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Jan. 2, 2026 Update:

I read 81 books in 2025, many of them great. Two from December really stuck with me: V13: Chronicle of a Trial, by Emmanuel Carrère, translated by John Lambert, covers France's nine-month effort to figure out how a series of attacks on Friday, 13 November, 2015, cost the lives of more than 130 people in the center of Paris. Carrère ends up focusing on the survivors, many of whom testified in the trial. It's a really disturbing book, but SO well-written. A different but equally compelling take on how we seek justice in high-profile crimes came from The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial, by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, and Sarah Krasnostein. I can't believe how quickly this book went to press--and how it does not feel even slightly rushed. The trial of Erin Patterson, who killed three members of her estranged husband's family (and almost killed another) by baking death cap mushrooms into the beef wellington she served them for lunch, seemed like the only bit of Australian news the rest of the world knew about in 2025. The innate sexism of the attention repelled me during the trial. Clearly what I needed was for three of Australia's great nonfiction writers to talk it through.

I am oddly excited to finally be using Crispin Finn’s landscape Year Planner in 2026. I love the idea of “linear calendars” as a way of keeping track of plans, achievements, and all that, and this one is especially attractive. It didn’t even mind having to rearrange all the art in my office to make enough room on the wall!

Aug. 24, 2025 Update:

I SOLD A BOOK! I’m going to be writing a biography of Rita Mae Brown for Bloomsbury.

Aug. 4, 2025, Update:

Podcast: I got to make an episode of Decoder Ring, Slate’s podcast that solves cultural mysteries. My animating question was why are Americans so convinced that Britons have “bad teeth”—what do they even mean by that?

Honors: A Place of Our Own was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize! UPDATE: I withdrew my book from consideration.

Reading: I loved Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s first novel, Glassworks. It’s so propulsive and fresh and sharp. I am also enjoying Perfume & Pain, by Anna Dorn. They’re completely different—Perfume & Pain is so cynical, interior, and hard-shelled, whereas Glassworks was embodied and (surprisingly for a book where all the characters feels unloved) focused on humans’ desperate need for connection. Such confident writing in both.

From July 14, 2025:

Reading: I’m loving Francesca Wade’s Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife and I highly recommend five books I read in the last month: A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle, by Julian Jackson; Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artifacts, by Roberta Mazza; Evenings and Weekends, by Oisín McKenna; The Light of Day, by Christopher Stephens and Louise Radnofsky; and Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superior Detecting, by Piotr Cieplak

Podcasting: I sat in for Steve Metcalf on the July 8 Slate Culture Gabfest, talking about indie movie Sorry, Baby, the HBO/Max documentary Dear Ms., and Marc Tracy’s New York Times piece about the plight of straight, white, male literary novelists. I also made an appearance on Episode 3 of the great new podcast Queering the District

From June 12, 2025:

Naming Conventions: I was called “an icon and an elder” in the writeup for the “Queer Women/Queer Spaces” event at Lighthouse on June 4, which served as a double paperback launch for Jane Cholmeley’s lovely A Bookshop of One’s Own and my A Place of One’s Own! As always, Lighthouse made a recording of the event available on YouTube.

Reading: It’s apparently the month of re-reading. So far in June, I’ve read four books, one for the second time, and one for the third! A Bookshop of One’s Own, by Jane Cholmeley is the inspiring, infuriating story of the travails of running a feminist bookstore, specifically London’s Silver Moon (1984-2001); I loved it. Mean Moms, by Emma Rosenblum is a fabulous summer read set in an exclusive private school in downtown Manhattan. Very dishy, but restrained in the best possible way. The first re-read was Parisian Lives, by Deirdre Bair, in which she takes readers behind-the-scenes of the writing of her biographies of Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. So clear and controlled and absolutely gripping. (Having read this “making of” twice, it’s definitely time to read one of her biographies!) I also re-read Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown to prepare for the Queer Fiction Reading Group at Topping in Edinburgh. The response—including my own!—was so interesting and unexpected. This was also my first ever reading group! I loved it and signed up for the next two meetings!

Podcasting: I sat in for Steve Metcalf on the Slate Culture Gabfest, talking about indie movie Sorry, Baby, the HBO/Max documentary Dear Ms., and Marc Tracy’s New York Times piece about the plight of straight, white, male literary novelists.

Stationery: Stationery-wise, I’m either in a rut, or I’ve found my ideal tool set. I’ve been using Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks (B7-ish and A6-ish), Uni One P gel pens, Spoke Design Axle S, Kaweco Sport (after a run of mediocre nibs, I finally got one a great one—thank goodness I kept trying), and Schon Dsgn fountain pens. None of this stuff is particularly showy, but it’s working.

Tech Toys: A couple of months ago, after hearing Matt Gemmell talk about the Supernote Nomad on an episode of the Mac Power Users podcast, and then watching a bunch of his YouTube videos, I ordered one of these e-ink devices, and I love it. Highly recommended.

Browsing: August is just around the corner, so I’ve been browsing the catalogs of the Edinburgh International, Edinburgh Fringe, and Edinburgh Book Festivals.

Slate: It’s June, which means two things, Pride and Supreme Court decisions. Slate’s Outward podcast is great every month of the year, but especially this one, and between the Amicus podcast and the Jurisprudence department, Slate will answer your legal questions.

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