Some things I wanted to show you

Two big pieces of news this month!

First: I canceled a preorder for the first time. I resisted for longer than I should have because I have never done that before and I am a Person Who Meets Deadlines. But it would not have been a good book, and I would have burned myself out even more and I didn’t have all that many preorders anyway.

As soon as I made the decision for REAL I felt lighter. Weeks of time opened up for me. I do not regret the decision at all. (And tbh my readers have been ONLY supportive. They’re clearly excited for whatever I write next.)

Second: We had a HUGE storm (and tornado warning) and lost power for 48 hours (it was projected to be another 24 after that but we got lucky). Our neighbor helped clean up branches, there was no damage, same neighbor shared his generator so we didn’t lose food AND I got a hotel room with points only half a mile from home so we could charge Spencer’s insulin pump and have AC and wifi. It was really the best possible scenario, other than the scary storm and lost power.

I’m excited to slowly crawl out of my cave and share more things with you. I hope your summer is more carefree than mine has been.

(Also: I’m taking a Substack class this month, so if you see me starting to post more cheer me on please)

Third (just for fun): I got my first unasked-for Senior discount last week. There’s a good chance it was just an accident of button pushing, but also the cashier was very young and I have quite a lot of gray hair. I laugh about it whenever I remember this happened.

Why we love Henry James : at least 49% of the reason I love Substack is for access to brains like this and courses like this (I keep telling myself I will teach one). God bless the internet for allowing super niche interests like this to be an income stream. “Starting on September 19, I’m making a longstanding dream (my own, I mean) come true: I’m teaching a year-long sequence of six classes on Henry James. Each class can be taken individually, but they’re designed as a sequence.”

5 essential works of literary criticism : I would be a student forever if I could afford it; “These are the kinds of books I kept seeing on my professors’ shelves, throughout every degree I pursued. Some taught me how to read closely. Others completely changed the questions I asked about literature. And a select few became imprinted on my heart and mind the exact same way my favorite novels are. These became so much more than beloved reading experience for me. They are works that changed how I live and move throughout the world, and that inspire me to think deeply and read closely as a way of life.”

Head to Head: Does every creative genius need a bitter rival? : “Think of rivalry as a type of über competition driven by mutual obsession, with the rivals propelling each other to spiralling achievement, and investing more mental and emotional resources in each other than circumstances would ever dictate on their own. In 2014, across two sets of studies involving undergraduate students and runners, Gavin Kilduff, a psychologist at New York University, found that rivals tend to be the same age, gender and social status. True rivals know each other and, indeed, often have long, enmeshed histories. Rivals are, by definition, evenly matched – but the higher the level of their attainment, the more they propel each other on.”

The hypercurious mind : “What if we’ve been looking at this backwards? What if the question isn’t what constrains attention, but what captures it? In many people with ADHD, signals linked to curiosity – such as novelty, uncertainty, prediction error, informational reward – carry higher motivational weight. In plain terms, some cues feel disproportionately worth following. From this perspective, what looks like distractibility can be understood as rapid, stimulus-driven reallocation of attention toward whatever promises the greatest payoff. The delay aversion, the executive struggles, the altered reward-processing – they can all be seen as downstream expressions of a brain that has fundamentally different priorities about what deserves attention, priorities that may have served early human societies in certain environments long before modern medicine defined them as a disorder.”

WATCHING:

National Treasure* (our 4th of July celebration); Heated Rivalry S1 (I love them); The Running Man* (love Edgar Wright); Evil Dead Burn1 (Spencer’s birthday choice); lots of online summit videos (I am #1 Learner)

READING:
King Sorrow* (I devoured this); The Future Saints*2 (good, but kind of unremarkable); Yesteryear* (smart and unhinged3); Kin* (absolutely gorgeous)

( *these are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through any of these links I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you )