Three Things

Or four? Maybe more even. Movies and podcasts and books and stuff.

We got to go to Plum Island last week and the rock hunting was immaculate, as the young people say. Or used to say.

Helllllooooo, my darlings! How are you holding up? Are you enjoying the long spring twilight? Kissing the whiskery faces of your pets and crone friends? Noticing the bright golden green of the late-March willows? I know you are. Here we are, in our bodies, in the world, listening to music and loving each other. Thank god for that.

I am just popping in to offer a few tiny odds and ends of pleasure:

1. The movie We Live in Time, which is so good and yet would be worth watching if only to see Florence Pugh’s crew cut, for which I am SO VERY GAY.

2. The podcast series The Telepathy Tapes, which I am not the first person to recommend to you, so probably you’re like hmmm. . . maybe I should listen to that? And you should! It’s the perfect moment to be reminded about how little we know about our own tremendous powers of connection.

3. The Big Bear Bald Eagle live cam, which I have slightly mixed feelings about because it can be stressful to watch these parents try to keep their fuzzy little gray chicks alive, but god—if you’ve ever felt like all you do is drop food into your children’s open mouths? They are really feeling you, this mom and dad, with their endlessly torn-up salmon and songbirds. Plus, what a relief to see the natural world just, kind of, going about its business.

4. I have so many amazing books to recommend right now that, in an uncharacteristic move, I am going to list them alphabetically by author. What in the actual absence of a single photo of a cat crushed beneath a book is going on here? I know. It’s weird.

• Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
  I’m reading this right now, almost done, and I may start it again after. Every page has at least one exquisite line that I have to read twice. Motherhood in all of its aching, fearful dailiness and pleasure.

• Crush by Ada Calhoun
  This is a sneaky and excellent book that’s as much existential philosophy as it is a tale of a hot and glorious midlife love affair. (Crush is such a brilliantly comical understatement.)

• What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
  This is one of those books that’s definitely a saga—sweeping and richly layered—but also just so intimate and tender in its details about what it feels like to be part of a family and trying to make a home. Naima Coster broke my heart some, but I felt lucky for that.

• Heartwood by Amity Gaige
  "Heartwood is mind-bogglingly good, and I tore through it despite my best intentions to savor every page. It's got such a brilliant, enthralling momentum. It's eerie and beautiful and fascinating—a book about survival against every existential threat, about connection despite every force tearing us asunder. I will be pressing it into everybody's hands." Yeah, Amity is my dear old friend, and yeah, I got to blurb it—but you don’t need to take my word, because it’s a JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK!!! Out on Tuesday.

• Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn
  Cheating again by citing my own blurb! "Animal Instinct is almost mysteriously kind and hot and funny—like Grace Paley crossed with Miranda July, crossed with, like, Tina Fey. I loved it so much. A joyful pandemic sex novel that's also a scathing critique of marriage? It's the book I didn't know I needed." Happy pub week, beloved Amy Shearn! What a hot fucking romp!

• The Girls in Queens by Christine Torres
  Picture the Elena Ferrante Neopolitan novels unfolding in a New York City burough, and you’ll get a sense of the depth and brilliance of this book about girlhood and sex and violence and betrayal and friendship. Also I loved its New Yorkness so much.

• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
  Everyone recommended this to me and I kept picking it up and reading the first 15 or 20 pages and thinking: Nah. And then, suddenly, I was completely obsessed and loved it.

And that’s it! Except for reminding you to make a plan for the big nationwide Hands Off! protest next Saturday! Find your closest event and learn everything you need to know at this website. We’ll likely be in Boston or maybe Providence. Have a ton of fun because honestly why not?

For example, after this exhilarating protest in Washington Square Park a couple weeks ago, where I was lucky enough to be wearing my dad’s fabulous hat? We got Jamaican meat patties.

Have a lovely weekend.

xo