I have to confess, I used to keep my place by dogearing the top edge of the page. Some call this sacrilege, but when there wasn’t a publicity one-pager or bookstore receipt handy, this was my solution. Then about 15 years ago, my mom sent me a box of my old things she found in her house, and among them were a couple of dozen baseball cards. Until about a year ago, Phillies players told me where to pick up.

Last year, McSweeney’s included author cards in the 74th edition of its Quarterly Concern. Since then, Miranda July, James Hannaham, Sheila Heti, Andrew Sean Greer,and others have joined me between the pages to mark my place.

In case you are also looking for the perfect bookmarks, McSweeney’s has released a second series of its author cards.

What do you use for a bookmark?

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A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (14 albums, 151 songs, 9 hours, and 9 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Ethel Cain, Ada Lea, Field Medic, OSEES, No Joy, Anamanaguchi, Wombo, Charley Crockett, Gordi, Halloween, Teethe, Hayes Carll, T. Hardy Morris, and Bad Suns.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Read an excerpt from Emily Hunt Kivel's debut novel, Dwelling

2. World Cafe interviewed Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas
   Even though the subject feels very campy or 'too much,' I felt a sense of power inside of [those songs]. That's part of it too — I like making stupid or disgusting things feel powerful and beautiful or worthwhile.

3. Leslie Jamison shared an essay on perfectionism at the New Yorker.

4. Black Country, New Road visited KEXP for an interview and in-studio performance

   

5. Nicholas Boggs discussed James Baldwin at Vogue
   Love, as it turned out, was Baldwin’s greatest subject. And when I finally finished my journey with Baldwin, these became my book’s last lines: “It would not be until close to the end of this voyage that I realized what I had actually been researching and trying to write all along was a new James Baldwin biography. But from the very beginning, I always knew it was a love story.”

6. Read Neko Case’s contribution to the Sinead O’Connor anthology Nothing Compares to You

   

7. Rax King talked to Greg Mania about her essay collection Sloppy at Electric Literature
   Good personal writing always feels like the author is exploring some dark corner of herself, trying to shine a light into it so she can map it out properly, but before I show people the fruits of that exploration, I want to make sure the dark corners are safe to investigate!

8. Stream a new song by Joan Shelley

9. Tao Lin shared his college diary at the Paris Review

10. Stream a new song by Casey Dienel

    

11. Literary Agent Kate McKean discussed her new book, Write Through It, on the Debutiful podcast

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Emily Hunt Kivel’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Dwelling

Jessica Gross’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Open Wide

Miranda Mellis’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Crocosmia

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This summer has been filled with good friends and good music, as well as many good books. Our summer trip to Scandinavia was refreshingly cool and exciting, who would think that a city that peaked in the 1400s (Visby) could be so interesting? Or that an Airbnb in the same building as Copenhagen’s oldest bakery and down the street from a charming beer bar would ruin my diet?

The best times were just relaxing or doing things with my partner: planting hostas and windowboxes in the backyard or reading or watching television inside when the temperatures in Brooklyn neared 100. A house (and yard) as oasis is a wonderful thing.

I’ll be sad to say goodbye to this summer, but excited to start my third year of teaching. Getting to know my students and having the opportunity to help them achieve their greatness is something I am thankful for every day in the classroom.

A couple of years ago I shared a back-to-school playlist, and have been streaming it to get back into the school year mindset:

What is the highlight of your summer?

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A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (20 albums, 188 songs, 11 hours, and 2 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Emily Hines, Robert Deeble (link to album at Bandcamp), Wisp, Laura Groves, Welcome Strawberry, Rosali, Mal Devisa, The New Eves, Fortitude Valley, Haru Nemuri, Everything Else, Freezing Cold, Return to Dust, Demahjiae, Anthony Family, Sex Week, The Armed, QWAM, Spafford Campbell, and Caimin Gilmore.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. John Darnielle remembered Ozzy Osbourne
   The timbre of his voice—instantly recognizable; once heard, never thereafter mistaken for anybody else’s—allowed those who experienced it to feel addressed; recognized; seen. This set him apart from his peers in hard rock, vocalists of greater force and technical mastery. You cannot, on your best day, imagine being Robert Plant, but Osbourne is like Jerry Garcia. When he’s singing, he might even be you, given different circumstance. He makes the moment feel generally available.

   

2. Public Books held a roundtable discussion about J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace on its 25th anniversary

3. Deep Sea Diver visited KEXP for an in-studio performance and interview

4. Ed Park talked short story writing with LitHub
   Seeing stories to their end is something that Park does not for publishing’s sake—“that feels a little out of my hands”—but for completion and, often, performance. He wrote some of this collection for public readings around New York, which he’s long taken part in as an editor and a teacher. “In my mind, those invitations let me try something new,” Park says. “It’s like a vacation from working on a novel. And for those, I usually write with an audience in mind. My title, An Oral History of Atlantis, reflects that a lot of these were read aloud.”

   

5. The New York Times interviewed Ethel Cain
   I don’t care what music people want from me. But it’s still like, this is what funds my life. I do not want to have to go back to working a day job like I did for so many years to fund the music. So I do have to find the compromise of, we put out an album, I tour it, I make a pop song or two, and I enjoy that. But then I will make an hour-and-a-half-long drone album.

   

   

6. Michael Clune discussed the connections between writing his memoir, White Out, and writing his debut novel, Pan, with Interview magazine
   I think there’s a lot of different connections, just because of how I write. My writing’s sort of animated by a faith that if you look into important experiences deeply enough, they’ll reveal really surprising things. So when I’m talking about heroin and addiction in White Out, or I’m talking about panic and anxiety in Pan, I sort of see the experience as a door. And we have names for those doors, like addiction or panic or anxiety. But as writing allows me to open that door, it reveals really unsurprising facts between surprising places. For example, between addiction and the divine, or between panic and the occult. I’m really interested in allowing those kinds of connections to emerge.

   

7. Marissa Nadler discussed essential tracks from her discography with The Quietus

8. The 2025 Booker Prize longlist has been announced

9. Bandcamp Daily recommended albums by artists not named Fugazi released by Dischord Records.

   

10. Arundhati Roy talked to Publishers Weekly about her first memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me
    “There’s not much about myself as a private person out there,” Roy says. “Fundamentally, the challenge was that I didn’t want to be selling some nice version of myself in a book. That was very important to me.”

11. Stream a new song by the Antlers

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Christopher J. Yates’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Rabbit Club

Joanna Howard’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Porthole

Linda Dahl’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Tiny Vices

Sonya Huber’s Book Notes music playlist for her anthology Nothing Compares to You

Vincent Adejumo’s Book Notes music playlist for his book The Return of Black Nationalism and the Death of White Supremacy

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I have been paging through ’s book Dear Writer this week (on the recommendation of a friend), and have been impressed with how she inspires creativity. The book is broken down into ten different elements of creativity (like wonder, vulnerability, and tenacity), and also offers writing exercises and suggested reading lists.

Outside of ’s amazing books, I rarely turn to craft books for inspiration. My creative fire is churned by literature: fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. Those pages motivate me artistically. In the past, I have enjoyed ’s newsletter (and resulting book, Refuse To Be Done) and have used several of the techniques mentioned while I work on my first novel. ’s anthology 1000 Words is another craft book I found fascinating and impactful. Lately, I have been wondering what I have been missing.

What books on both creativity and/or the craft of writing have influenced you and your art? What can you recommend?

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A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (14 albums, 127 songs, 8 hours and 46 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Indigo De Souza, Far Caspian, Pretty Bitter, Yoshika Colwell, Golomb, Cory Hanson, Tyler Childers, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, Folk Bitch Trio, Giant Claw, The Allegorist, Patty Griffin, Why Bonnie, and Kurt Vile & Luke Roberts.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Read Rayne Fisher-Quann’s essay from the anthology Nothing Compares to You: What Sinead O'Connor Means to Us

2. Stream a new song by Flock of Dimes

3. Read an excerpt from Michael Clune’s debut novel Pan

4. Ethel Cain discussed her new album Willoughby Tucker at the Guardian

   “I see Ethel Cain as a piece of me that I separate from myself and discard, so that I can make good decisions in life,” she says. “If Preacher’s Daughter was my learning experience of what not to do with trauma and healing, Willoughby Tucker has been my experience of what not to do in love.”

5. Elisabeth Egan explored the growing phenomenon of bookstore pets

   Now, thanks to social media, many stores have put themselves on the map with the help of little creatures, including some unlikely stars (bearded dragon, anyone?). The pairing makes sense: Books and animals both provide joy, companionship and windows into other worlds. The former are, admittedly, a lot tidier.

6. The Weather Station visited KEXP for an interview & in-studio performance

7. Kiran Desai talked to Publishers Weekly about her new novel
   Desai’s books are never about one thing, and her latest is no exception. More than a romance or a family saga, it’s a novel that explores Indian and American culture, dating and arranged marriage, patriarchy, the challenge of being an artist, and the acute loneliness of living in a world that never quite feels like home. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d return to India so strongly in my work over the years, but I’m still seeing the value of working between countries,” Desai says. “It’s a wonderful place to work from the diaspora.”

8. Ben Gibbard wrote a theme song for baseball player Ichiro Suzuki

9. Susan Choi remembered her time as a New Yorker fact checker

10. Interview magazine interviewed Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas

11. Minnesota Public Radio recommended essential books to understand climate change

Share Largehearted Ledger

Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Christopher J. Yates’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Rabbit Club

Joanna Howard’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Porthole

Linda Dahl’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Tiny Vices

Sonya Huber’s Book Notes music playlist for her anthology Nothing Compares to You

Vincent Adejumo’s Book Notes music playlist for his book The Return of Black Nationalism and the Death of White Supremacy

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Even after only half a year, putting together this list has been daunting. So many good books from talented writers have been published…

These are the books I have loved the most so far this year.

What is your favorite book of the year so far?

Blob by Maggie Su

Maggie Su’s novel Blob is a stunning debut, a book as entertaining as it is insightful.

Dream State by Eric Puchner

Eric Puchner’s novel Dream State is a gritty and immersive masterpiece.

A Gorgeous Excitement by Cynthia Weiner

Cynthia Weiner’s A Gorgeous Excitement is a riveting debut, a coming-of-age novel as hypnotically told as it is suspenseful.

Hellions by Julia Elliott

The stories in Julia Elliott‘s collection Hellions are marvelously diverse and divine magic from everyday lives.

Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Feldman

Isaac Fellman’s novel Notes from a Regicide smartly explores themes of identity and family through a dystopian, queer lens.

Songs of No Provenance by Lydi Conklin

Lydi Conklin’s novel Songs of No Provenance is a powerful debut that deftly explores themes of making art, desire, and ambition.

The Stalker by Paula Bomer

Paula Bomer’s novel The Stalker is a brilliant and unsettling portrait of modern male toxicity.

Largehearted Ledger is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (13 albums, 142 songs, 8 hours and 3 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Natalie Bergman, Alex G, Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka, Madeline Kenney, Jade Bird, Disiniblud, Billie Marten, Zac Farro, Lord Huron, Laura Jane Grace in the Trauma Tropes, The Maes, Hannah Holland, and Forth Wanderers.

Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Paula Bomer was profiled by Megan Nolan at the Guardian
   Bomer was divorced 10 years ago, and describes The Stalker as a sort of divorce book, “but not divorcing a particular man, it’s divorcing men – a kind of man,” she says, before instantly discluding her two sons and her many friends.

2. Stream new music by Sudan Archives

3. Read an excerpt from Kyung-ran Jo’s novel Blowfish

4. ANOHNI and the Johnsons played a Tiny Desk Concert

5. Asymptote interviewed Mary Jo Bang about translating Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
   I wanted my translation to honor Dante’s decision to write the poem in the vernacular instead of in literary Latin.

6. Pitchfork’s best albums of the year so far.

7. Kashana Cauley discussed her new novel with Electric Literature
   I think there are a lot of spaces in American life where money is discussed quite openly and straightforwardly. It’s the rich who don’t love talking about money openly. In one sense, I think it comes across as educating the reader, but I think in another sense, it’s faithful to the way that the working class discusses money, which is upfront, in great detail, and with helpful advice.

8. Soccer Mommy covered Pavement’s “Gold Soundz”

9. Mira Ptacin explored the poetry of found lists at Longreads

   I peeled the list off the windshield and held it like an artifact: evidence of a life I didn’t know but suddenly cared about. It read like a poem. A confession.

10. 10 of the All-Time Weirdest Rock’n’Roll Movies

11. New editions of Vladimir Nabokov’s books are getting new covers

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Dan Leach’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Junah at the End of the World

Danit Brown’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Television for Women

Jennifer Hope Choi’s music playlist for her memoir The Wanderer’s Curse

Joanna Howard’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Porthole

Matthew Morris’s Book Notes music playlist for his essay collection The Tilling

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These are the books I have loved the most so far this year.

All Friends Are Necessary by Tomas Moniz

Tomas Moniz’s All Friends Are Necessary is one of the most moving novels I have read in years, an evocative exploration of grief and the restorative power of friendship.

Amina Gautier’s luminous collection The Best That You Can Do brings together the personal and political through the everyday lives of women.

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter

Temim Fruchter’s novel City of Laughter is my favorite book published this year. A profound and ambitious debut that spans over a century, this is a multigenerational epic that melds magical realism, queerness, and folklore into a book I think about every day months after reading it.

Daughters of Muscadine by Monic Ductan

The linked stories in Monic Ductan’s collection Daughters of Muscadine, set vividly in a small Georgia town, make up an auspicious debut.

An Evening with Birdy O’Day by Greg Kearney

Greg Kearney’s novel An Evening with Birdy O’Day is the most moving book I have read all year, a heartbreaking and clever portrayal of two gay men over a 60 year period of their lives.

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

In a year filled with amazing debuts, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates is one of the best, an unforgettable novel of friendship, love, and art.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Akbar’s novel Martyr! is inventively told, marvelously complex, and easily one of the most unforgettable debuts I have ever read.

Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton

Danielle Dutton’s collection Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other is modern creative nonfiction at its best, a collection of original and inventive pieces that defy literary categorization.

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

Debutiful stated that Alexandra Tanner’s novel Worry, “could very well be the Great Millennial Novel.” I’ll say that this debut is funny and moving and possibly the Brooklynest book I have ever read.

Ninetails by Sally Wen Mao

Sally Wen Mao’s Ninetails is a truly epic collection of fables drawn from East Asian folklore that span centuries.

We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons

Kimberly King Parsons’s novel We Were the Universe is a surreal and transcendent examination of grief, sex, motherhood, and sisterhood, and one of the year’s best books.

What is your favorite book of the year so far?

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Largehearted Likes:

1. Halle Butler’s brilliant millennial comedy of manners Banal Nightmare.

2. Greece
   Just returned from two weeks in Greece, where I was overwhelmed by good food, great company, and a wealth of bookstores.

3. Caffe Panna
   New gelato place in our neighborhood impresses with EVERY flavor.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (11 albums, 103 songs, 6 hours and 9 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Cassandra Jenkins, Remi Wolf, Color Green, Brijean, Font, Clairo, Johnny Blue Skies (AKA Sturgill Simpson), Cigarettes After Sex, Lifeguard, Jake Xerxes Fussell, and Chris Cohen.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. A new podcast from Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw!
   The pair’s newest undertaking is Reckon True Stories, a podcast that homes in on consequential nonfiction (contemporary or otherwise) and the writers behind the work.

2. ’s list of the best music books of the 21st century.

