on the shelf, episode seven
postcard 27: faith (faithzap)'s favorite books
I want to do something splendid...something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.
prelude
In the morning, you make us breakfast. You like your coffee strong, your eggs runny. Moving gracefully through your kitchen with its harlequin tiles. You’re going to know me, I think. I want to give that up. I am willing.
—Pop Song, Larissa Pham
Every month, I’ll be featuring someone’s favorite books so you get to hear from someone who isn’t me. For August, I asked Faith (
), who is one of the most talented and brilliant people I know—and happens to be one of my best friends in the entire world. She is a genius in putting the most complex, unexplainable feelings into beautiful, melodic prose in both of her essays and songs. She extends the same empathy she puts into her art to others around her, and is one of the kindest people I know. I am so, so lucky to know and love her. I’ll link a few of my personal favorite essays of hers in the interlude!Both Faith’s book taste and songs are so autumnal, so here are her top ten books of all time, in tandem with my other September posts:
(Also, here is my personal ranking of her songs, which felt like picking my favorite child—which I absolutely have. It’s her song company by far)
Faith says: “disclaimer—ranking these actually caused me real pain I feel like I’m hurting their feelings.”
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This will always and forever be one of the most important pieces of media to me in general. It’s so near and dear to my heart as someone who comes from a big family with four siblings, with three of us being girls. This book depicts what it’s like to be a sister so perfectly; what it’s like to grow up with a close-knit family who has their flaws and bickers occasionally, but loves each other above everything at the end of the day. On top of that, Jo was one of the first literary characters I ever felt seen by. I saw so much of myself in her, and it was one of the main reasons I wanted to keep reading. Maybe a little selfish of me, but let’s be honest: it’s probably what Jo would’ve done, too. My mom was actually who suggested I read this book, back when I was in the fourth grade and experiencing a pretty rough reading slump. Little did she know, she’d change my life with that simple recommendation. So, thank you, Mom, and thank you Louisa May Alcott for the perfect book.
2. Pop Song by Larissa Pham
I think it’s pretty clear with my choices so far that I’m a hopeless romantic, and that doesn’t change one bit with this next title. I love love, what can I say? But this isn’t your typical book about love and romance. It’s a collection of essays that weave us through a narrative of a love affair; starting from the beginning, and leading us to the very end, where Pham so beautifully strings together how it feels to start falling in and out of love with someone—at least, that's how it feels for me. When I was reading it for the first time, I thought to myself, over and over, “this is how I want to write.” My favorite piece in this has to be “Crush”, by far—I recommend it at every single chance I get. How she managed to put (what feels like) my own experiences and feelings into words before I can even acknowledge it in my own brain, I will never know. This collection of essays changed my life, and I don't just go around saying things like that. It's a book I find myself picking up over and over again, after accumulating more life experiences, and having new revelations and a-ha moments each time I read it. At this point, I need to put going out for coffee with this woman on my bucket list, because I’d love to pick her brain.
3. The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The way I felt reading Little Women when I was nine was how I felt reading this book at twenty-two. It instantly became a favorite, despite not loving it as long as other books I’d held close to my heart. The Idiot was one of those books that just instantly shot to the top of my list. It might as well be an account of my own experiences, with some minor specificity alterations. Although technically plotless, this book simultaneously holds the ability to propel the reader to keep going, which I feel, in a way, mirrors the framework of life itself. It just felt so refreshingly real—most people read to escape real life, but this book forces you to confront it, right in its face: the good, bad, and the boring, and any emotions that come along with it. I related so deeply to the narrator, Selin, so much that it almost felt like reading a screenplay of specific events I’d experienced. I don’t think I can’t recommend this book enough, even to people who might not relate to her, because I'm sure everyone knows how it feels to be young, indecisive, and somehow both a cynic and a hopeless romantic at the same time. Elif Batuman is a genius.
4. Either/Or by Elif Batuman
Aaaand we’ve got a double feature! Either/Or is the sequel to The Idiot and I loved it just as much. I just don’t think there’s any other writer who does it quite like Elif. There is something about the way she writes that is so recognizably unique to her own experience, but somehow simultaneously feels as if her research prior to writing this novel included reading my diary and eavesdropping on every conversation I've ever had. This novel reminds me of what I love so much about writing in general; how the act of relating and allowing others to relate to our own lives is such a vital part of being a person, and how beautiful that is. The way she writes is so comforting, comedic, and poignant at the same time, and lets me know I’m not the first or only person to ever feel a certain way.
