A. I just finished Orbital by Samantha Harvey last night, which won the Booker Prize in 2024. What a ride! It’s nearly plotless, more like a glimpse into the lives of six astronauts and cosmonauts during their residency aboard the international space station. I can’t imagine anyone will ever capture life aboard the station better than she has. If you’ve ever been curious, just go. It’s super short, consumable in one sitting, and every single sentence is a master class in writing.
Here’s one of my fave lines:
Somehow, Nell thinks, once you’ve been on a spacewalk, looking at space through a window is never the same. It’s like looking through bars at an animal you once ran with. An animal that could have devoured you yet chose instead to let you into the flank-quivering pulse of its exotic wildness.
Yowzers.
B. I’m wrapping up Anthony Horowitz’s The Word is Murder. It’s incredibly entertaining and clever on so many levels. My favorite element is that he’s written himself, Anthony Horowitz the author, into the story. He gets drawn into an investigation as a sidekick, Watson-type character to the main detective. I highly recommend this book. The narrator is dazzling, if you go that route. I’ll certainly continue the series.
C. I adored the movie, The Materialists, with Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson.If you don’t know A24, they’re a production company with the mostess. In a world drowning in superhero movies, they are fighting the good fight and putting out films that matter.
D. Bobby Weir is dead. There have not been many days in my life when I haven’t listened to or hummed or played the guitar with or at least thought about the Grateful Dead. They are so much a part of my life and have been alongside me while I write (and live) for thirty years.
Mikella and I are riddled with sadness but so grateful that Bobby and the fellas left a tremendous and nearly endless catalog of incredible work to explore. The first thing we did upon hearing the news was set Workingman’s Dead on the turntable. Though their live work captures them best, I adore this album.
Cheers!
boo
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