   The Gig

   The 14 Best Music Books of the 21st Century

   Last week the New York Times declared The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, a nifty feature designed to move units and start arguments, not necessarily in that order. The list was compiled by soliciting Top 10s from scores of literary luminaries — everyone from Junot Díaz t…

   Read more

   2 years ago · 67 likes · 12 comments · Nate Chinen

3. An excerpt from Halle Butler’s novel Banal Nightmare.

4. Camera Obscura’s World cafe interview and performance

5. For Laura Van Den Berg, the Fantastical Is the Best Way to Describe Reality
   It wasn’t until I was working on this novel that I made the connection between working with fictional temporalities and an unarticulated desire to restore my own understanding of time—which is probably beyond the capacities of fiction, but I actually think fiction has given me something even more powerful.

6. “If It’s Not Grueling, It’s Not Worth It”: John Cale, in Conversation With Michael Sheen
   The lockdown took over about a year-and-a-half ago and I just shut the door and took precautions and got on with some work. When I came out of that, there was an album already. At the end of the day, I had 80 songs. This is about finding poetry in the strangest places.

7. “Grief Has No Timeline:” Writer Sarah Gerard, in Conversation With Leslie Jamison

   As a writer, I’m really addicted to story, and I try to write poetry, but it doesn’t come out very well. So I see fiction and nonfiction as being like conjoined twins, I suppose. They kind of emerge from the same place of story, but they have different minds.

8. New music from Raavi

9. Granta’s podcast interview with Sheila Heti.

10. “DRUNK IN THE AUGUST SUN - SUMMER INDIE/ALT-ROCK CLASSICS, a two hour set of crowd pleasers from several generations of alternative rock”

11. It Took 22 Years for Kevin Barry to Unlock His First U.S.-Set Novel
    How have your reading tastes changed over time?

    Hardly at all. I was first flung to the wall by a piece of literature when I was 10 years old — I was home from school pretending to have the flu and I picked up “Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë, and was soon moaning with lachrymose pleasure. I remain a capital “R” Romantic, as a reader and as a writer both.

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

August Thompson’s playlist for his novel Anyone’s Ghost

Ed Simon’s playlist for his book Devil’s Contract

Shome Dasgupta’s playlist for his story collection Atchafalaya Darling

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My school is in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, about a 40 minute commute from my home in Greenpoint. Every morning, I leave the house with several books in my bag: my current commute reading, another book I have started, and a poetry collection.

I prefer something dark to read on the way to work, that seems a perfect match for the subway at 6 a.m. For example, I just finished Madeline Leung’s debut novel, How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster, set in an NYC of the near future devastated by acid rain. The second book (a novel, memoir, short stories, or essay collection) is my backup in case I finish the commute reading. The poetry collection (currently Jessica Laser’s The Goner School) is literary caffeine to jumpstart me intellectually during the day.

Before this year, I have never had a reading schedule. I read whenever I found the time. In line at a grocery store, while eating lunch, even on a walk. Having a demarcated time for nothing but reading added focus to my day.

Over the summer, my plan is to read every morning when I get up, before I start writing. Framing the start of the day with books at home feels right, I can start reading on the subway when I go back to school in mid-August.

What do you read during your commute? Do you listen to audiobooks, music, or podcasts?

Largehearted Likes:

1. Muriel Leung’s debut novel How To Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster is a masterfully quirky cli-fi post-apocalyptic book (with ghosts).

2. 

3. ’s debut novel Log Off is unputdownable, and told in a series of Livejournal posts.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (19 albums, 202 songs, 12 hours and 44 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Thou; Ezra Feinberg; Bat for Lashes; Half Waif; Anastasia Coope; Ayra Starr; The Marías; Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Nathan Salsburg & Tyler Trotter; Psychic Temple; Swamp Dogg; Beak>; Richard Thompson; Esy Tadesse, The Bird Calls; Shaboozey; Arooj Aftab; Another Michael; Winston Hightower; Habibi; and Idaho.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. How Duke Ellington Dealt with Jazz Critics and Jim Crow
   The last piece in a three-part 1944 New Yorker profile of the musician.

2. According to Anna Dorn, There’s a Place for Twinks in Lesbian Fiction
   I was also thinking of this idea that’s perpetuated in lesbian media, from the pulps to The L Word, that lesbian relationships are inherently crazy-making. It’s like: two women, obviously they’re going to go insane. So I wanted Astrid to struggle with this expectation and, over the course of the book, learn that it doesn’t have to be crazy-making.

3. The Night Becomes a Great Friend: Arooj Aftab Interviewed
   Although often described as a genre-defying artist, many like to genre-define her on a micro level anyway. From “jazz fusion” and “Hindustani classical” to “neo-Sufism” – a term Aftab herself came up with in her younger years when asked what her first record was all about. Does she regret coining it, I wonder? She laughs. “I was just a baby, you know? I should’ve been like, it’s new! I’m making something that I want to hear that I’m not finding in the music scene.”

4. Debutiful’s interview with Emma Copley Eisenberg about her magnificent debut novel Housemates

5. On the importance of creative agency: an interview with Kathleen Hanna
   People assume I just walk out and I’m just spewing my guts on the floor, but I’m not. I’m doing the same as almost all the other artists I know are doing, which is trying to find the right balance between the content and the technical.

6. An excerpt from Sally Wen Mao’s debut novel Ninetails

7. Stream a new Soccer Mommy song

8. R.O. Kwon on Writing About the Desire for Queer, Kinky Sex and the Cost of Being an Artist
   I think there continues to be a belief that the desire to be an artist is selfish. And I just so strongly believe that it’s not. I feel very lucky to get to be a writer, to get to be an artist. And I don’t think there’s anything selfish about it.

9. Shana Cleveland of La Luz on the band’s new album
   It seems hard for people to really pin La Luz down in terms of genre, and I was wondering if you find freedom in being a bit undefinable?

   I think that’s a real theme of my life. I’m half Black and half white. I’ve never been visually identifiable that way. I’ve kind of just gone through life as this secret agent. It has sort of had the loneliness of not fitting into a group cleanly, but also there’s so much freedom in that. I feel like that’s the case with La Luz, as well. I don’t feel like we’ve ever really cleanly fit into any genre. We do a lot of stuff with garage rock and psych rock, and I love that kind of music so I’m totally cool with playing those festivals and playing those bills.

10. “I Couldn’t Have Written This 20 Years Ago”: Claire Messud, In Conversation With Joshua Cohen
    Thematically, there’s certainly [overlap] with earlier novels, The Last Life in particular. The sort of boilerplate answer is that I’ve been preparing all my life to write it. But it isn’t something I could have written 20 years ago for any number of reasons, formal and technical reasons and emotional, human reasons. But I also feel that it is, on every level, connected to the other things that I’ve done.

11. New Music from Katy Kirby

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Bobi Conn’s playlist for her novel Someplace Like Home

Emma Copley Eisenberg’s playlist for her novel Housemates

Frankie Barnet’s playlist for her novel Mood Swings

Kent Wascom’s playlist for his novel The Great State of West Florida

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Largehearted Likes:

1. A history of boiled peanuts and why Alabama has a marker dedicated to them
   Are boiled peanuts so important to our culture we need to honor them with a historical marker? Of course. And, as far as I can determine, Alabama is the only state to have such a marker.

2. In Greenpoint, a wacky new birding group is ruffling some feathers
   My neighborhood is discovering birdwatching through a dynamic group at McGolrick Park.
   

3. Kathleen Hanna’s “Letter to My Younger Self” at The Big Issue
   If I had to say something to my younger self, I’d say, remember when you were having fun with your friend Cindy doing musical theatre? So why are you doing meth now? Why are you always two inches away from getting arrested? I wouldn’t say be a better student. But I think I’d say you need to get help.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (16 albums, 169 songs, 10 hours and 48 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Diiv, Mui Zyu, James Devane, Motorists, Pardoner, La Luz, Black Dresses, Bess Atwell, Young Jesus, Finom, Gastr del Sol, Andrew Bird Trio, Wallows, Girl and Girl, Softcult, and Bill MacKay.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. ’s interview with Teddy Wayne at
   Teddy Wayne: There are two kinds of novels I seem to respond to these days. The first are impeccably paced books in which you can’t help but be swept up by the story, and there’s still enough depth of character and theme and prose to complement the plot (not always the case with plot-driven novels). The second are books where I can sense the author has truly put themselves on the line, excavating their most deeply held feelings and thoughts, especially those that aren’t predestined to meet with nodding approval.

