one jewel 💎just for you!
a book... that's it!
Hi Hi!
Just popping in to say I may have broken my book tramp streak!
It’s rainy as I write this note. A bit of a letdown to have a cloud covered sky on the longest day of the year. And the clouds aren’t even that interesting. Just flat and dull and grey.
I forced myself to walk in the spit (not even rain!), listening to a terrific audiobook. And soon I found myself changing my route, heading straight to my local bookstore to buy the physical book. I felt I needed to not just hear it, but hold it in my hands.
Rattled as I am by the news of the world, BUG HOLLOW, by Michelle Huneven, seduced me! Hooray! With clear prose, perfect details, and fabulous descriptions, I was pulled straight into the world of the Samuelson family. The characters are interesting people I’m happy to get to know! The situations, riff with secrets, lies, and chance encounters, are compelling and just enough out of the ordinary. Huneven is excellent at brushing the details of quotidian life right up against exceptional and horrible events, because that’s how life works, right?
Her mother was in her room and Katie was at her friend Christine's house when her father came home. Sally ran to the kitchen to greet him. He stood at the table in his rumpled seersucker summer suit, his suitcase at his feet. He was flipping through the mail; stacks of letters and magazines and junk mail. Already some condolence cards had come. "I missed you, Sally, hon," her father said, and bent to hug her. He smelled as he always did coming home from a trip, a sour smoky mix of cigarettes, oily food, and whiskey. He'd brought a present: on the table by all the mail sat a box wrapped in shiny ivory paper and tied with a thick purple ribbon. For a bright moment, Sally hoped it was for her. Oh, but it was probably candy, and for everyone, another big assortment of chocolates he'd bought at the airport. When he picked up his suitcase and went down the hall to see her mother, Sally took a closer look. A typed paper label was pasted on one end of the box. It was Ellis. That was how the crematorium had packaged him, and how their father had carried him home.
I am not to the end yet. And, I fear it maybe a little too sweet… but all I can say, today, on this gray solstice, in 2025, Yes, Please!
Tell me, what book have you fallen in love with lately?
If you’d like to hang with me for a few hours and talk about READING AS A WRITER, I’m offering a free one day class in July!
Join us for Reading Like a Writer, with author and teacher Natalie Serber. Together we'll jump into reading with a writer's eye—spotlighting how characters come alive, how setting enhances tone and story, how vivid scenes snag us and keep us reading, how dialogue pulls us deeply into the story. Plan on reading and discussing terrific samples and leaving the workshop with specific craft skills to apply to your work, and a handy PDF to remind yourself things to note. Whether you're an experienced writer, a newbie, or just love a good book, come ready to read, write, chat, laugh, and make new friends.
​The vibe is all about celebrating and appreciating writing and reading. Bring curiosity, questions about your own writing, your favorite reads, and your best bookish energy.
The class is free to all paid subscribers of my newsletter. Simply upgrade your subscription and request to join!
You can pay just for the class if you like, but why not upgrade to get all the recipes, the book suggestions, and the writing prompts which I share 4x a month in my newsletter as well? It’s a twofer!
Hi from Stanley!
Tell your people you love them, and take care of your skin!
I just finished Orbital by Samantha Harvey. The story is a day in the life of six astronauts on the International Space Station. It’s fiction, doesn’t have a plot per se, and is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. Someone recommended it to me and I resisted it at first, thinking outer space wasn’t my cup of tea, but it’s so human, so beautiful. When I read it, I always came away feeling weightless & dreamy, as though I had just meditated.
This touched so close to a moment in my own life, it shut me down.