5. One Day by David Nicholls
I’m an overly sentimental person and I love a good romance novel. It only makes perfect sense that this book is one of my favorites of all time. This book, although fiction, turned me into the kind of person that holds out hope for a certain love to find its way back to you. Dex and Em find themselves entangled in each other’s lives, whether in big ways or small, over a span of twenty years, and reading this book at a young age—about fourteen years old—dangerously convinced me that nothing is ever truly over unless you want it to be. I’m always a sucker for a friends-to-lovers slow burn, and this book easily became one of my solid, staple favorites upon reading it for the first time a decade ago. Yet another title recommended to read by my mom—a huge fan of the movie starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. (Thank you, Mom. Again. Clearly, she knows my taste.)
6. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
This is one of Shakespeare’s best plays and I will die on that hill. It’s so unserious in all the best ways, yet so beautifully written and captivating at the same time. I read the line “I will eat his heart in the marketplace” when I was about eleven or twelve and it honestly changed the trajectory of my entire life. This was the play that made me fall in love with reading Shakespeare and it will always have a special place in my heart for that very reason—I love how complex and dynamic the characters and plot are, all while being so deliciously playful and fun.
7. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
What to even say about this book—it speaks for itself. Everything I Know About Love is the perfect testament to growing, learning, making mistakes, and how the people you love (and love you back) are the glue that hold you together through it all. My friendships are the most important relationships in my life besides my family, and over the past few years of being in my twenties, I’ve realized that now more than ever, those relationships are some of the most crucial ones to have. It’s almost vital for survival to surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you and understand you on a level that most people don’t. Reading this book at the start of my twenties was the perfect solace and comfort as someone who was afraid that everything would start changing and move all too fast—and maybe that’s true, but it reminded me that although life might take us in all sorts of directions, the people you love will always be in your corner. Even the people you surround yourself with might be completely different individuals from those you associated with during earlier stages of life, but love itself will always reveal itself through them, no matter who they are—that never changes.
8. Beach Read by Emily Henry
This was my first Emily Henry, and still remains my favorite book of hers. About four years ago now, I was visiting my uncle and his family in San Diego, and I finished the book I brought to read for the weekend I was there—I think it was The Hating Game and I was disappointed to say the least...so I needed to read a good rom-com novel to make up for it. On a mission to find my next read, I drove over to the local bookstore and stumbled upon it there. I read the back of the book for a synopsis, and the plot just instantly caught my eye. After spending the day with family, I gobbled up that book in just a few hours before going to bed, and since then, it’s been one I often find myself returning to when I’m craving something sweet to read. I think what I love most about it is how much they learn about each other while engaging in the challenge to write a story in each other’s genres, and one of my favorite things about falling in love is learning their perspective; getting inside their head and trying to view the world through their eyes. And as a hopeless lover girl and writer myself, I related a little too much to January. I’ve seen people say they think she’s annoying and you’d think I’d get offended by that, but I think it actually tracks for my personality! They hate us because of our whimsy! (Also, Book Lovers is my second favorite Emily Henry, if anyone was wondering.)
9. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Speaking of hated characters—I debated whether or not I should include this book, but I figured I would take the risk of ridicule, mainly because this book holds so much nostalgic and sentimental meaning to me… I know this book is either one that you love or hate, but I happen to be a part of the former club. There are understandably so many qualms that folks have with this book, but I don’t think that the details that happened to age badly are the point at all of the story. I read Catcher for the first time when I was fifteen years old and also experiencing coming of age myself, the way Holden is throughout the story—I think that this book, in its own strange way, preluded my love for Elif Batuman’s novels, in the sense that all three books are technically bildungsromans. They don’t have a set plot, and the focal point of the story is the inner journey and growth of our protagonist. Holden is irritable and angry and emotional because he’s grieving the death of his brother while he’s also dealing with being a teenager trying to figure out what his purpose is. But we get to witness exactly how he feels about everything, not just annoyances—I love the way he loves his sister, how he attaches some emotional meaning to every situation he finds himself in, and how he still thinks about and misses every person he’s ever known. It’s so painfully relatable, and reading it for the first time as an adolescent made me feel somewhat normal for feeling certain ways. Salinger’s prose is wonderfully witty and uncomfortable in all the right places, which mirror the uncertainties and awkwardness of teenagehood perfectly to me. The Catcher in the Rye is a beautiful and accurate portrayal of the inner workings of the teenage mind—capturing the good, the bad, the ugly; everything.