2. “We’re Trauma Bonding”: Kathleen Hanna, In Conversation With Brontez Purnell
   “You know what they say about feminist art, right?” says Kathleen Hanna, “It’s not real—it’s just therapy!” Underneath this very bold statement sits a plain-as-day fact: which is that, honey, therapy actually works. And Hanna has been all of our punk rock therapist and father figure for close to four decades now. I think it should be known that Hanna has the same birthday as Charles Manson, but as a cult leader, she used her powers for good, being the often unwilling but nevertheless steady figurehead for the Riot Grrrl movement.

3. An Excerpt from Mesha Maren’s new novel Shae

4. Pitchfork’s Best Albums of 2024 So Far

5. An Excerpt from Gabriel Smith’s novel Brat

6. Waxahatchee covered the Drive-By Truckers’ “Outfit

7. An interview with Anne Enright

   I can’t say I have a grand scheme – I work intuitively – but every character I write requires another character’s point of view: multiple viewpoints, multiple selves, multiple consciousnesses, and that’s fine by me, because consciousness is the great subject of the novel.

8. BrooklynVegan’s 11 metal bands to watch in 2014

9. The Bitter Southerner’s 2024 Summer Reading Roundup

10. Shannon & the Clams Made a Playlist You’ll Want to Send to Your Lover

11. Yoko Ono’s Mind Games—And Her Lasting Legacy

    A show at London’s Tate Modern reveals the astonishing breadth of a career often shadowed by questions about fame, celebrity, and a certain collaborator-husband.
    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Alison B. Hart’s playlist for her novel April May June July

Anna Dorn’s playlist for her novel Perfume and Pain

Leah Hager Cohen’s playlist for her novel To & Fro

Lee Upton’s playlist for her novel Tabitha, Get Up

Mesha Maren’s playlist for her novel Shae

Shze-Hui Tjoa’s playlist for her memoir The Story Game

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A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (18 albums, 174 songs, 10 hours and 58 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Nia Archives; Red Hot Org & Meshell Ndegeocello; Diane Birch; Maggie Rogers; Girl in Red; English Teacher; Bad Bad Hats; Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties; METZ; The Reds, Pinks & Purples; hemlock; Shabaka; Still House Plants; The Ophelias; great area; Sunburned Hand of the Man; UTO; and James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Celebrated poet, MacArthur genius – but Hanif Abdurraqib is just glad to have survived past 25
   One of my heroes is the late great Greg Tate [a writer, musician and critic for the Village Voice]. He was always more interested in you than you could have ever been in him. And that is something that I think is a requirement to live by.

2. The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast
   A definitive biography of MF Doom is coming in October.

3. Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever
   Gary Shteyngart went on a cruise and wrote about it.

4. Slate shared an oral history of Pitchfork

5. The OTHERPPL podcast’s interview with Lydia Millet

6. How Ozempic Turned a 1970s Hit Into an Inescapable Jingle
   This Ozempic boom is due in no small part to the jingle, which helped turn a byzantine mash-up of syllables into a brand patients would request from doctors by name. Jeremy Shepler, who headed the Ozempic launch in the United States for Novo Nordisk, had previously enjoyed success deploying music in a commercial for a new-to-market nasal spray, and knew he wanted to find a song that worked both mnemonically and emotionally.

7. ‘I’d love a scathing review’: novelist Percival Everett on American Fiction and rewriting Huckleberry Finn
   ”Huck Finn, picaresque adventures aside, is really about a young American, representing America, trying to navigate this landscape, and understand how someone – his friend, actually the only father figure in the book – is also property.”

8. How Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee Learned to Tune Out the Noise
   My approach to songwriting, as far as the structure of the songs, is identical to Lucinda. Rarely will you find a bridge. It’s usually like, three to four chords only, and it’s simple. It’s all about the vocal melody.

9. An excerpt from Jen Silverman’s new novel There’s Going To Be Trouble

10. Fluxblog’s 1980s COKE PSYCHOSIS playlist
    two hours of maximalist high-gloss 80s pop with a crazed energy or manic intensity

11. The Best Books of Spring 2024, According to Indie Booksellers
    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Aug Stone’s playlist for his book Sporting Moustaches

Ery Shin’s playlist for her novel Spring on the Peninsula

Greg Wrenn’s playlist for his memoir Mothership

Helen Benedict’s playlist for her novel The Good Deed

Jen Silverman’s playlist for their novel There’s Going to Be Trouble

Lynn Schmeidler’s playlist for her story collection Half-Lives

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Enjoy the 23-song playlist while the earth warms up, summer vacation gets closer, and you can finally shed that winter coat for a half-year.

see also: my playlists for gardening, a collection of songs about birds, and some songs for walking.

Do you have any songs you associate with spring?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (9 albums, 75 songs, 5 hours and 23 minutes)

This week’s new music includes releases by Four Tet, Dancer, Kacey Musgraves, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, Sweet Pill, Holly Humberstone, Charles Lloyd, The Dandy Warhols, and a compilation of 1970’s Japanese psychedelic soul.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Sally Rooney is publishing a new novel in September

2. How Waxahatchee Made the Album of Her (Second) Life
   “I think my life gets weirder and less relatable the older that I get,” she says. “So I try to write in a way that’s relatable to anyone with any problem. There’s some universal emotional truth that people can get to the bottom of, even if they don’t understand everything I’m talking about.”

3. The Cowardice of Guernica

   Phil Klay on the recent controversy at Guernica.

4. “If You’re Cool, Aren’t You Sexy?”: Kim Gordon, in Conversation with Chloe Sevigny

5. Leslie Jamison on writing her new memoir
   From early on, I understood Splinters to be a book about haunting: being haunted by memories of my own marriage when it was full of love and promise, being haunted by the specter of another life in which my daughter was growing up in an unbroken family.

6. The Icon and the Upstart: On Miles Davis’s Legendary Feud With Wynton Marsalis, an excerpt from James Kaplan’s book The Icon and the Upstart: On Miles Davis’s Legendary Feud With Wynton Marsalis

7. Teju Cole on about his new photobook
   The stories do seem to disrupt some of the apparent serenity of the images. But I’m hoping that there is a unity there too; that, as a whole, it has this feeling of disquiet and unresolved difficulty, with the photographs conveying that feeling the way photographs can, and the stories doing it the way stories can, each mode being true to its own affordances.

8. Love In the Present: Julia Holter Interviewed
   “I'm not an avid, intense reader. I don’t read five books a month like some friends of mine, but I do rely on books as inspiration. It's a quiet place for your imagination to go wild when you're reading, and I just think it's healthy for our brains.”

9. A new essay by Gary Indiana on aging
   It happens when you see yourself in a photograph, no matter when it was taken. Everything recorded is a record of the past, and this is how you looked then, how the world around you looked: these were your friends and this was a room someone lived in and how people were wearing their hair. Even a year ago, you think, ‘I looked better.’

10. The rockers putting their Blackness at the fore of hardcore and punk
    Even though hardcore was pioneered in the 1970s in part by Black musicians such as Bad Brains, the genre has mostly been dominated by white bands. But a new era of rockers has emerged in the past decade, and the Black hardcore scene has gained traction through festivals such as the Break Free Fest in Philadelphia and the recent releases of the books The Secret History of Black Punk: Record Zero, an illustrated archive of overlooked luminaries, and Black Punk Now, an anthology of nonfiction, illustrations and comics around Black punks. Longtime musicians are mentoring the younger generation and educating them on the Black roots of the genre. And perhaps now more than ever before, artists are using their style and lyrics to highlight their Blackness in hardcore.

