The End Times
I just started reading the most unusual and innovative “book” I’ve ever discovered. The End Times is a post-apocalyptic story that unfolds over a series of monthly newspapers. If you live in the US, you can actually get the tabloid-sized papers mailed to you! I’m so jealous. I had to suffice with the digital version, which I printed out to read.
The first paper (installment?) just dropped and it’s a super fun read. It’s written by Benjamin Percy and some other guy named Stephen King.
If you grew up reading your town’s local paper, this will be so nostalgic. Except for the post-apocalyptic part.
Here’s an excerpt:
5 Novels Told Through Letters
I read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and I loved it! It inspired me to read more novels told through letters. Which, as it turns out, is referred to epistolary novels. Here’s my new to be read list.
I read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and I loved it! It inspired me to read more novels told through letters. Which, as it turns out, is referred to epistolary novels. Here’s my to be read list.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
a witty and uplifting novel told through one woman's unforgettable letters. Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated. through her letters and the occasional responses we see her work through the trials of her family, her love life and her health.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
A real-life correspondence between a New York writer and a London bookseller that unfolds over 20 years. Smart, funny, tender, and completely irresistible.
If you loved The Correspondent, start here.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Told through the heartfelt letters of Celie, a young Black woman in the American South, this novel traces her journey from pain to self-acceptance. Raw, redemptive, and deeply spiritual, it’s a testament to resilience, sisterhood, and the power of finding one’s voice.
Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce
Written through letters and diary entries in WWII London, about a young woman answering advice letters during the Blitz.
A perfect mix of charm, bravery, and friendship.
Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe
Real letters from a young nanny working for a London literary family in the 1980s. Dry humor, warmth, and wonderfully ordinary details.
If you like the voicey, observational humor of correspondence, this one sparkles.
Heart the Lover, Loved the Book
On loving writers and reviewing books.
I love reading, but I hate writing book reviews. I don’t even like assigning stars on Goodreads. For one thing, do you know how hard it is to write a halfway decent book? SO HARD. To my mind, an author should get 2 stars just for finishing the damn thing. And anyway, who am I to say that a book deserves only 3 stars instead of 4 or even 5? Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Maybe if I’d read it at different time of life, I’d have said the book was life-changing. Or maybe I just wasn’t smart/cultured/worldly enough to appreciate it.
Also, tastes change over the course of a lifetime. For most of fourth grade, my favourite book Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All. Then it was Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase. And then it was Forever by Judy Blume.
In my 20s, living in Prague, my favourite book was any free book I could get my hands on. I couldn’t afford to buy my own books, so I read what other people put in my hands: Milan Kundera, Ivan Klima, Toni Morrison, John Irving and every novel ever written set in 1920s Paris. Each new book was my favourite, like I had discovered reading for the first time. But I now realise that most of those books were my favourite simply because I was 25 years old and living in Prague.
My point is, book reviews are 100% subjective and entirely based on who you are at the time of reading.
Nevertheless, I am now going to review a book because I need to tell you that Heart the Lover absolutely wrecked me in the best possible way. Oh, Lily King — your book is extraordinary. Bless your heart and all its loves.
Heart the Lover is an achingly beautiful story about longing, becoming, and the courage to keep going when everything falls apart. It’s part coming-of-age, part existential love story.
♥️ If the title flummoxes you, not to worry. It isn’t a literary reference that you’re not educated enough to understand. Heart the Lover refers to a card game some of the main characters play in college. It’s also just beautiful and poetic. (Chat GPT suggests that it may be a play on words from Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence, a book that the main characters read while in college. But if that’s true, it went right over my head.)
📍 I like to know the location of the story I’m reading. And I want to know where we’re going. Maybe you’re the same? This book is set in a college in New England (Harvard maybe?) - then Tennessee, Paris and New York.
🎧 I loved this book so much and think you should read it. Or better yet - listen to it! The audible version is narrated by Rebecca Lowman who generally enhances and never distracts. Let the story wash over you.
🏫 Imagine yourself studying literature at Harvard and longing for all the places you’ll go.
xo, L
p.s. I’m back on Goodreads. No stars, no reviews, just lists.
6 Books for Creative Inspiration
These books sit on my desk at all time. Collectively they serve as my personal Board of Directors for all my creative projects.
These books sit on my desk at all time. Collectively they serve as my personal Board of Directors for all my creative projects.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear — Elizabeth Gilbert - creativity doesn't require suffering, and you don't need permission or approval to make things.
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity — Julia Cameron - Morning pages and artist dates—Cameron's 12-week program for unblocking your creative self. It's equal parts permission slip and kick in the pants.
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life — Twyla Tharp - Tharp, a legendary choreographer, makes the case that creativity is about discipline, not divine inspiration. Show up, do the work, build the habit—the rest follows.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being — Rick Rubin - Less about making art, more about becoming the kind of person who can receive it.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life — Anne Lamott - A no-bullshit guide to writing and life: take it one small step at a time, embrace the shitty first draft, and trust the process.
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity - David Lynch - "Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper."