LG's List
A round-up of books, movies, and podcasts for the curious at heart.
This is a collection of all the books I’ve read, pods I’ve listened to, and movies I’ve watched in the last two years. If you’re new to Gonzo Journalism and you’re looking for recs, start here!
Each month, I’ll send an update to the list. Have a suggestion in the meantime? Fire away!
📚 What should I read? 📚
I picked this up because Sula felt reminiscent of my favorite book series, The Neapolitan novels. Both stories center female friends who bond over shared dreams and part over jealousy and betrayal. But Sula takes us to much different thematic places, inviting us to consider whether freedom from society can ever be achieved without a hint of madness.
💁🏻♀️ A friend recently raved about this novel, which made me dust it off my bookshelf. Though Instagram gurus have made New Age concepts like manifestation lose its innocence, The Alchemist is a profound (if unsurprising) reminder of the power of believing in your dreams.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
💁🏻♀️ My book club chose this novel because we needed an excuse to wear our kaftans together. As usual, I found critical praise for this novel on Y2K nihilism to be overblown, but it gets at some provocative ideas about how we numb ourselves.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
💁🏻♀️ I consider myself to be a speedy Gonzalez reader, but I found this to be a bit of a slog. Science fiction requires a lot of world building, which requires a lot of patience from the reader. That said, I find Le Guin to be poignant in the allegories she weaves on gender and freedom.
The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello
💁🏻♀️ My V-Day reading for the year. I assumed from the title it would have a lot to do with relationships, but it’s more concerned with Buddhist teachings than romance. A helpful reminder that the path to love another person always begins with knowing oneself.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
💁🏻♀️ Such poetic writing and a brilliant structure to a horrifying story. The thing to read if you’re craving something that’s thematically profound and yet narratively rich.
💁🏻♀️ A buzzy bestseller and a critic’s choice…just not this critic. It’s light on story, heavy on theme.
💁🏻♀️ You’ll hate these characters. You’ll want to reject them. That’s the brilliance behind this short story collection. Who among us can’t relate to the madness provoked by rejection?
💁🏻♀️ Rooney tried mixing things up this time with new themes like grief and complex sibling dynamics. But her attempt at evolving her oeuvre doesn’t seem to complicate her writing so much as confuse it.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
💁🏻♀️ Eloise at the Plaza but he’s Russian nobility and under house arrest. And while it doesn’t always feel like much is going on, I’ve found myself entertained and delighted by the strange little world that Towles created.
💁🏻♀️ It’s a fascinating read - not just for its quirky, manic and hyper-horny heroine She is so much more self-actualized as compared to the Anna Kareninas and Nora Helmers of the past and yet she can’t seem to escape the vertigo of possibility that comes with scrapping your life trajectory and beginning anew.
💁🏻♀️ Creative conceit -- the main character is actually a house in a valley in Northern Massachusetts. We follow the lives of its inhabitants - alive or dead, animal or human - from the colonial era to present day. Not a page turner but entertaining and strange!
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
💁🏻♀️ Our protagonist curates his memory (and a museum!) to tell a love story he’d really like to believe. It’s engrossing and it’s enervating. It’s also very human.
Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
💁🏻♀️ My sister and I went to a parochial school run by Carmelite sisters, so naturally this memoir from a former nun of the same order piqued my interest. A voyeuristic entry into a world that feels both eerily familiar but wildly foreign to me.
The Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
💁🏻♀️ A brooding artist abruptly dies, and her widow sets out to surface hidden truths about her late wife’s life. The twist? It’s set in an alternate reality, one in which the South successfully seceded from the US after WWII. I hated this book. Incredibly moralistic in its rendering of North vs. South. Also, can we reject the mystique of the Byronic hero already?
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library By Michiko Aoyama
💁🏻♀️ A strange collection of stories centering around one community library in Japan, and the mercurial, Dumbledore-like librarian who doles out auspicious recommendations. In some ways, it reads like a children's book-- simple in its plot, obvious in its allegory. And yet there were helpful and heartwarming reminders on how you can find meaning within and beyond work.
💁🏻♀️ A nice metaphor on the season of winter, and definitely gets you to indulge in the pleasures of hibernating. But you also get the gist after twenty pages or so, and then the book feels…overindulgent.
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
💁🏻♀️ Where bell hooks is more profound and essayistic, Fromm is pedantic and clinical (and you have to stomach some real passé gender politics from the 1950s). But his thesis still rings true today. The joy is in loving.
The Other Significant Others by Rhaina Cohen
💁🏻♀️ This work of nonfiction is more storytelling than science, but it really pushes you to reflect on the importance of friendship and reconsider the ways we do (or don’t) prioritize this relationship.
💁🏻♀️ I was initially intrigued by its conceit, a literary puzzle comprised of four separate books-- each of them a clue to or an obfuscation of the next one. I'd give it a read, though I did find its allegory on capitalism a little too on the nose.
💁🏻♀️ I was ready to love this book, but I found it disappointing. All style, no substance. I'm craving new fiction that feels more insightful and profound.
A Girl's Story by Annie Ernaux
💁🏻♀️ Kinda reminded me of the Copenhagen Trilogy I read last year. Sometimes I found this memoir (or autofiction) a bit indulgent, but I did resonate with Ernaux’s meta hero’s journey. We can all call to mind certain moments that have an outsized hold on you and the way you understand your story, and Ernaux walks us through how she makes sense of hers.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
💁🏻♀️ Everyone and their mom has recommended this book to me. I thought it was overhyped AND entertaining. Fun and creative conceit. They packed too much in which left me feeling scattered at times, and simultaneously not having a cohesive understanding of the characters. I’m looking forward to watching this when it inevitably gets made into a major motion picture.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
💁🏻♀️ On the one hand, Flaubert produces a pathology of the bored and perpetually dissatisfied middle class woman, and predicts crisis and havoc for all those who dare approach the modern Medusa. On the other hand, Flaubert presciently unpacks the existential grasping towards transcendence, and the epic crash in that pursuit.
💁🏻♀️ Ah, the age-old classic tale of a sex therapist’s transcriber who seduces and falls for a patient. The author seems to go for overly absurd, satirical, or salacious storylines, often at the expense of character development. But it kept my interest, nonetheless!
💁🏻♀️ A moving novel that explores whether a Korean family can break the cycle of poverty and prejudice to give the next generation a better life. Some storylines feel more developed than others, but it’s a story with a lot of heart.
Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson
💁🏻♀️ I felt like I was back in my Philosophy 101 class (lol). But if you’re curious on the linguistic (and intellectual) root of desire, this one’s for you.
Breast and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
💁🏻♀️ The second half of this book went off the rails for me-- and it felt a little contrived and self indulgent in its musings of motherhood. Not for me, but keeping it on the list because it came highly reviewed.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
💁🏻♀️ A mix of poetry, prose, and memoir. I recommend pairing it with this ep of On Being.
💁🏻♀️ Somewhat dated in its politics, but profound on love. I read it on Valentine’s Day last year and recommend it as a holiday ritual.
📽️What should I watch? 🎥
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)