11. An excerpt from Rita Bullwinkel’s novel Headshot
    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Elizabeth Brooks’s playlist for her novel The Woman in the Sable Coat

Jose Hernandez Diaz’s playlist for his poetry collection Bad Mexican, Bad American

Katya Apekina’s playlist for her novel Mother Doll

Margaret Juhae Lee’s playlist for her memoir Starry Field

Marisa Lin’s playlist for her poetry chapbook Dream Elevator

Parisa Akhbari’s playlist for her novel Just Another Epic Love Poem

Ray McManus’s playlist for his poetry collection The Last Saturday In America

Rose McLarney’s playlist for her poetry collection Colorfast

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This past year has brought much change into my life. I started teaching, the first full-time job other than writing I have had in 20 years, began the last year of my MFA program, and found my time limited for almost everything outside of these two pursuits. Largehearted Boy had to change, too.

The author playlists are still being posted, and I posted a collection of essential & interesting year-end book lists instead of the usual gathering of every list I could find. I had to put the daily book & music news & links on hold (at least until grad school is finished). I do aim to post more features this year, more musician/author interviews and literary pieces by musicians in particular.

Largehearted Boy might be changing, but it is very alive.

This newsletter, with its weekly collection of book & music links and new music releases has become an integral component of Largehearted Boy.

A special thanks to every contributor to the site over the years. Authors who have shared playlists for their book. Musicians who have discussed literature. Musicians who have interviewed authors (and vice versa). Filmmakers who have discussed their soundtracks. Cartoonists interviewed by Jami Attenberg. I love all of you and what you do.

Thank you for reading both the newsletter and the website. Thank you for supporting Largehearted Boy through subscriptions to the newsletter and donations through the site.

I look forward to spreading the good word about books and music for years to come.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (15 albums, 171 songs, 10 hours and 19 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by Faye Webster, Sheer Mag, Yard Act, Footballhead, Nils Frahm, Coco, Gwendoline, Amaro Freitas, Hannah Frances, Uranium Club, Pissed Jeans, Everything Everything, Ben Frost, Punchlove, and a 35th anniversary remastered & expanded edition of De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising.

Largehearted Likes:

1. Grimm Onement imperial stout aged in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels
   Onement is our series of minimalist BA imperial stouts: nothing but stout aged in barrels from a single whiskey producer. If what you like is potent, robust, oaky complexity in your bourbon barrel stout, Heaven Hill barrels are THE BEST. In order to stand up to this massive barrel character, we selected a base stout with ample sweetness and fullness. HUGE chocolate, bourbon, oak, and dried fruit make this a concentrated sipper you won’t want to miss.

2. Screen Door Press, a new imprint at the University Press of Kentucky, edited by the ever-talented Crystal Wilkinson
   Dedicated to discovering unique, exceptional, and varied voices within Black literary traditions, the Screen Door Press Imprint will celebrate the very best in fiction across a broad range of categories. Its goal is to publish thought-provoking books that use relatable characters, strong narratives, and beautiful language to champion diverse views from throughout the Black diaspora.

3. The Brooklyn Book Bodega
   The mission of Brooklyn Book Bodega is to increase the number of 100+ book homes for kids 0-18 in NYC. Brooklyn Book Bodega provides access to and ownership of books, builds community, and creates a passion for learning through free events and literacy-based community programming.
   
   

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. An interview with Leslie Jamison about her new book
   This book really began with a particular moment in my life, which was moving into this dark railroad sublet right next to a firehouse with my daughter after the end of my divorce. It was such a tender, exhilarating, terrifying, grief-stricken time. It was all those things at once. I wanted to write into those bare nerve ending days and nights, and that simultaneity of feeling such grief and such love at the same time.

2. Lykke Li’s cover of “Ring of Fire”

3. Kelly Link interviewed about her new novel
   If I'm going to care about the things that happen to somebody, I need to care about how they see the world in granular detail. The job of the writer is to make those details as interesting as possible, or as propulsive and connected to the events in the book as possible. I'm not going to succeed at doing that for every reader, but I have to feel I’ve at least made them connective and interesting to me and the readers who are willing to go along with it.

4. illuminati hotties’ Sarah Tudzin on How Her Ska Past Manifests in Her New Music

5. on asking for blurbs

   Gabino’s Substack

   Asking for blurbs is weird

   Hello, everyone! Hope this finds you well, happy, and healthy. I’m in the process of looking for blurbs for House of Bone and Rain. Some truly amazing authors have already agreed to it (which doesn’t mean they’ll all come through because life is weird, we all have deadlines and other stuff to worry about, and random stuff gets in the way all the time). …

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   2 years ago · 23 likes · 7 comments · Gabino Iglesias

6. Flop rock: inside the underground floppy disk music scene
   Floppy disk music arguably peaked in the 2010s, but in the 2020s, it’s still going strong; Discogs.com shows a healthy 500-plus floppy releases in the 2020 category, which is more than the documented number of floppy music releases in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s altogether.

7. The New Book Club: Meet Online, but Party in Person
   Many people, especially women, who joined online book clubs are looking to turn those connections into real-life friendships.

8. New music from Mdou Moctar

9. ‘We’re Going to Stand Up’: Queer Literature is Booming in Africa
   Ifeakandu’s work is part of a boom in books by L.G.B.T.Q. writers across Africa. Long obscured in literature and public life, their stories are taking center stage in works that are pushing boundaries across the continent — and winning rave reviews.

10. ‘I‘d rather people scratch their heads than yawn’: St Vincent on death, Dave Grohl and dividing her fans
    “To do interviews and to do press is a construct,” she says in her glaringly white LA office (she splits her time between there and New York), looking like “goth Grey Gardens” in black silk headscarf, thick-framed sunglasses and a vintage Maison Margiela trenchcoat I initially mistake for a dressing gown. “Like I’m playing a role of this person and you’re playing a role of that person and wouldn’t it be interesting if we both acknowledge it was a construct and went from there.”

11. Read an excerpt from Tommy Orange’s new novel
    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Bradley Sides’s playlist for his story collection Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood

Daniel Lefferts’s playlist for his novel Ways and Means

Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s playlist for his novel The American Daughters

Terese Svoboda’s playlist for her books The Long Swim and Roxy and Coco

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So far I have read Greg Kearney’s tenderly told and ambitious novel An Evening with Birdy O’Day, Anne Carson’s stunning collection Wrong Norma, and Adelle Waldman’s forthcoming second novel Help Wanted.

With the new Waxahatchee album, Tigers Blood, dropping Friday, I have been listening to Katie Crutchfield’s discography nonstop. This immersion into Crutchfield’s music solidifies my suspicion that she is one of the best songwriters writing music today.

What are you reading? What are you listening to?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (17 albums, 166 songs, 9 hours and 0 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by the Molly Lewis, Omni, Grandaddy, Laura Jane Grace, IDLES, Larissa Kim, Friko, serpentwithfeet, Caroline Polachek (an expanded edition of Desire, I Want to Turn Into You), Royel Otis, Middle Kids, Joe Wong, Prize Horse, Les Amazones d'Afrique, Nathalie Joachim, Shadow Show, and Kevin Holliday..

Largehearted Likes:

1. Other Half Forever Ever

   This double dry-hopped, hazy IPA has quickly become one of my favorite session beers, and definitely the best low alcohol IPA I have ever tasted.

2. The brunch chicken sandwich at Wen Wen
   My new favorite NYC sandwich, served with the world’s best tater tots.

3. Winter break
   I return to teaching in a week, and get to sleep, read, and recharge.
   

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Kelly Link on reading, writing, and her new novel
   I never really imagined I had what it took to be a writer until I managed to write one story, and then another and another. Even then, I suspected I might not stick it. What I wanted to be (and still am, mostly) was a reader.

2. New music from Waxahatchee

3. Why are we all so obsessed with book clubs now?
   Book clubs are currently having a revival, with young people driving their renaissance. Gen-Z-friendly book clubs are popping up all over the world, while celebs like Kaia Gerber and Dua Lipa have jumped on the bandwagon and formed book clubs of their own too.

