on the shelf, episode eight
postcard 31: elle (elleseulee)'s favorite books
“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”
prelude
He kisses—how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you. There are some men who have never been kissed like that. There are some men who discover, after Arthur Less, that they never will be again.
—Less, Andrew Sean Greer
Every month, I’ll be featuring someone’s favorite books so you get to hear from someone who isn’t me. For October, I asked
, who runs the newsletter and who has been my best friend for over a decade. Not only do we share the same name, but our friendship initially started over our mutual love of reading and writing, including a massive (and I mean massive) young adult fantasy book phase in high school.
She is the most intelligent, most driven, most thoughtful person I know, and I’ll tell anyone who listens about how much I love and adore her. I’ve been waiting for her to write her feature for the on the shelf series for months, so I hope everyone enjoys it and takes some recommendations!
Here is her Instagram, which you should absolutely follow!
1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.”
There are those books that transform you as a reader, and if you write, those that transform you as a writer. Mrs. Dalloway occupies such a profound place in my head because it is one of the very rare books that did both for me. It was the first Virginia Woolf I read, and I had the intense feeling of my life changing as I turned the pages, as dramatic as it sounds. I had never read a writer who so excellently described what it was like to be alive, to live inside your own head while experiencing the collective that makes us human. Every sentence is one worth considering, one worth putting in your pocket to turn back over later; I know some people find this style of writing tedious, and usually, I am not one who enjoys books that exist largely in thoughts, but perhaps it is because this book has thoroughly ruined me for all the rest. It is still intimate and innovative every time I read it, and it transformed my perspective of empathy for myself and others.
2. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
“I could understand anything, under the right circumstances and for the right person. It was both a strength and a weakness.”
This short but sharp novel reckons with violence unfathomably large and quietly small, and those in between, and how a young interpreter with no sense of home uses language to confront them. Or how she doesn’t, and sometimes lets words and their meaning slip away. As the reader, we watch how she copes and drifts, seeking solace in the languages that are her shield. I first read this book just after moving to London, where I didn’t know a soul. I too felt adrift and recognized myself in the narrator’s warring desire and reluctance to reach out and touch the world. Novels with female narrators have transformed popular literature in the last five or so years, and in some ways, Intimacies sits among them; I’d argue, for its subtleties and acts of questioning, it sits above the rest. But maybe I am biased—sometimes there are those right books you read at the right time, and they’ll haunt you forever.
3. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
I love mysteries. Anyone who knows me knows I do—I read them constantly as palate cleansers and puzzles and familiar friends. I love tracking clues and looking for the little signs, and maybe it is the competitive, academic kid in me who loves figuring things out before the end of the story. Yet there is no mystery quite like this one. Agatha Christie is known as the queen for a reason, and depending on my friend asking for a recommendation, it is possible I will offer up different books for different people. But Murder on the Orient Express is an icon. It almost reads like theater, with its colorful characters, dramatic setting, and plot intricacies, as well as an ending like no other. It is good, old-fashioned, showy fun, and if you have a train ride coming up, I’d say there is no better book for it (though you might want to keep an eye on your company for the journey).
4. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
“Who should be held accountable for a history of shared violence?”
I finished the book in one sitting, flopped on my bed on Christmas Eve in the countryside of Italy, which I tell you because it was eerily quiet. Within the black night, the only voice I could hear was Patrick Radden Keefe’s, who I think is the finest nonfiction writer publishing today and Say Nothing is his masterpiece. An intricate look at the IRA and the Troubles in Ireland using one “disappeared” widow as an entry point, this novel reads like a phenomenally well-researched thriller. Radden Keefe writes like you’re being chased, like he’s dragging you along as you flee, telling you the story as you go. More than anything, this book is nonfiction that feels true, in that the author seemed desperate to tell it right. This book is harrowing, it is my favorite nonfiction book of all time, and I recommend it to anyone, period, but especially those looking for an entry point into the genre.
5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”
In my house, there are two rooms full of books. One is my bedroom, and the other is my father’s library. I get my love of reading from him, a gift I will forever be grateful for, but while I like to think of myself as a girl who will try any genre twice, my father only has a taste for science fiction. So in that library are only science fiction books, many of which are classics from titans of the genre I grew up reading: Michael Crichton, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin. I love their books, but when I first read Station Eleven, I remember thinking to myself that it could change how people viewed science fiction. Rather than cold and robotic, this book makes sci-fi a lovely, intimate, delicate thing. Taking place following a catastrophic pandemic, this book draws from Shakespeare as its inspiration, as it follows a troop of actors and musicians dedicated to keeping art alive in the new world. The command of characters, of the movement of time, and of twists so subtle you’re left spinning in the aftermath is nothing short of remarkable.
6. Beloved by Toni Morrison
“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
Toni Morrison’s body of work is a storm that disrupts Americans' sense of self and history, and what many believe to be her finest work, Beloved, is nothing short of a hurricane. I’m not much of a crier, but I cried across this story, beginning to end, because I have never read a novel with so much power. There is sadness to be sure, and violence. But more than anything, reading this novel is like being shaken awake and forced to look at history in its evil eye. The story follows Sethe, an escaped slave but a woman still constrained by memories. She is most haunted, literally and figuratively, by the ghost of her daughter Beloved. This to me, is the great American novel, one both horrifying and lifting, bitterly angry yet turned forward. Beloved will swallow you in a tidal wave of emotions, and transform you. I say let it.
7. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
“Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.”
