What I Read

I started the month with Neil Postman’s 40 year old classic Amusing Ourselves to Death. The book examines our relationship to television and the bleeding of entertainment into education, politics, journalism, and more. It’s scarily prescient for today’s algorithmically-driven media consumption. "People will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." The month was bookended with Amanda Montell’s The Age of Magical Overthinking, written with such meticulously chosen turns of phrase that I laughed out loud at several points for just how clever she is and wore out my highlighter. Other highlights include a handful of the Who Was/What Is series as I do research for my own manuscript in the series, including What Do We Know About the Mystery of D.B. Cooper? and Who Is R.L. Stine?.


Stolen Sharpie Revolution gave me some insights into crafting my first zine and Rebel Girl had me deep diving into the Riot grrrl zines at the DC Punk Archive. My top read this month was the new middle grade novel The Anxious Exile of Sara Salt by Gabrielle Prendergast. It features a young protagonist, Sara, with selective mutism who moves in with her half-sister after her brother is born prematurely and has to stay in the ICU. Sara encounters an array of characters as her half-sister strives to build a community of shipping container homes for the city’s unhoused population. Sara is honest and introspective about her struggles and finds clever ways to use her voice to speak up for the things that matter most.

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