10. All About Love by bell hooks
Bell Hooks, where do I even begin with you… Bell Hooks is one of the best minds and writers out there. I first began reading her work in undergrad, when her book Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work was an assigned text to read for one of my creative writing classes. I immediately fell deeply in love with the way she strung her words together. She was one of the authors who inspired me to write more personal essays and memoir—her work made me feel less insecure in terms of writing about myself too often. She let me know it was okay to do so. I didn’t end up reading All About Love until earlier this year, after being recommended it repeatedly by one of my best friends (thank you Grace, if you’re seeing this) but it instantly became one of my favorites after finally doing so—because it isn’t every day that you find a book dedicated to love and all its forms, and discusses it so intricately at that. I’m the kind of person who tries to find pieces of love in everything, so studying what each form of love stands for and how we can view it at work in real life was incredibly intriguing and so refreshing for me to read.
interlude i: what i read this week
I don’t know what it is about fall, but it really gets me back into reading—and moreover, constantly wanting to read. I know that the Booker Prize longlist for this year just came out—and I’ve read 0 books from it. So, in a completely logical fashion, I am reading the Booker shortlist from last year. I am reading Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein right now, which I’m really enjoying! My friend
loved The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, so I am going to read that next.I also finished reading Vladivostok Circus by Elisa Shua Dusapin, which I really loved until I didn’t. I adore Dusapin because she can create the most beautiful, atmospheric world of her own—in almost a fantastical way. Unfortunately, the plot & characters of this one fell short for me.
Here is my Goodreads if you want to see the books I’ve read this year!
I decided to place an order for ten books for this season—mostly McNally Editions and NYRB classics, and will post them on my Instagram or bookstagram as soon as the package arrives! I’m very excited to go through both publishers’ catalogues.
Here are some articles I read this week (and two of my favorite essays by Faith):
Sally Rooney: ‘Falling in Love When I Was Very Young Transformed My Life’ by Lisa Allardice
Sally Rooney on romance, writing about sex, the Normal People phenomenon and her new novel, Intermezzo.
The Romance of Friendship by Faith Zapata
On falling in love with your friends.
Spinning the Night Self by Annabel Abs
“After years of insomnia, I threw off the effort to sleep and embraced the peculiar openness I found in the darkest hours”
Laughing Shores by Giordano Lipari
Sailors, exiles, merchants and philosophers: how the ancient Greeks played with language to express a seaborne imagination.
Chappell Roan and the ‘Ungrateful’ Pop Stars Before Her by Jennifer Zhan
A sampling of other singers who have tried to set boundaries with fans.
Ever Since I Was a Little Girl I Knew I Wanted to Have a Crush by Faith Zapata
“There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned crush. I think there are very few things in this world that are capable of providing as much consolation as that first crush after what feels like forever without having one, or after the heartbreak you thought would wreck you.”
The Golden Age of Gadgets for Girlies by Amanda Mull
“They never died. They just became beauty products.”
Crying While Reading Through the Centuries by Pelagia Horgan
What does it mean to cry over a book?
The Family That Built an Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts.
How Life (and Death) Spring From Disorder by Philip Ball
As simple systems show signs of life, scientists are arguing about whether this apparent complexity is all a consequence of thermodynamics.
interlude ii: what i watched this week
I rewatched the One Day movie because I still haven’t watched the television show and I wanted to see the movie once more before the show! It was as beautiful as I remember. I also watched The Worst Person in the World, which was amazing. It was very Rooney-esque in a way, and felt like a movie that could also be a book (my favorite kind).
I am going to update my Letterboxd this week, so here it is if you want to follow me! I am up to date until mid-August I think.
I also watched this video on fast fasion and this long video on the continuous reinvention of Greek mythology.
postlude
things i love: red nails with bows, sezane sweaters, northern renaissance paintings, muji 0.38 pens. and sleeping.
if you’re reading this everyone go read the bee sting!!
i love you so much. thank you for having me it’s the greatest honor 🤍