A Hack To Make Modern Life Less Terrible + 11 books I read in February & March
At my core, I am incredulous. Always have been, my parents can confirm. Generally, if an authority figure tells me I have to do something to fit in, get along with the crowd, accept some foregone conclusion, I'm not apt to listen.
Yet I didn't get in trouble much as a kid. I credit this paradox with the big ol' organ between my ears. On purpose, and with specific intention, I behaved just well enough to avoid big trouble (plenty of little trouble though), and got grades just good enough to keep adults from sniffing around my business (sorrry, Mom). As a rule, I assume people in authority are trying to trick me.
Now I'm 40. STEM Lords and their sycophants tell me I must adopt a technology capable of rendering humanity extinct in 5-8 years just because "it's happening whether [I] like it or not" and/or "it's just a tool" and/or [insert all the other boring, shitty reasons].
Well. As the great Shania Twain would say--"that don't impress me much."
Lately, in complete refusal to comply with said STEM Overlords, I embrace the analog wherever possible. How many paper notebooks can I have? How many paper books? How many stickers, pens, washi tape, other accoutrements of analog life? How many handwritten letters can I write? The answer is--the limit does not exist.
Example: Because she is a good and loving friend, my work wife suggested a feature in Outlook I could use to color code email and keep track of my to-do/to-respond items. And if I was a normal person, I would've said, "thank you good and loving friend, I will do that."
But...yeah, no. Known Pervert Bill Gates has enough data on me at this point. My to-do list is handwritten and he will NEVER KNOW what is on that list. Muhaha! Microsoft can't use it to round out their profile on me, sell my data based on that list and--
God, do I love a handwritten list.
I'll admit when I go into public with analog items, people think I'm crazy. These days, it's like going out wearing a tin foil hat on your head.
Every single time I pull out a paper book or a notebook and pen at a restaurant someone has to ask me about it. I swear!
Some are tickled. Some are actually kind of mad about it. Most are just perplexed.
"Oh, wow, I haven't seen someone read a real book in years!"
"You seriously write in that notebook every day?"
"Where do you even get a pen like that?"
Sometimes the Nosy Nelly at the restaurant will launch into their own analog history. How, as a kid, they wrote in a diary. How they once kept receipts in a little box, and opened it occasionally, to sift through the fun with their husband every few years. Once, a woman showed me all the handwritten letters her mother wrote before death (via a photo on her phone, of course, but she swiped through allllll of them 🫠). One person showed me their dead grandmother's love note, tattooed on their arm.
Yeah, I respond, I'm just not a big fan of technology. Nothing actually works well. Like Bluetooth! If they could just make Bluetooth work consistently, I'd be more interested. But it seems like our STEM Overlords just keep making a "cool new thing" and the second it stops rendering 10x profits they abandon it and we're left with some C+, enshittified version (I did not invent this concept, of course, read Cory Doctorow's Enshittification if you want to laugh and also be sad).
Usually my rant/explanation earns me a look that says, "oh ok, she's a crazy person."
From there, my new friend often attempts to justify why they "couldn't do it" (yes: why they can't HANDWRITE a grocery list) and why generative AI or their smart fridge or whatever grubby tech they love just does sooo much work for them, frees up so much time (I do not believe this claim, though I believe they believe it). They ask me: how could I say 'no' to that kind of efficiency?
And knowing that argument is futile, I don't push back. I'll say, cool, cool, OK, caaaaan I go back to writing in my notebook now? (Actually, I wish I were that direct, but I am not.)
But when I do peel away, I feel them staring as I write/read/doodle.
BECAUSE REALLY I'm not THAT crazy. Analog-only cafes are opening all over the United States and the world (I bet you $100 if you live in or near a mid-sized city there is one in your area now). Companies make big money selling devices that make smart devices less effective at turning you into a drooling addict. Brick or Freedom, as examples; kind of like methadone for social media.
I use Freedom by the way. 🙃
And there are least 11,500 people in the world who are crazy like me. That's how many pledges The Sunday Letter Project has (including yours truly!)
Human beings evolved to think through the process of writing with their hands. When the work is done for us, we don't get the same satisfaction from doing it ourselves. In fact, handwriting turns on many more neuroreceptors on than typing does. (And as a disabled person, I want to be extra clear I am absolutely NOT talking about tools that help disabled people live in an able-bodied world, and to experience and make art. But we certainly don't appreciate STEM Lords trying to sell their garbage under the contrived auspices of caring for the disabled population.)
Look I'm not saying throw it all into the river (but I mean, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world...but we'll save that one for another day).
And I'm literally typing this entry right now; but I do go out of my way to handwrite as much as I can, to read things on dead trees, and print out a map with directions before I go somewhere new, keeping my phone silent in my pocket.
The STEM Overlords are tricking us: doing stuff analog is EASY.
