The Curator: the pleasures of buddy reading
an informal read along, plus planning a summer reading list, best books of the century, and the Pulitzer no one saw coming.
Bonjour book friends!
It’s Friday, and it’s finally warm-ish here in the land of the Jeep Wrangler, where our new favorite family activity is throwing up some camping chairs and reading on the lawn. The spring-to-summer pipeline reminds me that there is a wide world full of other people out there, and maybe it would be nice to see or speak to some of them.
Perhaps it’s the change in weather or the isolation of being mildly ill on and off for three months, but I’ve craved more connections lately. Reading can be an isolating hobby, especially when your best book buds are all online. Sitting next to my husband and/or cats while I read is the best of both worlds, but I don’t expect any of them to discuss the plot of Jane Eyre with me the way we dissect a prestige TV show after each episode.
Craving community is an essential human need, but my ability to seek it out is expanding. I’ve never been a joiner in any facet of my life. I didn’t participate in after-school activities, I never joined clubs in college, and I do not currently nor have I ever willingly signed up for committees at work (god love academics but I am not joining that circus). I am also a very moody reader (I think most of us are). If I force myself to read something I’m not vibing with, you can bet it’s getting a (probably undeserved) frowny face from me.
So last year, when a book friend on Instagram asked me to buddy read Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I was nervous. Would I keep up? Would I enjoy it? Would I say something terribly dense, thereby shattering any hopes for our bourgeoning digital friendship?
I did not, in fact, say anything dumb! All my fears were for not, mostly because I picked the right buddy to read this particular book - she was adventurous and generous in her reading habits and, thankfully, unneurotic. If we were both me, the chat would have looked something like this
Me: so what page are you on like totally no pressure but I am ready to discuss when you are if this is something you still want to do
Them: omg totally I’m still in if you are yeah I’m at chapter 3 is that where you are or am I way behind?
And then on into infinity.
Instead, we kept a strong, friendly pace, communicating our page whereabouts and enjoying the unfettered conversation. Everything was over Instagram DMs. Exactly the kind of low-stakes situation I crave.
If you’ve read and loved Piranesi and you think you know Clarke, sadly, you do not. Jonathan Strange is true to its name - strange and unusual, enigmatic, perplexing, and so full of sarcasm and delayed humor that I can only compare it to a Monty Python movie. I wouldn’t have gone past page five if it weren't for the buddy read because it was so unexpected. It takes at least three chapters to figure out what she’s doing here.
But with the peer pressure of the buddy read, I persevered and got way more from the reading than I would have alone. We complained about the boring parts (Norrell’s existence, the war that dragged on), laughed at the insanity (purchasing bootleg spells, fairy mischief), and consulted on the confusing parts (exactly what the hell was happening at all times).
You might be wondering - what is the difference between a buddy read and a book club? Usually, a book club only discusses the book at the end. With a buddy read, you discuss any old thing that pops into your head as you go. This isn’t about having the most intelligent or interesting thing to say but about feeling just a tad bit less lonely in the solo experience of reading.
And with that, I invite you to…
Future buddy read - East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Martha at
and I have determined that spring-ish is a great time to buddy-read John Steinbeck’s classic East of Eden. And I would love for you to join us. Either in the reading or the discussion, since I know many of you have already loved this book for years.It’s going to be extremely (extremely) informal, where you can read at your pace and/or join in the discussion thread anytime you want. I will add some prompts and periodically throw comments in the open discussion thread, so feel free to chime in anytime. Or if you just want to be a lurker, lurk away!
I will open the discussion thread in its own post, which you will receive via email the last week in May. This is after the semester ends, and I have completed my civic duty of yelling at our sweet baby angel graduates that, no, they do not need to use the bathroom and to sit back down until the end of the commencement ceremonies.
Keep on the lookout for that email, and hopefully see you at the buddy read!
IN OTHER READ ALONG NEWS 🧑🤝🧑→
If that wasn’t enough togetherness for you, I recently discovered the Substack
which, as the title suggests, is about close reading, but the real exciting news is the author is leading a read-along for Wharton’s classic The Age of Innocence, which I have been meaning to read ever since I found this gorgeous cover. Her close reading skills are exceptional and you can tell she earned every bit of that PhD.We are only one week in so its not too late to join, start here → Read The Age of Innocence with me!