4. New music from ethel cain

5. The Best Food Books to Read This Spring

6. New music from Jessica Pratt

   

7. An excerpt from Lucy Sante’s memoir I Heard Her Call My Name

8. Laura Jane Grace on her new album
   Sometimes punk is sh*tty, because there are sh*tty punks. But at its best, punk is rad people doing radical things.

9. Remembering author Ellen Gilchrist

10. Theresa Wayman and Jenny Lee Lindberg on Warpaint’s 20 year history

11. New short fiction by Brandon Taylor
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Diego Báez’s playlist for his poetry collection Yaguareté White

Dimitri Reyes’s playlist for his poetry collection Papi Pichón

GennaRose Nethercott’s playlist for her story collection Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart

Julia Ridley Smith’s playlist for her story collection Sex Romp Gone Wrong

Mariah Stovall’s playlist for her novel I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both

Matthew Thomas Meade’s playlist for his story collection Strip Mall

Steven Dunn & Katie Jean Shinkle’s playlist for their novel Tannery Bay

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Authors who make music (and musicians who write) have been around forever. Nick Cave has written several books, Michelle Zauner’s memoir Crying in H Mart was a resounding critical and commercial success, and the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle’s three novels have been amazing. On Largehearted Boy I’ve featured Shudder to Think’s Nate Larsen, Wesley Stace (AKA John Wesley Harding), Josh Ritter, Alina Simone, and others.

Who is someone else I should interview? Do you have a favorite musician who writes (or vice versa)?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (12 albums, 138 songs, 7 hours and 55 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by the Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, Madi Diaz, Chelsea Wolfe, Ducks Ltd., Itasca, David Nance & Mowed Sound, Pouty, Mk.Gee, Amiture, Helado Negro, Declan McKenna, and Pylon Reenactment Society.

Largehearted Likes:

1. How Chinatown's Yu & Me Books Rose from the Ashes
   My processing of this entire period of my life will take time. I am still processing the incredible love and support that we received from the more than 6,800 people who donated to the store. That dollar amount does not even include my friends and community that helped me save books on the day of the fire, move books from location to location, dropped off food for me and my team, or cooked for me when I was too tired to do so myself.

2. The new Saul Bellow Stamp

   

3. The open call for submissions for 33 1/3 books about albums is open
   

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. NYLON’s February Must-Read Books
   February’s best books include new titles by Sheila Heti, Tommy Orange, Brontez Purnell, Rafael Frumkin, Mariah Stovall, Scott Guild, and so much more!

2. Chelsea Wolfe shared a playlist and discussed her new album
   Your new album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, comes out this week. What fictional character is most likely to connect with it?
   The Owens women from the Practical Magic books by Alice Hoffman come to mind. Having a family grimoire that’s passed down from generation to generation feels very “she reaches out to she reaches out to she.”

3. An excerpt from Megan Nolan’s novel Ordinary Human Failings

4. New music from Portishead’s Beth Gibbons

5. Emily Raboteau on the new environmental canon

6. How ‘Illinoise,’ a Non-Traditional Musical Inspired by the Sufjan Stevens Album, Takes a Few Cues From ‘A Chorus Line’

7. Vulture’s profile of Lucy Sante
   More so than for many writers, Sante’s is a syllabus self. To read her is to know she has done more interesting reading than you have. She told The Paris Review that a riff from Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell — “I loved maudlin pictures, the painted panels over doors, stage-sets, the backdrops of mountebanks, old inn signs, popular prints; antiquated literature, church Latin, erotic books innocent of all spelling, the novels of our grandfathers … inane refrains and artless rhythms” — “was virtually the template for my entire life!”

8. R.I.P., Mojo Nixon
   ”We asked for Mojo Nixon
   They said, ‘He don't work here’
   We said, "If you don't got Mojo Nixon

   Then your store could use some fixin'”
   “Punk Rock Girl,” Dead Milkmen

9. An excerpt from Bianca Bosker’s memoir Get the Picture

10. Grandaddy's Jason Lytle on Animals, Stepping Away from Touring, and the Toxicity of Social Media
    Any attempt to make a song that has any sort of meaning that's not typical subject matter is always a fun challenge.

11. Sheila Heti on her new book, Alphabetical Diaries
    What was the origin of this project?

    Some things just start. There were probably all these thoughts that happened subconsciously beforehand, but one day I found myself alphabetizing my diary, and it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. I didn’t know where it would lead to or that I would end up working on it for 14 years. I just thought it was a way to pass the time for a while and it could be interesting. What would I find? How would it read? I think some kind of curiosity probably started it, which is like most of my writing projects.
    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Bianca Bosker’s playlist for her memoir Get the Picture

Jahmal Mayfield’s playlist for his novel Smoke Kings

January Gill O’Neil’s playlist for her poetry collection Glitter Road

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Temim Fruchter’s City of Laughter is a stunning debut, a moving multi-generational queer Jewish coming-of-age novel.

Kaveh Akbar has been one of my favorite writers since I started reading his poetry years ago. Akbar’s novel Martyr! is inventively told, marvelously complex, and easily one of the most unforgettable debuts I have ever read.

Eric Schlich’s novel Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife is a breathtaking debut, a brilliant satire that explores themes of queerness and religion.

What did you read in January? What books are you looking forward to in February?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (12 albums, 131 songs, 8 hours and 29 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by The Paranoid Style; Vera Sola; True Green; Kirin J Callinan; Lee Scratch Perry; Kim Krans; The Last Dinner Party; Britti; Meth Math; J Mascis; Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer; and Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh & Tyshawn Sorey.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. A new essay by Rebecca Solnit on how big tech changed San Francisco
   By producing​ such extremes of wealth, tech is returning us to a kind of feudalism, with a few powerful figures accountable to no one.

2. Fluxblog’s “The Dawn of Alternative 1988-1990”playlist

3. How Lucy Sante Wrote a Revelatory Memoir

   Writing was no more a free space for play and self-expression than gender is. She represents her life as a fraught, embattled adventure of self-fashioning, played out on the page as much as anywhere else. To write was to invite severe scrutiny, as she learned during the era when her fervently Catholic mother searched her “room on any pretext and read every bit of writing she found there,”…

4. Dark Nights Of The Soul: Chelsea Wolfe’s Baker’s Dozen
   Chelsea Wolfe recommended her favorite dozen albums at The Quietus.

5. Why So Many Authors Are Writing Multigenerational Stories

   …fiction, of course, has its limits. As I write this, I’m thinking of the records of entire families, neighbourhoods, and communities being obliterated, whether by war or other crises, their family trees hacked apart. Novels and short stories cannot restore those bonds, but they might be the only way to process the unfathomable.

6. Ty Segall on his discography
   “It used to be all about the feeling and the inherent nature of sound—moving people physically and in turn [moving] them spiritually or emotionally in this whole religious experience of volume, which is cool,” says Segall. “But it’s not sustainable. Now it’s more about dynamics and having fun. Maybe a notch less serious.”

7. ’s interview with E.J. Koh

   Girls on the Page

   An interview with E.J. Koh

   The Liberators by E.J. Koh is a compelling portrait of identity and loss following three generations of a Korean family as they navigate life in America. The novel begins with a man—a father—in Daejeon, in the year 1980, and ends with his daughter, thirty-four years later, in Tacoma. In the pages and decades between, we meet multiple narrators (a prison …

   Read more

   2 years ago · 4 likes · 2 comments · Girls on the Page

8. 8 Tracks: Hurray for the Riff Raff's twang is heart full, but heartbroken: Lyrics as poetry found in Sunny Day Real Estate and Megan Thee Stallion songs

9. Ghostwriters Emerge From the Shadows
   “There’s great value in building this community because of the nature of what we do,” said Daniel Paisner, who hosts a podcast about ghostwriting called “As Told To” and has collaborated on 17 New York Times best-sellers. “We do it in a vacuum, sitting alone in our underwear in our offices. We don’t get out much. So I think it’s helpful to be able to compare notes.”

