Tired of reading the same recommended books from the usual sources? Just think of our weekly What We’re Reading column as your non-committal book club with The FADER and some of your favorite bands. For this installment, writer Emma Straub lists some of her recent favorites.
Lena Dunham’s essay in the New Yorker about her college boyfriend. It's the most Oberlin piece of writing I've ever read. It gave me the chills. The sympathy chills. The gay-boyfriend-rice-cooker-ayahuasca chills.
Ann Patchett’s sad, wonderful piece about her dog's death in the September issue of Vogue. There is no love like furry love.
Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins and Darcy O'Brien’s A Way of Life, Like Any Other. You would think that writing a novel about Hollywood and doing research on the place would spoil me for all other Hollywood literature, but it's not true. Right now I'm reading Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins, which zips back and forth in time, from Italy to Los Angeles and back, and is just the most delicious book I've read in months. I'm also picking my way through Darcy O'Brien's book, which just goes to show you that you really don't want to be the child of actors.
Slaughterhouse 90210: This is the world's most perfect blog, and I read it religiously. Maris Kreizman has some kind of zen understanding of the universe. She pairs stills from TV shows with lines from novels and I sometimes spend hours scrolling through, even though I've read it all before.
Oranges & Bullshit: My husband grew up in Florida, and just started a Tumblr dedicated to all the weird, horrible things that happen there. So far it's covered cannibalism, murder, drugs and foolishness. It's really amazing to see what all that sunshine does to people's brains.