What's capturing your stray attention?
Yes, I know it's been a while...
Hello,
It’s been too long since I wrote to ask this! I had to draw in my wings a bit while I was finishing my book draft - complete concentration was necessary. I’ve written about this in Saturday’s post, but suffice it to say that my life wasn’t exactly a hotbed of exciting media tips.
Still, I’m back, albeit awaiting edits in some trepidation. I just want to mill around, maybe eating crunchy snacks in quantity. I don’t want the real world to come back.
I’ve been listening to Careless People on audiobook and am suitably appalled at the internal workings of Meta - but the other baddie of the story is/are American maternity rights. It’s an imporant read.
For light relief, I’m addicted to the What Did You Do Yesterday podcast, which delights in its own mundanity and is very funny. Oh, and, always at the forefront of culture, I’ve started watching Severance. It’s good, isn’t it? You knew that already. No spoilers please; I’m only on S1 E4.
I saw Conclave and A Real Pain at the cinema and loved both, but it’s Conclave that has stuck in my head.
On my current tbr: Minority Rule by Ash Sarkar, Love in Exile by Shon Faye, Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal and On Mysticism by Simon Critchley. I also have a very tantalising proof copy of Lally MacBeth’s The Lost Folk: A journey from the forgotten past to the emerging future of folk and I am here for it, as you can imagine.
Meanwhile, my friends have been busy publishing brilliant books, all of which I recommend: Daisy Buchanan’s Read Yourself Happy, Dan Richards’ Overnight and Elissa Altman’s Permission have all kept the pressure up to produce something equally brilliant. Coming soon are also Poppy Okotcha’s A Wilder Way (a fresh look at tending to a garden), Alice Vincent’s Hark (a meditation on women and sound) and Emma Gannon’s excellent new novel, Table for One. Catherine Coldstream’s beloved Cloistered is now out in paperback - you may remember our Book Club interview from last year.
Maybe I’m not quite such a cultural black hole after all. And I’m desperate to know: What’s been absorbing your stray attention lately? Please share your current books, films, TV shows, events, songs, and general delights. I can’t wait to read them.
Take care,
Katherine
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I’ve been mesmerized by the live nest cam of bald eagle pair Jackie and Shadow, and their two surviving (thriving!) eaglets (via the Friends of Big Bear Valley, on YouTube); Huge doses of cuteness are medicinal! Jarod K. Anderson’s book Something In The Woods Loves You has been a slow and savory resonant read for me.
First, miigwech, thank you, for the tip re: The Lost Folk. My mom loves this kind of thing so I sent her the link and have subsequently pre-ordered two copies; one for her and one for me!
Secondly, I've been taking a master naturalist course. I took one during covid and it was all online, so the in person variety this time around has been much more enjoyable. But I also find myself annoyed by all the science-based stuff because it feels like there is little attention to the connections with all of these relative and us *as relatives*. One of the components of the class is "nature journaling" which is a fancy way to describe "drawing beautiful pictures of what you see." Which is valuable, I guess, but there are enough people (to my mind) taking that approach. Plus I suck at it. So in a long way to answer your "general delights" question I would say in response to the journaling requirement, I'm doubling down on finding stories from my Anishinaabe culture related to all the relatives I most encounter. It's been fun.