In many instances, going analog feels like slipping into cool water on a hot summer day. When you sit before paper, nothing beeps or boops at you. Nothing tells you it won't connect. Nothing loses charge or requires an update when you were just about to start a writing sprint or morning pages.
Using my hands, my own brain, my eyes, letting them wander to look at the sky and daydream instead of staring at the tiny box? It all feels so natural (that's because it is).
Consider joining me in The Sunday Letter Project or using a commonplace notebook to write down a funny thing your dog/cat/parrot did or your kid said. Or a list of stuff to do. Maybe write the most random thoughts you have, like the goofiest things you can think of. Use glue tape to paste in your movie tickets (print them instead of scanning your phone!). Marvel at the beauty of your departed grandmother's signature in ink, and even sniff the paper like a Book Pervert (I promise it's going to smell really good).
Analog has dwindled to almost nothing, and for many, it's dwindled to actually nothing. See if you feel better adding 15 minutes of analog life into your day. How does it make you feel? I bet you another $100 it only makes you feel better, or at worst, neutral. There is so much world to live in when we use all of our senses to experience it.
Writer Spotlight!
Three of my writer friends did super cool things. Read their work and be AMAZED.
Emily and I took a very weird workshop together, and she has some uniquely insightful characterizations of the psychotic haze of early parenting. Night Nanny is her first litmag publication, and I can promise you, based on the incredible short story I read in said weird workshop, it won't be the last one!
Paige is no stranger to litmag publication, but still she tells me this flash CNF floated around many inboxes, being rejected by many, many litmags before its sane acceptance to North American Review (no, seriously, what is happening in the world?). I myself have been rejected by North American Review twice, and it sure won't be the last 🫠✌🏻💁🏻♀️. In any case, Paige also has a piece forthcoming in a VERY impressive magazine (🙌🏻). I just so happened to read an early draft of this piece at Aspen Summer Words, and it's *chef's kiss*.
I'm so, so proud of Megan, and her upcoming children's book publication, Bix's Balloons! Megan and I met through a mutual, beloved friend years ago, and we hit it off through our shared love of books and The Boss. Megan's Bix encounters his Big Feelings, which float and deflate like balloons. I read a lot of "books about feelings" with my kids, and both will directly reference them when frustrated instead of doing something untoward. I will never forget when my oldest, face grim and white at 3.5 years, looked at me before meeting new adults and saying, "I has anxititty." Books like Bix's Balloons give kids language to explain how they feel (and lets them know it's OK if they have weird ones!)
BOOK REVIEWS
Here are book reviews for everything I read in February and March. While I've made progress in my reading goals (more poetry, more short fiction, more pre-21st century) I'm definitely already off-track (dang it, adult life!) But, nevertheless, we persist.
One thing I want to clarify before you read: I've been on a mission to read much more widely, and I've picked up a lot of bangers these past months knowing they would be 5/5 bangers. That's why the second half of this list gets a little...well, 🤯.
Friday Black, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Speculative Literary Fiction/Short Story Collection
Super Short Synopsis: A horrific, violent crime against children becomes a patriotic media spectacle and the Black community rallies. An outfitter's top salesman greets customers on Black Friday and maybe learns a lesson or two (maybe...). An angry girl coming into her womanhood is stuck in a time loop. Yeah. This won't disappoint you.
Review: I attended Aspen Summer Words the same time Nana was teaching another workshop (this is when I workshopped with Vanessa Chan, btw 💁🏻♀️) and I bought his short story collection because one rule of life is to always buy a book at an author's thing (and also because he is an extremely cool and nice dude). I'd heard of Chain Gang All-Stars, and knew it was home on my shelf, but hadn't read Nana's short fiction. As you know my TBR is massively stacked and it'll take me ten years to get through it.
Then the titular short story Friday Black was randomly assigned to me in a writing class. I read it. 🤯 I ran to my overstuffed bookshelf to polish off the collection. If you want to read a writer who will make your head hurt while you laugh, read this collection.
Is This A Cry For Help?, by Emily Austin
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Upmarket Book Club Fiction
Super Short Synopsis: A librarian does her job, and a bunch of attention-seeking psychos go out of their way to make her life hard. Shenanigans ensue.
Review: Austin shows us just how unreasonably difficult it is to be a librarian in modern times (one of the most important jobs on Earth, imho), and makes you laugh while you read it. Is This A Cry For Help? didn't knock my socks off, but it did shed a painfully funny light on a serious problem.
Terrestrial History, by Joseph Mungo Reed
Rating: 2.75/5
Genre: Speculative Literary Fiction
Super Short Synopsis: A bunch of women are responsible for ruining the world, and then even the colonized version of Mars, and THEN even the world FROM the past.
Review: This is a "wuns-if-climate-change-could-have-been-fixed-but-then-it-was-ruined-by-women" story, and I don't know, maybe I'm being a baby, but I did find that all of the people making Faustian bargains for credibility and power were women because...unclear why, because for the most part, no they aren't.