10. Couplets Author Maggie Millner Can’t Help But Break the Rules
    Plato had a theory that poets should probably be banished from society. We’re liars because poets have some kind of constitutional resistance to the laws that structure society.

11. on her new novel
    I saw it as a novel about women, about their desires and frustrations when surrounded by the hyper-masculinized sensibility that characterizes some rural communities nowadays. I found that no matter how securely I bolted the door against them, the male characters crept in through any windows I left cracked open. Turns out, the women in this story need the men and the men need the women.
    

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Andrés N. Ordorica’s playlist for his novel How We Named the Stars
“Music is central to my writing practice. It helps me to understand a character, their ever-shifting mood, charts their growth over time. I use music to get to know them, what they might listen to while going on a run, when drowning out the noise of an overactive mind, when mourning a broken heart.”

Jon Langmead’s playlist for his book Ballyhoo!
“My way into the world of early 20th century pro wrestling was realizing that it had an awful lot in common with the indie rock world of the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s…”

Kaveh Akbar’s playlist for his novel Martyr!

Tara Sidhoo Fraser’s playlist for her memoir When My Ghost Sings
“When I write, it is vital that I am listening to music that creates the same feeling that I wish to portray in my own art.”

Zachary Pace’s playlist for their essay collection I Sing to Use the Waiting
“A true playlist, to my mind, will forever contain fourteen to sixteen tracks—the average number that would fit on a sixty-minute blank cassette.”

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For a couple of days, I asked dumbed down smart speakers the weather or the time. I instructed them to stream music that was unavailable. Positively, the turntable still worked, as did my phone to stream to bluetooth speakers. I was able to work on some neglected writing projects. I had more time to read.

This weekend I am catching up on Largehearted Boy posts missed last week and returning e-mails. Being away from work on the site (even only for a few days) is refreshing but also enlightening. I am reminded of my passion for sharing the good word about books and music, and always excited to return to the work.

Look for extra author playlists on Largehearted Boy this week…

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (7 albums, 80 songs, 5 hours and 9 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by Cowboy Sadness, Packs, Sleater-Kinney, Bolts of Melody, Green Day, glass beach, and Mary Halvorson.

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Largehearted Likes:

1. Snow
   NYC had its first measurable snowfall in almost two years this week, which makes the cold temperatures almost bearable.

2. The tamale vendor outside the Greenpoint Ave. G subway stop
   My mornings are hectic as I rush to catch the 6 a.m. train to school, but thanks to Maria, I always have something delicious and filling for breakfast.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Dream casting for the forthcoming film adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation

2. Cowpunk Past & Present
   Here are some major touchpoints from the cowpunk catalog to be found on Bandcamp, from genre originators, to fast followers and regional spin-offs, to artists proudly self-identifying with the genre today.

3. Jordan Castro’s essay on lifting weights
   Lifters who practice mind-muscle connection resist the crass dichotomy of here and there, the gross binary of resting and flexing. They enter into the entire process. They feel their muscles stretch and strain. They feel them tear. They involve themselves directly in the middle. The middle is the hardest place to be. The middle is the part nobody thinks about.

4. Blondshell’s interview with Carrie Brownstein & Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney

5. The OTHERPPL podcast interview with Marie-Helene Bertino

6. Down To You: Joni Mitchell’s Court And Spark At 50
   Joni Mitchell's sixth album was a change of gear, coming deep from within the ME decade, its romantic entanglements dissolving to reveal a deeper search within but far from being solipsistic Mitchell’s rumination strikes a universal chord, says Matthew Lindsay

7. Jami Attenberg interviewed about building writing communities online and off

8. The Origins and Influence of Brian Eno’s Pioneering Album Ambient 1: Music for Airports
   No matter how many times I listen to this record, I always marvel at how it is about limitation. It’s about knowing when to say when. In terms of actual sonic events, they’re pretty few and far between. It is an impressionistic piece of music built on repetition where the idea is that Eno has created a world of sound, but you create a world of meaning within it.

9. Michael Cunningham on his new novel
   When I ask whether the success of The Hours has ever felt like a double-edged sword, he says, with humorous ruefulness, that: “I know some people have never forgiven me for not just writing The Hours over and over and over again.”

10. Bandcamp’s Most Anticipated Albums of Winter 2024

11. New fiction from K-Ming Chang

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Eric Schlich’s playlist for his debut novel Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife
“At its heart Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife is about a thirteen-year-old boy in crisis with his family, his faith, and his sexuality. My own musical taste (especially at thirteen) has always been pop-centric and tied to narrative.”

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This year I aim to read more books in translation across fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry.

What are you looking to read this year? What are you avoiding?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (3 albums, 42 songs, 3 hours and 20 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new EP by “@” and new albums from Nailah Hunter; Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau & Carlos Niño; Vacations; and Folly Group.

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Largehearted Likes:

1. Boy Swallows World

   The Netflix adaptation of Trent Dalton’s 2019 debut novel is the best television I have watched in years, the story of drug dealing in 1985 suburban Brisbane evocatively told through the eyes of a perceptive child then young man.

   Bonus: read and stream Dalton’s playlist for the book at Largehearted Boy.

   

2. Pink Slime by Fernanda Diaz
   Fernanda Diaz’s dystopic cli-fi novel is powerful and incredibly moving.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. For the Love of Plants: 11 Books on Nature and Conservation Coming Out in 2024

2. When Making Music Breaks Your Body
   Hearing loss and tinnitus, tendonitis and arthritis, mouth calluses and vocal cord nodules: These are only a sliver of the vast collection of maladies a musical life can bring. A 2017 study of more than 700 orchestral musicians in Germany found that two-thirds of them endured chronic pain, many for at least five years. And while it's fairly well understood that music careers are an endurance sport, requiring rigorous practice and few days off, the physical consequences often go unadvertised, hidden from fans for the sake of shows that must go on.

3. Libraries for the future: Europe’s new wave of ‘meeting places for the mind’
   All also built in the past seven or eight years, Helsinki’s Oodi central library, Dokk1 in Denmark’s Aarhus, and Deichman Bjørvika in Oslo share much the same vision of the library: in effect a living room for the 21st-century city.

4. New music from Julia Holter

5. An excerpt from Marie-Helene Bartino's new novel

6. A live performance and interview with the Allah-Las at KEXP

7. Celine Saintclare Writes Her Sex Scenes to Tchaikovsky
   What do you look for in a reading experience?

   Humor and wit, original characters, an exciting plot, lots of delicious description of clothes, makeup and jewelry—that certainly helps. I like to read about subversive female experiences. I fell in love with Anaïs Nin when I read Henry and June. It seemed to be the truest analysis of secret feminine desire that I’d come across, that and desire for an experimental and artistic life.

8. A profile of singer-songwriter gglum (aka Elle Smoker)
   “Once you start performing, you quickly realise you don’t want to spend a whole set moping around,” Smoker grins. “When I started gglum, I was this angsty teenager but as I’ve grown up, I do feel a lot more optimistic. I do think it’s very funny that the project is called gglum but the music is only getting happier.”

9. The Observer’s 10 best new novelists for 2024

10. New music from Waxahatchee

11. In Conversation: Lisa Robertson & Kate Briggs

    Lisa Robertson: For thirty years I’ve defined myself as a poet. I’ve been stimulated and supported by small-press poetry communities. At this point in my life I’m less interested in self-definition, and the move from poetry to the novel feels like an immense, unexpected opening to new thinking. The challenges are very different: sheer duration, for one, at a time of life when duration takes on intimate dimensions, and also the question of voice or tone.

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Bonnie Jo Campbell’s playlist for her novel The Waters

Katia Lief’s playlist for her novel Invisible Woman

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I have already shared my favorite novels, story collections, poetry collections, and nonfiction books of the year.

These seven books stand out from everything else that I have read all year, and have haunted me since I read them.

