Happy Friday!

My brain is so full of moving abroad: cancelling accounts, shipping and packing boxes and passing off old belongings, that there hasn’t been much room in there for anything else.

BUT I read some really good articles, so how’s about some links?
 

 

–– HOMEY ––

New Bookish Blether: On – surprise! – moving, getting rid of books, and how to pare down your personal library in a pain and guilt-free way.

Just as I’m getting rid of most of my worldly belongings, Lee Randall is writing about the opposite: For the love of stuff.

Soon to be my home: America loves ice so much that Heidi Julavits wrote about how it captures a distinctly American spirit.

 

 

–– WORLDLY ––

An Isolated Tribe Emerges From the Rain Forest. I’m fascinated by stories about uncontacted and isolated tribes. This tribe, in Peru, is called the Mashco Piro. Jon Lee Anderson investigated their contact with the outside world after an unsolved murder.

The Audacious Plan to Save This Man’s Life by Transplanting His Head made me feel slightly physically ill but it’s quite a tale.

Over in Olympics world: Lindy West wrote a handy guide on How to talk about female Olympians without being a regressive creep – which also works for identifying questionable assessments. The New Yorker profiled The Refugee Olympians in Rio.

And in otherworldliness, Sy Montgomery on the octopus and its Deep Intellect.

 

 

–– BOOKILY ––

Feels like I haven’t read much lately, but it’s been two weeks since I wrote. In the meantime I read the excellent domestic drama The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss as well as Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski which I’ve been savouring for months now.

Next up: this month’s book club pick is Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion, and I haven’t had the mind-space for anything else yet.

What about you? Which books are on your nightstand?
 

 

–– DIGITALLY OR OTHERWISE ––

Why Won’t Facebook Release Me From Overnight Oats Hell? Funny, frustrating.

On human behaviour – Set It and Forget It: How Default Settings Rule the World.

Evan and I finished our marathon of The Good Wife, so we read up on what it was really about.

 

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Your turn! Read anything good this week? Hit reply or tweet me, won’t you?

Have a lovely weekend!
Nicola x
 

Happy Friday!

The sun has come out just in time for me to sit on a few conference calls. Isn’t that sweet of it?

How’s your July been treating you? Anything to look forward to in August? Lately I’ve been packing boxes, trying to shift some of my old things and catching up with friends. The stuff is easy to say goodbye to – I’m ready to dump my slow cooker in the damn street – but counting down final visits with friends is tough. I expect the next month will be much more of the same, with a couple of day trips and visits to the Edinburgh Book Festival thrown in for good measure. We’re getting there.

Now, how about some links?

 

 

–– MY WORDS ––

I haven’t been very prolific this month, but have a couple of things to share…

I made another book haul / More Anticipated Summer Reads. These are the books I’ve kept out of the shipping boxes and on my nightstand for now.

On Bookish Blether this week, Holly and I shared our Favourite Books of 2016 (So Far).

I’ve also written a couple of summer features for the Big Issue magazine: some summer book previews, and a review column with some thoughts on White Sands by Geoff Dyer and The Bed Moved by Rebecca Schiff.

 

 

–– OTHER WORDS ––

I throughly enjoyed Lauren Kolm on 10 Breakfasts with Men I’ve Known on Extra Crispy.

Geoff Dyer again, on The picture that captures why Jack Kerouac will last forever.

I absolutely reveled in this piece from Angelica Jade Bastién about The Legacy of “Point Break” – which I read about via Eva’s Tinyletter.

 

 

–– OTHER WORLDS ––

This week I’ve been digging into Negroland by Margo Jefferson and learning about life in the 1950s as part of Chicago’s, and by extension the US’s, black elite. It’s a heady mix of cultural history and memoir – definitely one to keep your eyes open for.

Act of God by Jill Ciment, which I mentioned last week, was exactly the kind of light read I needed… though nothing to write home about. But I also enjoyed A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa about a woman who bricks herself into her apartment as Angolan civil war breaks out and stays there for 30 years – especially the in-novel poetry.

Next I’ll be starting The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss with a few friends. Which books have you been enjoying lately?
 

 

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Your turn! Read anything good this week? Hit reply or tweet me, won’t you?

Have a lovely weekend!
Nicola x