What to Read While Living in Hell
You heard me.
Hi there. It’s me again. Three quick action items before we get into it:
Open Borders Books, a Jackson Heights-based pop-up bookseller that splits proceeds with rotating local aid organizations, will be moving to an online-only model due to increased COVID-19 infections in their neighborhood. That means they’re now shipping pay-what-you-like books and could use some extra love.
Welcome To Chinatown’s Longevity Fund has nearly half of its $200,000 goal. Donating will help them distribute grants to small businesses in New York’s Chinatown, which has been decimated due to the pandemic.
Here’s a great Black Feminist Guide to Electoral Politics from Scalawag Magazine that you should read, because there’s an election coming up.
A view of Asphodel, the magma-laden layer of the Greek underworld. Also, a photo of me looking outside.
For my second installment of a slightly spooky newsletter, this week’s ~aesthetic~ is informed by the narrative dungeon-crawler video game ‘Hades.’ You are Zagreus, the son of Hades, and you’re trying to break out of the Greek underworld against your father’s wishes. The gods up in Olympus find out about your quest and grant you special powers during your escape attempts (some gods are more helpful than others; sometimes, the gods get into catty tiffs over your choices and make your escape more difficult). Along the way, you can reunite long-separated lovers; fish in the magma rivers of Asphodel; and romance death incarnate himself.
The entrance to Asphodel, complete with lots of skulls.
Reading this installment of the newsletter is best enjoyed while listening to the folk-opera Hadestown by Anais Mitchell, which tells the tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Hadestown was also adapted into a play; I prefer the off-Broadway version for its lively brass and sexy Oklahoma! star Damon Daunno as Orpheus, but the Broadway version includes the incredible André de Shields as Hermes. Last week, Mitchell released a book titled Working On A Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown that I think will make wonderful companion reading.
Hades, glowering at your insolence.
This also feels like the place to recommend both Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller. My life’s goal is to find books that approximate the level of connection I have to both of those. They are wonderful and so well-loved by lots of people that I think it would be silly to rehash their praises here. (Circe got a LOT of critical love, but I will always have a special love for Song of Achilles because I got it from a “Blind Date with a Book” box many years ago. I fell hard.) Here’s Miller talking about Circe in celebration of its paperback release.
The Books
Meet Tisiphone, one of the three Furies tasked with punishing murderers that are sent to Tartarus, the deepest layer of the underworld designed for torturing the wicked.
While I’ve been waffling between reading choices, I have been asked by amateur bibliotherapist Lisa to poll the class: If you read Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, did you like it? If you did like it, who hurt you?
(Seriously though, please send your thoughts on this book specifically at your earliest convenience. Lisa has some hot takes on it and I’ve never read it, so I cannot comment. I know some of my readers have.)
Other than that, the best thing I read this week is “Seeing Black Futures,” an adapted essay/portfolio from Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham’s forthcoming book Black Futures that will be released in December. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: preorder it!
This Week’s Book Haul
Accepting a boon from Chaos is, unsurprisingly, a risk. But look at that artwork.
I regularly donate books to my local Housing Works thrift store, which means sometimes I visit their book section to find out which of my donations actually made it to shelves. While browsing this week, I picked up an uncorrected proof of Self Care by Leigh Stein, a parody of the self-care and wellness industry; The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, a fantasy-driven piece of historical fiction that asks what you’d do if you knew the date of your death; Tangerine by Christine Mangan, a suspenseful thriller about two estranged former roommates who meet again on the other side of the world; and The Oracle Year by Charles Soule, a sci-fi novel about a guy who wakes up one day and suddenly has 108 specific predictions about the future. I got all of these for, like, $20.
I also snagged an uncorrected proof of Almond by Wong-pyun Sohn from the Open Borders Books Instagram account, per my earlier note about giving them your money.
Thanatos, or Death Incarnate, can be your boyfriend if you want.
Here’s a list of books that are similar to Circe by Madeleine Miller; books that are “laced with sinister magic” ahead of Halloween; and really powerful and engrossing books according to someone who reads a whole lot.
Okay, talk soon! Enjoy this shot of Elysium, the layer of the underworld reserved for those favored by the gods. Maybe we’ll get out of hell soon in real life, too.