There are the cranks of the world that crawled out of the swamp to bemoan when this novel won the 2018 Pulitzer, and then there was me, giddily smiling as I jumped up and down and clapped. Less is many things, but to me, most of all, it is joy. It follows a failing author who, in an attempt to ditch his ex-boyfriend’s wedding, says yes to every literary invitation he’s put off in a journey that takes him around the world. It is certainly the best travel novel I have ever read, and it is in many ways transcendent. The world is aptly captivated by the humorous, generous perspective of a (slightly) more insightful than he appears clueless American, and I believe there is an Arthur Less, finding the comedy in the tragedy, in us all. This novel bombards you with ideas and sensations and descriptions and words in the best way possible. It is a mess, but it is some of the most fun I have ever had reading.
8. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
“It hurts too much to break your own heart out of stupidity, to leave a door unlocked or a child untended and return to discover that whatever you value most has disappeared. No. You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.”
Hi, my name is Elle, and I am a survivor of other Elle (read: @postcardsbyelle) not reading my favorite book. In fact, I have survived many, many people not reading this book, which I think is a crime. It is hideously underrated for a book so overwhelmingly and unexpectedly excellent. Taking place on the isolated Kamchatka peninsula of Russia, the novel begins with two little girls stolen from the beach. This moment aches across the novel, as it then weaves across the varied points of view of women who live in this area of rugged beauty and simmering cruelty. Descriptions of the natural world alone will take your breath away, but it is the intricate web Phillips weaves in what is technically a mystery, but a book far more innovative and transformative than that simple label, that will leave you unmoored. For this to be a debut is nothing short of remarkable. It leaves me with an ache in my chest I still can’t quite place.
9. Night at the Fiestas by Kirsten Valdez Quade
“Maybe some part of her had been seeking a comforting narrowing of possibilities, an excuse to give up on her life.”
Kirsten Valdez Quade is much better known for her novel The Five Wounds, so only her diehard fans (me) know that work was based on a short story originally published in this collection, Night at the Fiestas. Largely set in New Mexico, the strange heat and desert atmosphere works its way into each story in the collection, as Valdez Quade holds secrets up to the light so that we, as her readers, might be able to look for the truth or something like it. Generally, in a short story collection, there are one or two I find falling flat, but here while there are those I like more than others (“The Five Wounds” of said novel, “Jubilee” and “Nemecia”) there are none that I don’t feel have a profound purpose in being there. As someone who specifically writes short stories, I find her work nothing short of inspiring.
10. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
“My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that.”
Any list of books I’m creating in order to make sense of myself one way or another must include the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. Aside from giving me my acidic humor and considerable attitude problem, this book is the one that taught me many of my most important lessons: how to be creative, how to be a true and loyal friend, how to problem-solve, and so much more. It is so smart, and is written in a way that treats kids as such. I reread this series nearly every year, and every time it teaches me something more about myself as well as reminds me of who I was at eight years old and to embrace that little, zany girl everyday. I think for this one, all I have to say in conclusion is thank you, Uncle Rick.
interlude i: what i read this week
I read two books this week, and am on my third! I think I’ve become good at choosing my reads because the ones I’ve read so far this month are all at least four stars. I finished Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke, which was so witty, heartwarming, and a great short read. I also finished an advanced copy of The Science of Last Things by Ellen Wayland Smith, which was my only five star read of this entire year other than Intermezzo. I want to post a full review of this one, but it was truly one of the best essay collections I’ve ever read. I am currently reading Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, which I am really liking so far!
I’ll put up the ratings and short reviews on my Goodreads sometime the following week!
Here are ten articles to read:
In a Chaotic World, What Can We Learn From Billion-Year-Old Stones?
“Yet what if, like Dickinson, we could teach ourselves to entertain the possibility of a nonhuman scale — a geologic scale — as another way of looking at the world?”
A Conversation between Sally Rooney and Merve Emre
Loving the Limitations of the Novel.
Were it not for her friendship with John Locke, the feminist gems of philosopher Damaris Masham might be unknown.
The optimistic April paintings were produced at an extremely challenging time for the artist.
“Of the many ways that things can go wrong in bed, sleep troubles are probably the most prevalent.”
The wonder, and the curse, of friendship is choice.
Why Our Attention Spans Seem to Be Getting Shorter
Modern stressors and constant technology use are making it harder to focus—but it is possible to improve your attention span, experts say.
Verdigris: The Color of Oxidation, Statues, and Impermanence
Before there was turquoise, there was verdigris.
A strange journey to the glitter factory.
Simone de Beauvoir's Lost Novel of Early Love
Her passion for a doomed friend was so strong that Beauvoir wrote about it again and again.
interlude ii: what i watched this week
It was a good week for movies! I watched Spencer, which I really enjoyed, and rewatched Lost In Translation. I watched the latter in a communications class for the first time in college, and didn’t love it. But I think my movie taste must have changed, because I really enjoyed it on the rewatch.
I also just watched Mamma Mia in the theaters (it was a one day screening) a few hours ago, and it was the most special experience. I didn’t expect to cry because I am at best, a three times a year crier. I have also watched that movie probably about eight times now, the first time being when I was eight in the theaters when it first came out, and seeing it again on a big screen just felt different. I was just texting Elle how such a large quantity of happiness felt deeply overwhelming in a surreal and good way. I grew up on ABBA songs (I would sit my parents down and perform a concert of the entire track list of the ABBA Gold CD when I was five or six), so Mamma Mia is always a nostalgic and sentimental treat to watch.
Here is my Letterboxd for reference.
Here are the two video essays I watched this week: this National Gallery video on Van Gogh and this video on a poisonous mushroom.
postlude
things i love: lush sticky dates shower gel & body spray, morning runs, my journal prompts, yunjac makeup primer, freshly washed sheets, almond croissants
i love double elle content
you have no idea how much i adore these on the shelf episodes, i wait for them diligently every month! 🫶🏼😭 and elle featuring the other elle content is top tier ✨ (love both of your content on insta!)