Curated by Blank
by Kaitlyn Davies
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Our latest curator is Blank, a newsletter about books and the culture around them, created by Dirt.
See what editors Greta Rainbow and Daisy Alioto are reading, and have their selections sent direct to your mailbox via the webstore.
The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden
Told in flashes, like flipping through a photo album, McCalden’s memoir is a cultural history of virality—both medical and digital—and the loneliness at the heart of grief. Something every human being is encoded with. — Daisy Alioto
Heroines is a hybrid work of personal essay and criticism, looking at the female partners of famous modernist writers and their lost creative outputs. The book is a call to arms, “Fuck you to the objective correlative. Fuck the canon. Fuck the boys with their big books.” — Daisy Alioto
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
I have basically nothing in common with The Last Samurai’s 11-year-old protagonist, Ludo, who can read Japanese, Old Norse, Arabic, and Homer in the original Greek. But this book makes me feel like I can do anything in the world, and that I should do it with people I love. — Greta Rainbow
Who is Sex Goblin? The creature in all of us that wants to be tucked in. And can’t stop googling “swollen lymph nodes” until Google itself reaches out in annoyance. And really, really wants a bird feeder. — Daisy Alioto
Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard edited by Daniel Kane
That Joe Brainard cared so deeply about people seems to be the key to why his writing about “nothing” never feels empty. “I’m crazy about people. Not very intelligent. But smart. I want too much. What I want most is to open up. I keep trying,” he wrote in a piece called Autobiography. These letters from the poet, artist, collagist and writer to his loved ones and colleagues—even when seemingly about nothing—portray a perpetual curiosity and desire for connection. — Daisy Alioto