Today, I read "Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan, one of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and the seventeenth book I have read from that list. "Small Things Like These" is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family.
by Claire Keegan
Today, I read “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan, one of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and the seventeenth book I have read from that list. “Small Things Like These” is award-winning author Claire Keegan‘s landmark new novel, a tale of one man’s courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family.
The story is set in 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
I found this short but well-written novel very impactful. The following quote explains the powerful impact of the need for meaning and purpose in our lives, as Furlong walks in the snow after taking action to bring home a young girl from a Magdalen laundry. How often can we ignore the small things like these and still look ourselves in the mirror?
“As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”
As an international bestseller, ‘Small Things Like These‘ is a profoundly moving story of hope and quiet heroism. It’s a narrative that will make you admire the characters and stir your empathy, all crafted by one of our most critically acclaimed and iconic writers. The characters in the story are so relatable that you will feel understood and deeply invested in their journey.
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by Helen Garner
Today, I began reading Monkey Grip: A Novel by Helen Garner. It’s a book that launched the career of one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. The story follows the infatuations of a young, single mother fascinated by the excesses of Melbourne’s late-70s counterculture. Monkey Grip is a seminal novel about Australia’s turbulent 1970s, including communal households, music, friendships, children, love, drugs, and sex.
Helen Garner is a renowned novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. She’s best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portrayals of Australian life, often drawn from the pages of her journals and diaries. A new US edition of her debut novel, which establishes Garner’s masterful and quietly radical literary voice, is now available.
The novel is set in Australia during the late 1970s and tells the story of Nora, a single mother and writer. Nora navigates Melbourne’s bohemian underground with her young daughter, Gracie, in tow. Nora falls in love with Javo, a flighty man trapped in his addiction. As their relationship disintegrates, Nora struggles to wean off a love that feels impossible to live without.
When Monkey Grip was first published in 1977, it caused a sensation. Critics praised Garner for her craft, but many criticized her gritty depictions of the human body, frankness about sex and drugs, the mess of motherhood, and her unabashed use of her own life as inspiration. Today, such criticism feels old-fashioned and glaringly gendered, and Monkey Grip is considered a modern masterpiece.
by Vinson Cunningham
Today, I began reading “Great Expectations: A Novel” by Vinson Cunningham, a staff writer and theatre critic at The New Yorker. David, the protagonist, had seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his. Still, the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency.
Upon hearing the Senator from Illinois speak, David experiences conflicting emotions. He is fascinated by the Senator’s idealistic language yet ponders the balance between maintaining solid beliefs and making the necessary compromises to become America’s first Black president.
The book Great Expectations narrates David’s experience working for eighteen months on a Senator’s presidential campaign. During his journey, David encounters diverse individuals who raise questions about history, art, race, religion, and fatherhood. These inquiries prompt David to introspect his life and identity as a young Black man and father living in America.
Meditating on politics, religion, family, and coming-of-age, Great Expectations is a novel of ideas and emotional resonance, introducing a prominent new writer.
by Emma Pattee
Today, I began reading “Tilt: A Novel” by Emma Pattee. Set over a single day, this electrifying debut novel features a potent new literary voice, according to Vogue. It follows one woman’s journey through a transformed city as she grapples with the weight of her past and holds fervent hope for the future. Tilt is a gripping narrative about our disappointments and desires, exploring the lengths we will go to for the people we love.
You and I were safe last night. Your father and I fought in the kitchen, but it felt like another universe.
Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake strikes Portland, Oregon. She finds herself navigating a chaotic city without a way to reach her husband, a phone, or money.
As she goes through Portland’s wreckage, Annie encounters human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unexpected friendship with a young mother. Throughout her journey, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, unsatisfying career, and anxiety about becoming a mother. Determined to change her life, she needs to make it home.
Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and fiction writer. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She lives in Oregon.
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by Andrea Cohen
Today, I explored “The Sorrow Apartments,” the eighth collection of poems by poet Andrea Cohen. Renowned poet Christian Wiman accurately describes Cohen’s work as a “cumulative force,” showcasing her deep attention, genuine intelligence, and soul. Cohen’s distinctive talents are featured in this collection, complemented by her characteristic sly humor, unwavering conciseness, and surprising moments of profound wisdom.
It’s astonishing how swiftly Cohen transports us:
Bunker
What would I
think, coming
up after
my world
had evaporated?
I’d wish
I were water.
The Sorrow Apartments house a collection of sparse and haunting poetry, each piece a captivating narrative of mystery, grief, and awe. These poems transport us not just across time but also through a spectrum of emotions. Cohen’s unique approach to illumination is evident in “Acapulco,” where an unanticipated companion muses, “as men tend to, / the stars comprising Orion’s belt — / as if it were the lustrous sparks and not / the leveling dark that connects us.” For a poet often deemed unfashionable, Cohen’s work proves that unfashionable can be beautiful.
by Jeff Goodell
I recently started reading “The Heat Will Kill You First” by Jeff Goodell, which delves into the extreme ways our planet is already changing. The book explores how spring is arriving earlier and fall is arriving later and how this will impact our food supply and disease outbreaks. As I have stated in my Action Alert: EPA’s Carbon Rule, the time to act is now.
The book also predicts the consequences of summer days in cities like Chicago and Boston, reaching temperatures as high as 110°F. Goodell explains that heat waves are used only to affect the most vulnerable people, but as they become more intense and familiar, they will affect everyone.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the world is facing a new reality. In California, wildfires are now seasonal, while the Northeast is experiencing less and less snow each winter. Meanwhile, the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are melting alarmingly. Heat is the primary threat that is driving all other impacts of the climate crisis. As temperatures rise, it exposes weaknesses in our governments, politics, economy, and values.
The basic science is straightforward: If we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the global temperature will also stop rising. However, if we wait for 50 years to stop burning them, the temperature will continue to rise, making parts of our planet uninhabitable. The responsibility to act is in our hands. The hotter it gets, the more our underlying issues will surface and expand.
Jeff Goodell has been an award-winning journalist in the field of environmental reporting for several decades. His latest book explains how extreme heat will cause significant changes in the world. The book is an excellent blend of scientific insights and on-the-ground storytelling, and Goodell explores some of the most significant questions surrounding the topic. He reveals that extreme heat is a force we have yet to comprehend fully.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
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by Susan Choi
A monumental new novel by National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a captivating and emotional exploration of family, loss, memory, and the ways we are influenced by what remains hidden. Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, the novel follows the journey of a father’s disappearance over time, across nations, and within the realm of memory. This work comes from the author of Trust Exercise.
On a summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk along the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight, but he cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin and barely alive. Her father is missing. She is only ten years old.
Louisa is the only child of parents who have distanced themselves from their pasts. Her father, Serk, is Korean but was born and raised in Japan. He lost touch with his family after they embraced the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family due to a reckless adventure in her youth. Then there’s Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose unexpected return will have profound consequences.
For now, it is just Anne and Louisa—Louisa and Anne—adrift and facing the challenges of everyday life in the aftermath of their immense loss. Bound together yet estranged, they struggle to cope with their shared grief and attempt to move forward. However, they cannot escape the haunting memories of that fateful night. What happened to Louisa’s father?
With shifting perspectives across time and character, and repeatedly revisiting that night by the sea, Flashlight explores the shockwaves of one family’s tragedy while also engaging with the invisible currents of history.
Susan Choi is the author of Trust Exercise, which won the National Book Award for fiction. She has also written the novels The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, and My Education.
Choi has received several prestigious awards, including the Asian American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Additionally, she has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Currently, she teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and resides in Brooklyn, New York.
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