Catapult Staff Picks

Over the break, while my husband and I were being bombarded by my mother with both outright and subtle pleas for a grandchild, I read Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, a fascinating book-length interrogation of the narrator’s ideas about what motherhood represents and what it would mean for her, as an artist, if she were to take the plunge. It’s a weird and wonderful book; I think it will be empowering both for mothers, and for women who decide to go another way.

I also read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, essentially without stopping, over two days. What a generous, beautiful book—it’s not something you read so much as sink into, a full world, populated by characters that feel deeply, thrillingly real. It’s also a masterclass in plot—there are numerous storylines, and each one is deepened and complicated by the others. I loved it and admired it, very much.

—Julie Buntin, Director of Writing Programs; Associate Editor, Books

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I just started reading a galley of Lisa Locascio’s Open Me, due to be released this summer. Viet Thanh Nguyen describes it as “infused with erotics and politics . . . Losascio’s story of a young American abroad is unflinching in its portrayal of sex, desire, racism, and the excitement and confusion of youth.” There’s something of Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You in the opening pages. I’m excited to see it in bookstores.

—Jonathan Lee, Senior Editor, Books

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Dory Athey bought me a copy of her favorite book to give other people, The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant. I love it when a book makes you see the everyday world around you in a profoundly different way. I told Dory she’s made a tree-obsessed monster of me, because I just stare at them wherever I go, wondering about their story, their age, and how the landscape looked around them when they were a seedling. How much does any of us know about where the paper from our books comes from? How much do we know about the terrible, violent, compromising history of logging in North America (especially in the region where our satellite offices are located, the PacNW)? Vaillant brings these origin stories to life in a way that makes me feel both awe and guilt in equal measure. And he introduced me to a William Wordsworth poem I’d never read before. I cannot stop thinking about this excerpt from The Prelude:

...Often have I stood
Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere
Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance
May never tread; but scarcely Spenser’s self
Could have more tranquil visions in his youth,
Or could more bright appearances create
Of human forms with superhuman powers,
Than I beheld, loitering on calm clear nights
Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.

Speaking of poetry, I’m taking refuge in Mary Oliver a lot these days. I like her collection from about ten years ago, Red Bird, because it is darker, less overtly joy-filled than many of her other books. Spirituality feels hard these days, and Oliver speaks to that. It’s interesting to see selections of Red Bird appear in the new selected Mary Oliver, Devotions, because you have two of my favorite poems, so very different, side by side: read “The Orchard” first, followed by “Sometimes.”

—Jennifer Abel Kovitz, Associate Publisher

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I am reading Lu Xun’s collected stories, starting with Yiyun Li’s critique/afterword of Lu Xun and his canonization and ending with “Diary of a Madman.” Then Shen Congwen, who in Li’s mind deserved more attention.

—Wah-Ming Chang, Managing Editor

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I’m so struck by this essay in n+1’s new issue, “Morbid Capitalism” by Nikhil Pal Singh and Thuy Linh Tu. One of my favorite sections taught me about “insourcing”—

Ambitious politicians who have been blasting Chinese competition have also been courting their investments in US-based manufacturing. Over the past decade, dozens of Chinese plants have relocated to the Piedmont region, refilling those empty factories with their own technologies and managers in a process that has been called insourcing . . . In 2014, Dothan, Alabama, a town with one of the state’s highest unemployment rates, hosted a two-day US–Chinese manufacturing symposium. Here, the delegates were offered T-shirts for sale emblazoned with the slogan NI HAO Y’ALL. We do not know where they were sewn.

—Megha Majumdar, Associate Editor, Books and Web

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I’ve been happily reading a ridiculous number of books simultaneously, some of which include: Mary Robison’s Why Did I Ever, Eileen Myles’s Afterglow, Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women, Eve Babitz’s Black Swans, and Andrew Durbin’s MacArthur Park.

I also recently read and loved Andrea Long Chu’s “On Liking Women” in n+1, and I’ve been savoring this year-long conversation between Chelsea Hodson and Wendy C. Ortiz in Triangle House Review.

—Allie Wuest, Editorial Assistant, Soft Skull

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I am reading Sharp by Michelle Dean. I had high hopes for the book, and Dean nails it. Her prose is never dry but rather full of enthusiasm for the lives and trajectories of ten female intellectuals of the twentieth century. I almost missed my subway twice because I was so enthralled!

—Morgan Jerkins, Associate Editor, Web

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While stuck in O’Hare and a stuffy airport hotel during the bomb cyclone, I finally sat down and read Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I wish I had picked it up sooner: As always, Saunders’s sentences are full of delicious little pops and his characters inspire tenderness, pity, horror, and love.

Additionally, I’ve been reading Patricia Smith’s Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah for my daily dose of poems.

—Stella Cabot Wilson, Publishing & Classes Intern

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I just picked up Blythe Baird’s Give Me a God I Can Relate To. When she read the poem “When The Fat Girl Gets Skinny” I bit my hand to keep from ugly sobbing because I am prone to ugly sobbing, but also:

I used to love the feeling of drinking water on an empty stomach,
waiting for the coolness to slip all the way down and land in the well.
Not obsessed with being empty but afraid of being full.

How could anyone not?

—Mallory Soto, Editorial Fellow, Web

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On Christmas morning, I was thrilled to unwrap the book We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union (I also received another book that I cannot wait to devour). Union’s debut book had been on my mental “highly anticipated reads” list. The essay collection is a deeply candid reflection of various events that have helped mold the actress into who she was and is today. Union divulges on everything from pregnancy troubles, self-hating, step-parenting, to networking and mentorship (this topic relates to the time Union was rude to a rising actress from the Star television series), and plenty more. I respect Union’s honesty and it was very interesting to learn about her journey.

—Jewel Benton, Intern

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