I once took my then 6- and 9-year-old nieces on a Summer walk to their local library. One thing I’ve learned as an aunt, and a surrogate aunt, and a general human being in the world, is that children LOVE mandated walking, especially when they have been sitting in front of a marathon session of Disney’s Descendants. As anyone with even a mild awareness of children knows, the idea of peeling them away from the fog of television will always be an unmitigated hit!
“We're walking??" they said in unified despair, when they finally looked away from the screen and realized I was talking to them and not the wall. "It's so hot! And far! And we're tired! And starving!"
But their dad had the car (and the car seats), so walking is indeed what we were doing. And we proceeded to walk—glacially, histrionically, with many, many pit stops under the shadows of trees to "take a break" on random understanding (?) strangers' lawns, as well as one memorable stop in the middle of the crosswalk when one of them just hung her head and said "I can't do this anymore." (I attempted some Oregon Trail jokes but was quickly put in my place when they asked if that was an “olden days” game). But a mere forty-five (that should have been fifteen) minutes later (and a narrow avoidance of losing our oxen—where my Trail Heads at?), we stepped into glorious air conditioning and were rewarded with books! A never-fail pot of gold at the end of the proverbial over-dramatic rainbow.
Now. I would never force a walk onto you, dear reader, who may currently also be watching a Disney marathon of your own and half-reading this newsletter. Singing the praises of walking is for my other newsletter, The Walking Report. But what I will say is that I hope you continue to find added moments of joy and reward in the remaining weeks of Winter, to lean on whatever brings you a slice of Spring into the darker hours. And if that happens to be any of the books below, all the better.
Consider making it through January 2022 to be our collective emotional walk to the library. As my dad said when I called him on his 80th birthday recently:"I did it!" If you're reading this, if you woke up this morning and found yourself in the middle of February (!), you are doing it, too. We are all doing it, one (heavy, plodding, if necessary) step at a time. And remind yourself: February is the shortest month, the days are getting longer and lighter, and soon enough, it will be Spring. And maybe you’ll find yourself on a mandated walk of your own doing.
p.s. For the “new” Brooke Report, you can expect an email about once a month with reviews of my top 5 reads, plus more options with quick bite summaries…and always, a poem because poetry is heart-filling :). Also! For February, there will be a bonus newsletter with some of my favorite recent books by Black authors in honor of Black History Month. Thanks so much for reading! And for loving reading :)
February’s Top 5
This month’s collection focuses on connections—with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our history, with strangers, with the world around us. In a season of hibernation and isolation, I’ve found it helps to remember how large and small the world is in equal parts.
“The texts were from weeks and weeks ago, an era now very distant, buried in the past, over long since. But reading them was irresistible because joy still lurked in the compressed words, and it wasn’t fake joy.”
A single mother visits her boyfriend in jail, inciting a series of events that touches multiple lives. But instead of staying with the single mother’s point of view, each chapter jumps to the perspective of a new character related to the core events of the book. It allows both an intimate look at individual lives as well as the larger, ever-present awareness of how each life is connected—even as the characters themselves (like most of us) will never truly understand the intricate, heartbreaking, and beautiful ways they are interwoven. An excellent read at a time when the world can feel a little too limited and small.
2. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin
“After you have cooked your party dinner six or seven times, you will be able to do it in your sleep, but your friends will be bored. You will then have to go in search of new friends who have never had creamed spinach with jalapeno peppers, or you will have to find something new to feed your old friends. In either case, you will be helping to keep the wheels of society spinning in an effortless and graceful way, and no one will know how anti-social you really are.”
Visiting McNally Jackson last November solved the heretofore unknown problem I had of not having a clue who Laurie Colwin was. And now I am the recipient of the best prize to receive as a reader: discovering an author who has a whole collection of work you have not yet read. An absolute heartbreak that Colwin died at 48, leaving behind a daughter, a husband, loved ones and fans, and an untold wealth of work undone. A recent rerelease of many of her titles allows a whole new batch of readers to fall in love with her.
I’m on hold for her fictional work at the library (which I’ve heard is even more charming than her non-fiction), but Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen was my introduction into her world—a frank, warm, self-deprecating Nora Ephron-like commentary on making meals for the ones you love—whether that be friends, family, or one’s self—regardless of the challenges of one’s talent or environment. A fantastic read to remind yourself the simple magic of not taking yourself too seriously.
3. Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller
“My sister had no problem letting go of the fish. She let the whole category slide right out of her hand. When I asked her why it was so easy for her, she said, “Because it’s a fact of life. Humans get things wrong.” She said people have been wrong about her, time and time again, for her whole life. She’s been misdiagnosed by doctors, misunderstood by classmates, by neighbors, by our parents, by me. ‘Growing up,’ she told me, ‘is learning to stop believing people’s words about you.’”
Fun/weird fact about me: I have a major fish phobia. I love the ocean, love getting my human body into any natural body of water, but if I see a fish or feel a fish, I’m going to need a full minute minimum to collect myself and re-pretend that they do not exist around my legs. Perhaps this is why I picked up a book claiming that fish didn’t exist, even as it covered a myriad of topics— fish, scientific research, taxonomy, historical classification—incredibly low on my list of interests. However! Behold, the magic of reading: things you are not interested in become, somehow, more interesting than you could have dreamed!
Lulu Miller (co-creator of the NPR’s Invisibilia) digs into the life of David Starr Jordan, a fish-obsessed biologist, but what begins as an exploration of the boundaries and limitations of scientific thinking becomes a study in the meaning of a life, the mystery of the natural world, and the endless expanse available just outside of rigidity. A fantastic read if you’re looking for something entirely unique.
4. The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal (and Kitchens of the Great Midwest)
“Edith was only sixty-four years old, but if she died right then, she would’ve felt the most important things a Minnesotan, woman or man, could feel at the end of their lives. She’d done what she could do, and she was of use. She helped.
But life wasn’t done with her yet, and before long, she’d come to regard everything that happened before July 5, 2003, like it was all just a pleasant song in an elevator. When the music stopped, the doors opened, and the first light fell in, it was in the form of her boss, a man she liked, running down the hallway at work, smiling, shouting her name, and waving a piece of paper in the air like a child.”
This book is the sweet spot of so many things I love: elderly ladies defying expectations, multiple generations of strong women in one family, beer descriptions that will make your mouth water, and a fierce loyalty to the quirks of the Midwest. Follow it with Stradal’s Kitchens of the Great Midwest and you’ll have yourself a perfect pairing for the remainder of this Winter with which to cuddle under a thick blanket alongside some sharp cheese, salty crackers, and a fizzy lager. A cozy read to warm your heart on a cold, snowy evening.
5. Finna (Poems) by Nate Marshall
“once Alzheimer’s does what it do
you never really have conversations
it’s more a man becomes a poem
a lot of repetition & love with something
indecipherable in between.”
—from “what can be said”
I realized it’s been a while since I have shared a book of poetry as a top pick which is a major miss on my part. To make up for that, let’s start with this stunner. Nate Marshall’s collection of poems—exploring the Black experience, love of family, accepting and battling and re-accepting one’s identity, exploring and embracing personal and ancestral history, and Chicago’s (and America’s) beauty and brutality—is a knockout from start to finish. I cannot make it past two poems without chills and/or tears. An absolute triumph of a poetry collection.
And some more reads if you want to…
Accompany a razor-sharp forty-something journalist and former model to her small hometown to face her past and harsh truths about the effects of an oil boom on a rural community: O, Beautiful by Jung Yun
Dive into the culinary world without stepping food in a restaurant kitchen: The Best American Food Writing 2021
Learn the joy (vs. terror!) of negotiating and how it can apply to getting what you want way outside of work with actual tangible tools: Ask for More by Alexandra Carter
Drop into a world that combines Sliding Doors, sci-fi, and doomsday preppers: If, Then by Kate Hope Day
Continue with me on my Ruth Reichl kick to learn about the dissolution of her first marriage, her food critic career, and the joy of finding her second love as well as herself: Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
Relive the beautiful drama and angst of friendships and romances in your twenties: Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
Take a road trip with a beautifully sensitive soul and her ex-husband: Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
Follow along as a fishing guide and an undercover movie star find the cabin retreat they’re in holds more sinister purposes than they expected: The Guide by Peter Heller
And finally, a poem, until we meet again…
Small Kindnesses by Danusha Lameris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Thanks for taking the time to read The Brooke Report. I believe reading narrows and expands one’s vision of the world, reminding us that we all belong. It means so much to me to have you here to share that magic. If you have comments, questions, or recommendations, you can reply directly this email. Happy reading :)