an inner click: on personal integrity

plus, perfect reads for Autumnal moods

Welcome to The Brooke Report. So happy you’re here. Buckle up, this one is a long one :)

In Autumn of 2019, I was fortunate enough to travel with my parents across Ireland for two weeks to visit my father’s ancestral home. The deep meaning of the trip—in so many ways made clearer in hindsight (especially 2020 part of it)— is hard to overstate.

Beyond the incredible personal and familial impact, it was also two of the coziest weeks of my life. Having been born on the Fall equinox, the desire to be cozy is an integral part of my wiring. Give me a stormy afternoon, a warmly-lit pub, a melty sandwich, and a soft bed waiting for me afterward? Heavenly. Each day, layered in sweaters and raincoats, we would tromp across windy streets and hills, meeting new people, discovering places and histories and people and stories, then retreat in the afternoon to our rooms. I would crack open whatever book lay on my nightstand before falling into a delicious nap against the the sound of soft rain on my window. Some of the best naps I took in Ireland remain crystalized in my mind, woven indelibly into the memories of the places we visited.

It is no surprise then, within the place I felt such strong inner alignment, that Ireland is where The Brooke Report was born. On a crisp, drizzly day, in the middle of Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, I took a picture of rainbow-shelved corner and thought: maybe I could help someone find their next great read. To spark that feeling of “this is what I was looking for, at this time, in this place.”

The earliest Instagram pictures from TBR (some shown here) are all from Ireland, and still make my nervous system dial down a few notches. They remind me of the distinct pleasure of noticing as it is happening that you are happy—of recognizing, however briefly, those moments you don’t want to be anywhere else.

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I recently told my boyfriend that thrifting and book shopping (whether at a store or in my second home, the library) are low stakes ways of trying on new lives. Years back, Target (I believe it was Target? I can’t find it now) ran a commercial where a woman wandered into the accessories section and tried on a hat. “Am I a hat person now?” she wondered. The thrill of discovering a 1970’s butter-yellow blouse, of finding a novel or non-fiction book for my exact emotional situation is like the click of a key into a lock. Am I a hat person now? An organized, emotionally balanced, deeply fulfilled, creatively fruitful, home-cooking, hat person? Yes. If for a moment, yes. I can try on that persona, see how it fits, and either discard it or integrate it into my life. There are countless ways of doing this: classes, podcasts, culture, articles, locations, ideas, people, nature, conversation, art, history. The list goes on. What a gift to to continuously discover and see what fits—and what doesn’t.

Life on this planet can be so heavy. It is heartbreaking and beautiful and aching and complex and overwhelming. The reality of it can be paralyzing. Alongside trying to find tangible ways to contribute, a way I move out of the overwhelm paralysis (e.g. from over-empathizing inaction to compassionate action) is by shifting my focus to inner integrity. Not only in how I approach others and the world, but how I approach myself and my inner life.

Personal integrity, to me, is about inner harmony and carefully cultivating a life of meaning. Aligning inner and outer self. Paying attention when something big or small switches on—or off—your interior light. Ding! Did you hear that? Listening when something feels off. Honoring personal principles. Noticing when my actions don’t line up with values. Moving toward being whole and undivided. Integrating one’s many selves into a full whole-hearted person.

And all of this I find most fascinating when ideal meets reality. How does one live out their personal integrity in the day to day moments? With work and bills and relationships and stress and capitalism and love and life? What does their routine look like? What are they wearing? What are their sacred rituals? Their tiny joys? How do they ensure they are feeling seen and heard and whole?

Reading is such a crucial part of this. Of belonging and accepting, especially when it comes to one’s self. You’re not alone, the right book says. There’s more for you to understand. Keep going. I see you.

In that spirit, The Brooke Report is expanding. The overall direction will be the small choices and things that add to a meaningful life. Of getting closer to that inner click. Reading recommendations, still. But also: creativity, connection, contribution, style, journaling, daily rhythms. How others nurture their inner and outer corners of the world, and how they listen to their own interior callings. I hope you’ll join me, and if you’re inclined, I’d love to hear (or feature!) how you do so. We all have such rich inner universes. Remembering that helps me feel more connected to the world, and the humans within it.

a future topic that fascinates me: how personal style supports (or combats!) inner alignment and our perceived place and connection to the world

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Moody Autumn Reads

For this issue, a topic especially close to my heart: finding the right book for Autumnal days and nights. If you want a specific moody read to match a specific moody vibe, give this list a look. Almost all of them are older releases, so they should be easily available at your library, at your local shop, or on bookshop.org.

For each category, the selections range from least to most. In Dark and Academic, We Ride Upon Sticks is quirky and fun with a little bit of creepiness, while the Tana French books and Ninth House straight up scared me. In Creepy and Unsettling, The Dreamers is surreal and a bit ungrounding while Leave the World Behind gave me peak anxiety. And the Comfy Cozy category, while pretty tame overall, still has a range; any of the Thursday Murder Club books will be the softest in terms of stakes.

Dark and Academic:

1. We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry: Take a high school girls’ field hockey team and add in witches, magic, a ton of humor, and set it solidly in the 1980’s.

2. Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths: A creepy school, a teacher who specializes in dark gothic novels, and a stranger writing in her journal make this read feel like a shadowy room during a thunderstorm.

3. The Secret Place by Tana French: Four extremely close girlfriends at a boarding school know more about a boy’s murder than they’re letting on.

4. The Likeness by Tana French: When a student is killed but her college flatmates are unaware, a detective with a stunning likeness to the victim moves in to the house pretending to be her in order to solve the crime.

5. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo: Yale secret societies except make them supernatural and communing with the underworld while no one is the wiser in the real world.

Creepy and Unsettling

1. The Dreamers by Karen Walker: A mysterious, non-fatal sickness is causing people to fall asleep to vivid dreams—and not wake up.

2. State of Paradise by Laura Van Den Berg: A woman returns to her parents’ house in Florida during the Summer of 2020, only to find reality is not what it seems.

3. Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter: When a couple hosts a friend for dinner, they discover an unknown terrace off of their apartment, and it changes their lives forever. (Note—this is one of the coolest things I have read in recent memory!)

4. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam: A family rents a vacation home in Long Island, but when the homeowners appear insisting disaster has struck in the city, things begin to go wrong very quickly.

Cozy Comfy

1. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: A group of elderly people in a senior residence band together to solve a murder.

2. Motion to Suppress/The Nina Reilly series by Perri O’Shaugnessy: A fiercely independent lawyer obsessed with fighting for justice—and for the ones she loves—navigates personal and professional challenges (and mutiple murder mysteries!) in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

3. 80’s and 90’s Novels + Short Stories by Mary Higgins Clark: Mysteries typically surrounding an independent female lead put in some sort of danger; the books from the 80’s and 90’s are wonderfully nostalgic, but can be equally dated; best paired with a cozy blanket and beverage of choice, alongside the knowledge of how far “independent” female mystery characters have come :).

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Happy reading and meaning making, my friends.

It means a great deal to me that you’re here and reading. Thank you.

Brooke

And finally, a poem, until we meet again:

You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?