Your ship may be coming in: Here are this week's recommendations
Pens, songs, manhole covers!
Hello! I usually put my recommendations lists behind a paywall, but this week, hell, you all get ‘em. (If you like them, maybe you’ll chip in with a paid subscription? These take a long time to put together, I say with love.) This is on the short-ish side. I’m normally teeming with ideas, but I’ve got visitors coming this weekend, I’ve been running errands, and I’m feeling a bit run down. I’ve been sleeping an alarming amount. This has been true for the past few weeks. Like, two-hour naps plus ten hours a night. (My friends who can’t sleep — and they are legion — have instructed me to “shut up about my sleeping,” but they can’t control my newsletter! You’re not my boss, Abby!) Also I’m not particularly, what’s the word, awake even after a marathon night of what I thought was genuine quality snoozing. My doctor wants me to go for a sleep study because also, according to Scott, I snore. Me! A delicate lady! I refuse to believe this but he calls it “worrying” and “keeping me up at night” and “I don’t think it’s healthy.” Anyway.
On to this week’s recommendations!
Not exactly a deep cut, but I’ve been enjoying The National’s new album First Two Pages of Frankenstein, especially “Tropic Morning News.”
I just finished My Phantoms, by Gwendolyn Riley. An insightful, devastating study of just how fraught the mother/daughter relationship can be (especially when your mom is this character! Whew). Read and let me know what you think. I command you!
Via Kottke.org: Japan’s Manhole Covers Are Decorated With Colorful Designs. I love art in unexpected places.
If you’re looking for publishing advice, you can’t find a better Substack than
’s How to Glow in the Dark. Anna’s posts are wildly entertaining as well as deeply informative.Under the Magical Story Tree of book publishing, thar be many hobgoblins: bad art friends, good art friends, snarky reviewers, jealous colleagues, snippy sales people, neurotics, gossips, critics, obsessives, flakes, procrastinators, projectors, artistes, chaos clowns, emotional vampires, energy vampires….I could go on.
At various points in your publishing career, at least a handful of these people are going to buzz their big old helicopter personalities right into your airspace. Some might even have the audacity to try and crash-land, leaving a wreckage of shame and dysfunction in their wake.
You’re not going to be able to prevent any of these people from buzzing your metaphorical airspace. The most determined and/or damaged among them are going to crash land in your face no matter what you do.
That said, you CAN decline to make landing easy.
Beauty Tips From My Dead Sister. This one’s a gut punch.
You can use your beauty to get things from men. A free massage from the creepy neighbor whose house smells like incense. That other creepy guy’s dad’s old jeans from the seventies. A free ride to school every day. A free drink in every bar you step into. The sidewalk will chime with wassups when you walk it, men will gaze in your wake like you’re the Pied Piper, your face and your body the song.
A list of amazing 17th and 18th century Quaker names. (Screenshot is just a sampling.)
Tag yourself, I’m Sentence Grimes!
The 42 Best Pens for 2023: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens. If you’re a pen obsessive like me, you need this list. (I am already a fan of this pen, in Lavender Black.)
Calling all writers! Check out “1000 Words of Summer,” starting June 17. Every day, for two weeks, you write 1000 words. I’m not a huge proponent of writing every day forever and ever, but this is a nice way to get a project started. Go to
’s Substack or click here, whichever is easiest for you.Finally, The National reminds me of Heather, and thinking about Heather reminded me of “A Better Son/Daughter,” maybe the best song out there about depression. Play it loud.
I’m coming for those pens!
Persilla Pye here, how can I be of assistance?