POV: It’s the second or third night of Hanukkah (you’ve lost count). Christmas is in 5ish days (you never know if you should count from Xmas eve or Xmas day). You haven’t procured any gifties for anybody but yourself because:
A.) you have Seasonal Affective Disorder
B.) you disassociate from mid-November through January as a ~coping mechanism~
C.) you are an asshole who can’t be bothered
D.) All the above
So what do you do about it?
If you’re lucky, you haven’t left home yet for any familial obligations. You run down to your local independent bookstore and pick up a few books that remind you of each of the people you’re supposed to have a gift for.
If you don’t have the time, there’s always Jeff’s Store. (Though it’s my least favorite avenue for purchasing books, I suppose that buying books at Jeff’s Store is better for authors than not buying books at all 🤷♀️.)
At the bottom of this newsletter, you’ll find my passive aggressive reading recommendations, which I humbly offer up in lieu of a gift guide this year.
I’m tired.
xoxo,
Rachroo
Watching: The White Lotus, season 2 | She Said | Fleishman Is in Trouble
Reading: My friend Krista’s moving essay, ‘That Girl is Going to Get Herself Killed’ | “Before and after Sandy Hook: 40 years of elementary school shooting survivors”, TW this piece is very intense.
Eating: Candy Cane Ice Cream like it’s my job | Some vegetables, too, namely from Melissa Clark’s new cookbook, Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals.
Passive Aggressive Reading Recs for everyone at the table:
* My recommendations are mine alone, but if you do purchase the via the links below, I make a small commission via bookshop.org.*
For the MAGA relative who loves to talk about tough on crime policies and thinks the criminal justice system is actually just, I recommend Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Be sure to get the 10th anniversary edition.
For the relative who won’t stop asking you when you’re going to procreate, I suggest the essay collection, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, edited by Meghan Daum.
For the “armchair historian” relative who thinks he knows everything about the American West, I recommend Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s debut novel, Four Treasures of the Sky.
For the anti-vaxxer relative who you aren’t actually seeing IRL this holiday season because you can’t even…why not be direct and give her a copy of On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss.
ho ho ho or whatever!!!