical out of New Haven about strange minutiae in the Tri-state area. This month included an oral history of the 90s graffiti scene along Metro North and local hockey news, among other random tidbits.
I also finished up 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell, a “hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales” following the sex lives of gay men and their “libidinal pump-and-dumps.” His writing is direct, explicit, and to the point, which I appreciate in my beach reads.
The Acquisitions
As part of my journey through the Constitution state, I visited the cute hamlet of Kent for some shopping. The Kent Memorial Library hosts an annual book sale that I’ve visited many times over the years, and this year I found a few fun gems to bring home.
I also meandered into House of Books just down the block, which had an impressive selection of translated literature and small press books. I picked up The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji for book club and Dangerous Dimensions: Mind-Bending Tales of the Mathematical Weird edited by Henry Bartholomew for Martin.
That’s all for this afternoon’s installment. If you haven’t already, I genuinely endorse reading this article from New York Magazine that chronicles a search for a mysterious figure who keeps stealing books before they’re published. Toodles.