Welcome to 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.
Greetings from my Sunday to yours. I'm freshly over a nasty cold and back in life's saddle, hence my absence last week for my promised monthly dispatch.
Since last time, I danced my ass off to Shik Shak Shok at a wedding in Queens; made friends with octogenarians at the Whitney’s exhibit of "Edward Hopper's New York," which featured his iconic paintings and sketches alongside some anti-NYU letters to Robert Moses; spectated as several of my favorite boys played five hours of Dungeons and Dragons; reveled in the magesty of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on the big screen until I saw a mouse in the movie theater; ate fat fancy steaks and homemade french fries and heart-shaped red velvet cakes and confections from Lady Wong with Amanda and Martin as a mega mid-month celebration; revisited Aire Ancient Baths, where I floated in a salt bath and sipped peppermint tea; delighted in a number of great restaurants (Commerce Inn! Thai Villa!) and said goodbye to mighty fallen friends (Sal’s Pizza! Faro!); replayed Breath of the Wild in anticipation of its sequel later this year; wished just about everyone I know a happy birthday; learned about bespoke yarn at Woolyn, now that Martin is a certified crochet king; and more, because winter is my boon season.
The Books I Bought
I picked up Little Reunions by Eileen Chang during a recent jaunt to the Center For Fiction; I noticed it on their New York Review of Books display a few months ago, but was late to a lunch date at Rucola and left it behind until I found myself nearby again. On a lunchtime trip to the Promenade, I slipped into the new Books Are Magic location before picking up my Sweetgreen order and grabbed Lotería by Cynthia Pelayo. And most recently, I found myself at The Strand with friends from out of town, where I spent some gift card dough on Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim and Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. The easiest way to coax me from my kingdom of pillows and blankets is to promise me a trip to the bookstore and a bite to eat.
The Books I Read
I had a great run of books last month despite reading less often and falling into two mega-slumps. I found that slipping books into my bag just got them mixed up in the detritus of nights out—a tiny matchbook from a wedding, sturdy restaurant business cards, and stolen mints—and went similarly forgotten. As such, I read my physical books almost entirely at home and read my digital books on the go.
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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (paperback). I picked this one for my book club because, somehow, none of us had read it. For the contingent of youngsters who have similarly gone their whole lives unspoiled, Rebecca follows a young woman who marries a wealthy widower she meets in Monte Carlo. She's thrilled to have been plucked from obscurity by the sexy and mysterious Mr. de Winter, but she quickly learns that his life—and his famously fabulous estate in the English countryside, Manderley—is haunted by the memory of his first wife, Rebecca. Though the book had a slow start, I reveled in the unnamed narrator's anxieties of every variety the whole way through. The Guardian referred to her as one of the "great dreamers of English literature," likely due to the sheer deluge of diversions from the main plot: "whole pages go by devoted to her imaginings and speculations. The effect is curiously unstable, not so much a story as a network of possibilities, in which the reader is rapidly entangled." I notoriously identify with chronic overthinkers real and imagined, and she's not the only destabilizing figure at Manderley. Rebecca's litany of complicated betrayals, elaborate banquets and parties, glamorous vacations, and melodramatic proclamations of love and hate are amplified by the astronomical level of delusion on display from just about every character. (Especially my idol and yours, Mrs. Danvers.) There's romance! Sunken ships! Social faux pas! Scandals everywhere you look! This book really does have it all, and you should read it if you like to be stressed out by silverware, unreliable narrators, and overbearing housekeepers.
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How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann (via Libby). In searching for a book to break a post-Rebecca reading slump, I was finally able to get my hands on How to Be Eaten from the library. Five women meet for group therapy sessions with one thing in common: they've reached the supposedly happily-ever-after of their respective fairy tale experiences, and it doesn't seem to be all that happy on the other side. These are greusome retellings fit for the modern world (think Bluebeard as a psychotic tech billionaire, etc.), and Adelmann is particularly preoccupied with the horrors of reality TV for contemporary culture and the people it expliots. The retelling chapters, which zoom in on each woman's respective traumatic experience, are sharp and intimate and horrifying. But the plot devices used to weave their stories together fall a little flat in comparison, and the ending is a bit unsatisfying. Altogether, this is a supremely compelling read despite some pacing problems. Read if you like the second act of Sondheim's Into The Woods; contemporary retellings; season one of UnREAL; and stories of women doing what they need to do to survive.
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This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas (audiobook via Libby). This book, written by a record producer-turned brain scientist, explains how each person’s unique “listener profile” defines their taste in music based on key dimensions that make up every record, including authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre. It was an interactive educational experience, as readers are encouraged to listen to specific songs that illustrate musical concepts and think critically about their own listening habits. In addition to fun anecdotes from someone who worked closely with Prince and put together the Barenaked Ladies banger, One Week, the book offers an incisive and specific history of music listening that provided me context to understand my own music tastes. My habit of playing atmospheric playlists like Lofi Music for INFPs while I write this newsletter is an example of passive listening, which is a generational shift in listening to music as background enhancement instead of as the main attaction, as my parents might've done when they were my age. My love of Korean rap can be attributed to the high premium I place on rhythm in my favorite songs, and my obsession with See You Again by Tyler the Creator ft. Kali Uchis directly correlates to the way the duo's tone qualities play off each other (and, obviously, Tyler's absolutely feral lineread of "I'd give up my bakery to have a piece of your pie/ Yugh!"). It's refreshing, as a bigtime music lover and an amateur musician, to have a real framework for understanding myself through my favorite tunes. Pick this book up if you've had your life changed by a concert, want to learn about what makes an earworm work, and adore a niche playlist like the one I've been blasting this week, "lana del rey but she doesn't wanna die."
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Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (hardcover). When Chelsey tells me to read something, I know I'm going to like it. And boy, did this book help me embrace my inner child in the most restoring of ways! Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is, as the name suggests, a compendium of grumpy academic Emily’s experiences with faeries all over the world. It focuses on her trip to remote Ljosland, where she hopes to become the first scholar to encounter and document faeries of the region. But when her meddlesome and handsome colleague Wendell shows up in town, their adventures turn her whole life on its head. Though the prose can be a bit purple at times, and Emily isn't all that likeable until Wendell arrives for some good ole grumpy-sunshine banter, I had a blast reading this cozy faux-academic little book. The sweet spirit of the townfolk and the blossoming romance between Emily and Wendell kept me warm despite the cold, unforgiving climate of Ljosland winter and the tales of its notoriously brutal mystical creatures. I firmly agree that "the books with scarier fae often give me that mix of whimsical romance and beautiful brutality" you just don't see often. Read this if you liked the tricky Fae rules of Holly Black's The Cruel Prince but want a gentler romance, had a hyperfixation on Neopets faerie lore (or their makeup skills), or want to evoke the sense of discovery and novelty those fictionalized Ology encyclopedias got just right.
I could sit and chat with you for hours, but I simply must be going. Might I interest you in watching the incredible RRR ahead of next week’s Academy Awards, where it absolutely must win? After that, I promise only to foist books upon you instead of 3.5-hour cinematic treasures. Bye!