The prose was beautiful, though. 🤷🏻♀️
Firestarter, by Stephen King
Rating: 4.25/5
Genre: Science Fiction
Super Short Synopsis: The Shop, which is The CIA's even more psycho cousin, experiments on two grad students. They meet each other and make a baby. Shenanigans ensue.
Review: Since we know the CIA actually did experiment on college students to see if they'd develop psychic powers, I dunno. This book weirdly doesn't feel so "science fiction-y" to me. But let us hope that if they do successfully develop telekineses in a child, that child is as adorable and morally-directed as Charlie. Like most Kings, I was flipping pages like pancakes, the tension-building is train-like (as it is during the most cocaine-fueled ones, ha!). Anyway. You can't stop it!
Death in Her Hands, by Otessa Moshfegh
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Otessa Mosfegh (*this is not a typo, I meant to type her name)
Super Short Synopsis: An old woman, walking her dog, stumbles upon a note indicating a woman died. Shenanigans ensue in a typical Moshfeghian way.
Review: Otessa Moshfegh is a freak, you guys. I love her. I have an insane writer crush on her, big time. Mik--this is all because of YOU, I blame YOU.
I'm truly unable to describe how weird this book is while also making you understand how and why it is SO incredibly good. I can't recommend Eileen or Lapvona to a lot of people (again: freak), but I can recommend Death in Her Hands to anyone. Please just read it. It is so fecking good.
A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Short Story Collection
Super Short Synopsis: What if you were a recovered alcoholic and one of the world's best short story writers of all time?
Review: This is another entry where I'm really at a loss for words. The things Lucia Berlin made me feel when I read the symbols she hallucinated onto dead trees made me cry, many times. And also laugh hysterically. There are few people on Earth who've ever rendered downtrodden and miserable characters as critically and also compassionately as Lucia Berlin. Buy this. She is way, way underrated.
The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine, edited by Kaveh Akbar
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Poetry
Super Short Synopsis: Holy. Shit.
Review: Do you want to talk to God? Read this. That's all I got. This one took my breath, words, and sanity away.
Rest Is Resistance, by Tricia Hersey
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Super Short Synopsis: Hey you. Yes, you! You are a divine being. Your body is worthy of rest. You are not a machine. You don't owe anybody your time, your worth, your energy. Don't give it for free. Take care of your beautiful self.
Review: I will credit this book in saving my life one day, I'm pretty sure. And also seeing others in a more compassionate way. Our social system breaks down human bodies into the lowest common denominator; squeezing off as much value as it can, while giving the bare minimum back.
Grinding is not what You are meant for. You are as beautiful as the forest and the sun. Guys, I promise I've not taken any hallucinatory drugs. In fact, I don't imbibe any mind-altering substances anymore. This is really how it made me feel, stone-cold sober.
The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories, by Angela Carter
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Short Story Collection/Fantasy
Super Short Synopsis: This collection retells fairy stories in a way that will make girls feel good about themselves, instead of dumb, childish, and greedy. LOTS of shenanigans ensue.
Review: One of my favorite writing teachers in the world, Lauren Davis (and I am one picky b****) offered an entire 4-week course on The Bloody Chamber. It was on my shelf for a long time, and I had yet to reach for it. This is another example of why you should just read the books you already own--you bought them for a reason! (I'm talking to myself more than anyone.)
Angela Carter rocks because she just drops you into a known fairy tale from an obscure angle. Unless the title gives it away, you won't be entirely clear where she's going at first. Her great accomplishment is, of course, gorgeous writing and the ability to bounce around different POVs with ease. I think about her multiple versions of Beauty & The Beast on a regular basis.
Chlorine, by Jade Song
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Speculative Fiction/Weird Girl Lit
Squick: 3/5
Super Short Synopsis: A 17-year old girl is convinced she is a mermaid and takes extreme measures to live that existence. Shenanigans ensue.
Review: Chlorine is written from the perspective of a teenager, but it is most certainly not YA. The book is, however, replete with feminine strength, and also rage. While each practical step in Ren's journey is a little foreign to me, her feelings sure aren't. The ending feels earned. Note: if I were in charge, every teenage girl would read this book, but I have to use caution and point to the elevated squick factor (make sure to check above).
Women Without Men, by Shahrnush Parsipur
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Super Short Synopsis: Four women endure the typical hell of misogyny. But they're drawn together by cosmic forces and create something new, special.
Review: Women Without Men is hard to review with any specificity because even a few facts give so much away. So just trust me on this one: if you've liked my book recommendations so far, you'll like this magical realism/spec fiction novella at under 140 words 😉. It is weird, though, heads' up!
Oh crap. I'm at over 3,000 words again, time to go.
Have a great week and read banned books!
LYLAS,
Charlotte 🦋
www.charlottechamberswriter.com