The weekly post

The one where we stretch our imaginations

Hi there, happy new year! I hope the end of 2024 and start of 2025 has been kind to you. I have been leaning in to cozy reading days, hibernating away from the cold and tucking in with some really excellent new books. My to-be-read pile more closely resembles a leaning tower at this point, and I am so excited by every single book on my list, which incorporates historical fiction, political biography, science fiction, and investigative non-fiction alike. In addition to the 2025 goals that I shared in my year-end wrap-up, I have also set a mini-goal to include one new author and one non-fiction read each month so that I can more intentionally seek out a wider range of voices and purposefully stretch my own learning. I always appreciate your recommendations so please keep them coming and let me know in the comments what is on your 2025 reading list!

Wherever you are, whatever you’re up to these days, I do hope you’re taking plenty of care. Happy reading, friends.

Currently Reading

I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN by Jacqueline Harpman. A little more than halfway through this book and I am enjoying its beautiful prose and intrigued by how the story will continue to unfold. This post-apocalyptic novel portrays the intimate friendships among 40 women who have been imprisoned (by who and for what I am still waiting to discover), and the story behind the novel’s author is just as fascinating. Harpman’s family fled Belgium to Casablanca during World War II, and she later went on to become a psychoanalyst, and both experiences served to inform this novel. It went out of print in 1997 - in part due to its “niche appeal” - but made a resurgence in 2022 and has been lauded as a key piece of feminist literature.

Recent Recommendation

RODHAM by Curtis Sittenfeld (5 stars). I spent the last three days of 2024 completely enthralled with this novel - one of those great reads that you simultaneously cannot put down and also never want to end. The world that Sittenfeld imagines is closer to the one I want to live in, and there is so much here to unpack.

Rodham begins with a seemingly straightforward premise: what would have happened if Hillary Rodham had not married Bill Clinton? If they had met at Yale Law School and dated, developed deep and serious feelings for one another, seriously contemplated and gotten close to marriage, and ultimately, decided to sever ties? Of course, executing this requires an inordinate amount of both research and imagination, to master Hillary’s voice, to develop characters that are complex, flawed, and relatable, and to tell a story that never reads as farfetched or outlandish, but rather, is a totally plausible reality.

In fact, it’s that realistic quality that stood out to me most about this novel. I’m almost never a fan of “what if” plots or parallel universes, but here, Curtis Sittenfeld doesn’t dedicate time contemplating which path Hillary will choose; she writes the story where Hillary makes her choice - with some level apprehension and intense heartache, but decisive clarity nevertheless - and we follow along to see how events unfold. Sittenfeld embodies Hillary’s voice so authentically and consistently and seamlessly blurs actual historic events (Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony) with complete fiction (a surprising upset in a 1992 U.S. Senate race) that I was able to easily suspend my disbelief and read this novel as a historic account of both Hillary Rodham’s personal life and the broader trajectory of U.S. politics.

Slipping into this world was nothing short of cathartic, full of zingers that packed a punch and cut straight through to the truth. Rodham is powerful, not simply in all the ways it reimagines our political landscape, but in all of the ways it acknowledges the daily burden of societal distrust and skepticism towards women. It’s not only that women aren’t seen as viable leaders of our policies and politics. It’s that we cannot so much as talk about the impact of the patriarchy and misogyny on health outcomes, the economy, access to opportunity and safety, without immediately being brushed aside as simply “women’s issues” or feminist rage. Readers watch as Hillary Rodham strives for perfection - knowing that women can afford so few slip-ups or miscalculations - only to discover that it’s the mere act of having aspirations and ambitions that is too unpleasant for the world to absorb. Sittenfeld’s version of Hillary is a deeply imperfect and flawed individual, but she is still someone who cares deeply about the responsibilities of holding public office, who wants to serve her constituents well, who learns the nuances of challenging policy issues, and who is more experienced, capable, and competent than most of her peers. At some point, we need to celebrate those qualities in female leaders, rather than scrutinize them ruthlessly against an unknowable set of criteria.

I’m so appreciative to have spent the end of the year with an inspiring page-turner, one where women can be fully dimensional and mess up and still overcome vitriol and double standards. Now, I’m usually one to recommend reading the acknowledgments in every book, and this time, I’m also going to recommend finding the edition that includes a Q&A with the author. I’ll leave you with this quote from Sittenfeld’s final answer about what she strove to achieve this book, and something that I hope will carry us through this next year ahead: “And I welcomed the opportunity to think of her as a real person who has feelings and is complicated and has a lot of strength. She’s not some feminist punching bag. She’s not a punchline either. She’s this incredible trailblazer. She’s complicated, and I think she’s admirable.”

Recommend for… fans of Becoming by Michelle Obama, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, and anyone who cried during America Ferrara’s monologue in the Barbie movie

Up Next

EAT THE DOCUMENT by Dana Spiotta and HOPE IN THE DARK by Rebecca Solnit. Sometimes I really enjoy doing more than one book at a time, and in this case, I’m interspersing Dana Spiotta’s novel set in the 1970s with a book of literary essays from Rebecca Solnit about how to keep hope alive in trying political times. Both are fascinating, challenging reads, and I’m enjoying the weave between the two.

Quote of the Week

“Novels can make us think about the daily texture of someone else’s life and the small moments and the range of emotions.” - Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Three Words

Reading and connecting.