A midweek pick-this-up
❤️ I thought you could use a little bonus
Hello, and happy Wednesday! I promised you a special bonus in last month’s newsletter, and a special bonus you shall have—in the form of five Shirley books* to add to your TBR pile, as recommended by this week’s special guest, author Emily Beyda.
Emily is the author of the fantastically haunting and hauntingly fantastic novel The Body Double, which you may recall was featured in last month’s newsletter. But it turns out Emily’s not just a brilliant author; she’s also the founder of The Coop Workshop, a collectively owned workshop series offering affordable online writing classes. (Fun idea: Sign up, pretend it was a New Year’s resolution that you just checked off and treat yourself to a doughnut.) She generously agreed to share five Shirley books* she recently read and loved. And because she’s an overachiever, she straight-up wrote the descriptions of the books, which makes my job extremely easy. (All I had to do was teach myself how to make that gif up there☝️, which I am very proud of.)
So, whose writing does Beyda describe as having a “hurtling forward on all cylinders effervescence”? What title has she deemed “perfect for starting fights in your book club”? (Secret fact: I hate book clubs, so I’m into this.) Keep on reading to find out.
*Shirley books = books not written by a Jonathan.
1. Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz
1977; reprint 2016 (NYRB Classics)
Ok admittedly including Eve Babitz in a list of good books by ladies is a little bit of a gimme, but Slow Days, Fast Company is a hard one to ignore. Eve’s writing always has a hurtling forward on all cylinders effervescence, and she’s at her peak here with joyful little stories about dancing, drinking, and flirting through 1970s Los Angeles. This book has been an incredible anchor for me in a time of widespread loneliness, a sometimes melancholy window into the world of parties we’ve (temporarily!) left behind.
2. Why I Killed My Best Friend by Amanda Michalopoulou
2014 (Open Letter)
I’ve been recommending this book to all my Elena Ferrante fangirl friends, because it centers around a similarly obsessive female friendship in a really memorable and lovely way, but Why I Killed My Best Friend has its own particular charm. Telling the story of two childhood friends as their paths cross and diverge throughout their lives, Michalopoulou shapes the narrative of this book with sly charm, leaving you, at the end, stranded in an unexpectedly desolate place. Gorgeous, smart, and weird, perfect for starting fights in your book club.
3. The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
1971; reprint - 2008 (Scribner)
In a search for pandemic escapism that I think many of us can relate to, over the past few months I’ve been reading (and listening to) science fiction for the first time. And so of course I can’t stop reading Ursula K. Le Guin. So far, this deeply unsettling little book is my favorite. If you don’t already know the premise of this book I’m not here to spoil it for you, but let’s just say that she blurs the line between the real and the imaginary in a way that was strangely comforting to me in a time when reality wasn’t exactly up to scratch.
4. The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
1948; reprint - 2019 (NYRB Classics)
You might be familiar with Sylvia Townsend Warner for her more famous Lolly Willows, and if you liked that book you’ll love this one! It’s told through the eyes of three generations of the inhabitants of a nunnery, so if you, like me, are a fan of discovering an intimate sense of place through a rotating cast of Weird Ladies you are in luck. Frequently hilarious, but the last few pages, which describe an elderly nun seeing the ocean for the first time, made me cry. The perfect book to make you realize that being trapped in your apartment for months on end might be some kind of opportunity to connect with the divine. IDK, I’m still working on that one. But this book will help.
5. Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
2020 (New Directions)
I hesitated to recommend this book because it was so difficult to read, but I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I put it down. It tells the story of a war crime through the eyes of two generations on opposite sides of the conflict, showing how a single act (the title’s “minor detail”) can ripple outwards through generations. Not an easy read, brief as it is, but an important one nonetheless.
-Emily Beyda
✨Thanks again for sharing this list with us, Emily✨
One day, we’ll look back at the time before you were a Shirl Girl and laugh and laugh.
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