SUMMER READING LIST TIME 🌞
Honesty Corner: All I’ve been thinking about lately while stuck inside at my day job is reading by a body of water with some kind of spritz in my mouth.
I am compiling a list of anticipated summer reads and a few experienced recommendations to share with you in the next week or so. My one criterion (and it’s a big one) is that the book is available in paperback. Hardbacks do not belong on the beach (and a Kindle is just not the same I’m sorry to this man device). So far, the stack is 12 books high.
Tell me what you are excited to read this summer, and if it’s my vibe, I will add it to my summer TBR and share with the class!
READING 📖→
I made the mistake of picking a 700-page doorstopper at the same time as I recommitted to getting into bed by 10 pm, so I don’t have a lot of updates, but Wanderers is as entertaining as ever. I can tell Wendig did his homework - the juxtaposition of virus pathology and AI super technology is well-researched and fascinating.
Tackling about 10 pages daily in Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart. This is a doozy - beautiful, complicated, and makes little sense. I need a guide to help me at the sentence level here. But still, we charge on.
I finished Karin Slaughter’s third Grant County book, and even though I said I would take a break I did not and am now on to the fourth in the series Indelible (truly, these titles mean nothing to me). It got its claws in right away as I listened while blow-drying my hair which I now must do religiously since my husband gave me a very complicated haircut (curtain bangs, borderline shag). But truly, he’s a genius with scissors.
WATCHING 📽️→
The Night Of. An HBO show from the long-ago times of 2013 that I completely missed. Now I know why everyone loves Riz Ahmed, and I might be in love too. John Turturro as Jack Stone gives the performance of a lifetime. I was so thoroughly moved by this show.
A young Pakistani kid steals his dad’s cab to attend a party in Manhattan. Instead, a beautiful young girl mistakenly gets in the cab, and they have one of those nights you dream about in college, where you follow a love interest into the darkness of drugs and alcohol. It does not end well clearly. This show is a searing look at the judicial system and how presumed innocence means absolutely nothing if you rot in jail until your right to a trial is exercised.
NEW BOOKS 📚→
include a time-travel spy thriller romance I’ve been very excited about for five months, a queer zombie story about fighting corporate greed, a story about a death and the unraveling of a tight-knit community, and a follow-up Irish drama that was Oprah’s pick this month.
BOOK NEWS 📰→
The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced on Monday, and the fiction selection gave me (us) whiplash. The winner is Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips, which, from what I saw, exactly nobody predicted. I’m upset that some of the big predictors haven’t made any statements because I would love to know what they think about an invisible horse taking the crown. I have to read this one now out of sheer curiosity.
NYT published this very fancy website for
self-promotionscrolling through their best books since 2000. The format is pleasing, and whatever gripes we might have with the NYT, this feels like a very good mix of popular and literary history to befriend. It’s nice to see some favorites and backlist I’ve meant to get to for ages. What a treasure it would be to spend a year just getting lost in all these pages…
RESTACK OF THE WEEK ♻️→
has excellent book taste, and these perfect quotes prove it. 
AND CATS 🐈⬛→
My kind of buddy read.
In Case You Missed It 🖤
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See you around the bookshelf!
Natalie
What an amazing shoutout, Natalie. Thank you!! I'm so glad you're in for the read-a-long -- and that cover you found is absolutely stunninggggggg. If you're interested in Pulitzer Prize winner drama and unexpected wins, you'll love reading about the circumstances under which Wharton won hers for Age of Innocence...
I'll definitely be reading about your East of Eden buddy read. That was the first novel I read after I finished my PhD and it still burns in my brain constantly. The prose! The settings! The whole KATE THING. Yeah. Amazing novel.
I love this so much! I'm doing my first buddy read ever of Moby Dick with my friend, and we're writing about it starting next week. It's taken a bucket list book and made it much more accomplishable for me. Such a fun idea!