What I read in April
Salman Rushdie's new memoir, a cult-favorite nonfiction must-read, and one of the best short story collections I've ever read
Hands down the best thing about being 9 months pregnant at the end of April when it’s finally getting warm in NYC is that there’s an ice cream truck on every corner. I’ve done a lot of research (lol) and can confirm that it’s impossible to feel anything but childlike joy when you are handed a vanilla-chocolate twist cone with rainbow sprinkles. I’ll take the small wins these days. My walks are getting shorter, couch time longer, sleep is still a distant memory, and suddenly I have carpal tunnel in both of my hands?! (“Normal, totally normal” – my doctor, unfazed by literally anything I’ve ever told her.)
The second best thing is how many great new albums have come out in the last month or so. I haven’t spent this much time laying in bed listening to music since college (no weed is involved this time though) and it feels like a genuine blessing that so many of my favorite artists decided to release new records this spring. Besides new Taylor (I love it, yes I know it’s long, and I won’t devote more of this newsletter to defending it), on repeat for me have been the new albums by Vampire Weekend, Kacey Musgraves, Waxahatchee, Adrianne Lenker, and a new discovery (for me) Hurray For The Riff Raff—which you will like if you like the rest of these guys.
Hey, but this is supposed to be about books! I read a few great things this month—check them out below.
The truth is: these aren’t the only books I read this month but the others were of a baby / motherhood / parenting theme. (I know, what a cliche—she’s about to have a baby and that’s all she wants to read about!) I’m putting all those recs into another newsletter that will come out before Mother’s Day so that you can buy your mom or your friend or yourself an appropriately themed book. Or you can skip it if that genre isn’t of interest (FAIR).
Without further ado…
An iconic book about the ethics of journalism (does that sound boring? trust me, this book is not)
The world first read Janet Malcolm’s blockbuster exposition about journalistic integrity and whether character assassination can be worse than actual murder in a two-part series published in The New Yorker in 1989. I was introduced to it in book form, The Journalist and the Murderer, when my dear pal Harris gave it to me a few weeks ago and said I would love it. (I did.) This 163-page book is a blistering critique of the way certain journalists ingratiate themselves with their subjects—and it reads as a zippy cinematic courtroom drama. There were some wild passages of courtroom interrogation that had me reaching for popcorn. I don’t often describe nonfiction as “fun” but this is undoubtedly that.
Shimmering short stories that will make you feel like you’re on vacation
After the last newsletter I got a lot of nice messages empathizing with my insomnia—if we’re all awake at 2am should we hang out or something?! One of the most helpful was from Miriam, my wonderful friend who is the buyer at my favorite bookstore in the world, Three Lives & Company. She of course had book suggestions for middle-of-the-night reading. At the top of her list, a short story collection that she “couldn’t recommend highly enough”: The Other Language by Francesca Marciano. It’s an achievement that within a sentence or two I was completely hooked into each story and each one was fully formed and satisfying. The author is Italian and most of the stories take place abroad (Greece, Venice, a remote Italian village, India, Kenya) but it’s her prose that truly transports you and makes you wonder how you, if given the chance, would reinvent your life.
In his own words Salman Rushdie reflects on nearly being murdered
I read Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie because he came on The Late Show to talk about it and I produced the interview. I don’t usually include “work” books on this list but this one has made such a cultural splash and sparked interest among my reader friends that I’m making an exception. It’s a riveting read—anyone who followed the horrifying story in August 2022 of Salman being viciously attacked onstage by a man with a knife and almost losing his life will find more detail about the violent event and aftermath than you ever could’ve gotten in the news. If you’re uninitiated with Salman Rushdie, I’d first recommend his previous memoir Joseph Anton. As always he is a masterful writer and the fact that this book is being published less than two years from the attack is its own feat of resilience.
READING LIST
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
The Other Language by Francesca Marciano
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
Happy reading!
Love,
Ali