Drinking from Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Yvette Lisa Ndlovu’s Drinking from Graveyard Wells is the most impressive debut story collection I have read since Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. These stories combine folktale and realism to magical effect.

Everything/Nothing/Someone by Alice Carrière

Alice Carrière’s Everything/Nothing/Someone is the most resonant memoir I have read all year, a compelling, visceral, and breathtakingly moving book.

Happy by Celina Baljeet Basra

Celina Baljeet Basra’ s debut Happy is one of my favorite novels of the year, a book that redefines the coming-of-age story with empathy and grace.

LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO by Cleo Qian

Cleo Qian’s LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO is one of the strongest story collections I have read in years, a book that astounds with both its subtlety and complexity.

Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo

If Sheila Heti was Italian and wrote a modern Franny & Zooey, it would approximate how powerful and magnificent Veronica Raimo’s novel Lost on Me is.

Deena Mohamed’s Shubeik Lubeik is the most impressive graphic novel I have read since Chris Ware’s Building Stories. This story of wishes is as thoughtfully told as it is surprising, moving, and imaginative.

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

Idra Novey’s novel Take What You Need is a powerful, compassionate, thoughtful consideration of art, family, and inherent bias. Easily my favorite book of the year so far.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (3 albums, 40 songs, 2 hours and 6 minutes)

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Largehearted Likes:

1. The Franklin Park Reading Series
   New York City’s best reading series continues with another outstanding lineup tomorrow (January 8th), featuring Blake Butler, Claire Donato, Geoff Rickly, and Elisa Gonzalez. If you are ever in NYC on the second Monday of the month, come to Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood for an unforgettable evening hosted by the ever-impressive Penina Roth.

2. The Sunday Long Read
   Three of the week’s best long-form pieces of journalism delivered to your inbox weekly.

3. Antigua
   I have never been much of a beach guy, but a week at Pineapple Beach Club may have changed that.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Novelist Eden Robins on managing the work/life/art balance
   If I quit the mental-health-startup job, I knew I could drum up freelance writing to make up for the financial gaps. Sure, marketplace health insurance was technically an option, but it A) is absurdly expensive and B) sucks. What I really needed was the artist’s job unicorn: a lightweight part-time job with benefits.

2. L’Rain’s interview with Marlon James
   “All right, so I’m slightly confused about I Killed Your Dog,” the author Marlon James told L’Rain when the pair got on a call last month. “Is this a basic bitch album or is this an anti-breakup album?” L’Rain, née Taja Cheek, says it’s both, but you could forgive James for asking, since I Killed Your Dog, the third studio album from the Brooklyn-based pop-experimentalist, is many things at once: impressionistic, jazzy, synth-infused, cheeky, self-admonishing, self-exonerating, and delightfully weird.

3. Celina Baljeet Basra on her magnificent debut novel, Happy

   When I found the voice of Happy, it was through the prologue—the cover letter, or letter of application—which he writes to an employee in Italy, while working on a farm. From then on, the structure of the novel, with its many different fragments, its short chapters, its different voices, and its polyphonic nature, sort of came together and it really then poured and was written fast and furious. It was the only way I knew how to write the novel.

4. NYLON’s 10 musicians & bands to watch in 2024

5. An excerpt from Julie Myerson’s novel Nonfiction

6. Jeff Tweedy on Rock Criticism, the Pitfalls of Music Snobbery, and His New Book

   I take that aphorism about how music critics are frustrated musicians and turn it on its head when I think about my life, because early on I thought that writing about music would be more attainable to me. So I tried my hand at writing for fanzines in St. Louis but was too lazy to do it correctly or with any success.

7. What Booksellers Can Teach Us About Reading, Writing and Publishing

   A new essay by Will Mountain Cox.

8. The Fall’s Perverted By Language Revisited 40 Years On

   Perverted is a window into social and psychological derangement, the hysteria of a nation in limbo. The Fall might not offer us answers or happiness in return, but they’re an enlivening force. We’re more alert for our contact with The Fall, even if we can’t put into words exactly what we’re alert to.

9. It's Time to Rewrite the Rules of Historical Fiction

   Vanessa Chan on writing modern historical fiction.

10. PC Music at 10: An oral history of pop’s most influential label

11. Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Julie Myerson’s playlist for her novel Nonfiction

Kate Brody’s playlist for her novel Rabbit Hole

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These are the albums I recommended to friends, Largehearted Boy readers, and strangers the most this year (my personal metric for “favorite”).

Laurel Halo mixes acoustic sketches with ambient music to great effect on Atlas.

Water From Your Eyes’ Everyone’s Crushed is the band’s most accomplished effort yet, an album which surprises and impresses on its first spin with its hooks then sinks deeper with every listen.

Meg Baird’s been heard playing guitar in Espers and drums in Heron Oblivion and Watery Love lately, but her second solo effort Furling is her strongest musical achievement yet. As captivating as it is fascinating, this is easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

Julie Byrne’s The Greater Wings might be, from first track to last, the strongest album of the year and the best album about grief since the Antlers’ Hospice and Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me.

Joanna Sternberg’s I’ve Got Me is one of my favorite albums of the year, a collection of smart and quirky songs that pierce with their emotional depth (and humor).

Mandy, Indiana’s i’ve seen a way is one of the most exciting debut albums I’ve heard in years, both abrasive and beautiful at the same time.

Mitski impresses yet again, lyrically stunning in this country-leaning album.

Sofia Kourtesis’s Madres album is an intimate portrait boldly drawn.

ANOHNI’s first release since 2016 is powerful in its rawness and sincerity, an album almost entirely recorded in first takes.

Jess Williamson’s Time Ain’t Accidental is a modern and artful take on alt-country.

Yves Tumor has always been as interesting as they are eclectic. Their new album, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), moves easily between post-punk, rock, and dance. An unforgettable record from an exciting artist.

A Playlist Largehearted Boy’s favorite albums of 2023 (11 albums, 115 songs, 6 hours and 59 minutes)

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Largehearted Likes:

1. The Ladies of Cake Zine Are Making Sweets Cool Again
   KING-CLEMENTS: I’m looking around and I have never seen a small indie zine with this kind of whole following. How’d you pull this off? Is it luck? Is it just hard work?

   ABARBANEL: Tanya and I have both been working in this industry for a long time. I worked at Bon Appetit. Tanya’s a pastry chef and a writer in the literary community here. And a magazine is a social object. We worked with 50 people on the issue and probably another 20 on the party. Everybody brings their friends. It’s a fun place to be.

2. Pineapple Beach Club
   One of the most relaxing places I’ve ever been. Highly recommended for reading, writing, and beautiful beaches.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Fairy Tale Architecture, a series at Places Journal
   The brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer curate a series in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture.

2. March Xness’s playlist of “00s bangers”
   It features new music some some of our favs this year, including at least 4 Aussie artists: (Xness faves) Quivers covering REM’s “Radio Song,” (Xness faves) Haiku Hands, (new to us) Tropical Fuckstorm covering “Stayin’ Alive,” and new fav Angie McMahon doing an all-timer cover of “Knowing Me, Knowing You.”

3. Maris Kreizman on how to fix Goodreads
   So how to fix it? It starts with people: Goodreads desperately needs more human moderation to monitor the goings-on. Obviously, part of any healthy discussion is the ability to express displeasure — those one-star reviews, ideally accompanied by well-argued rationales, are sacrosanct — but Goodreads has enabled the weaponization of displeasure.

4. The Shoegaze Revival Hit Its Stride in 2023

   Duster’s newfound popularity is just one example of how—thanks in large part to social media and streaming—once-marginal ’90s subgenres have found a new generation of fans by swirling together into a vibes-first incarnation of indie rock. It’s all come together underneath the banner of shoegaze, a sound once synonymous with squalling guitars and blissed-out vocals that today has become a vehicle for young people to express uncontainable feelings.

5. Melissa Broder on how meditation can inform your writing

6. Paul Hanley on his new book, Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (And Me)
   Why did you choose Buzzcocks?

   Paul Hanley: Well, there’s the cultural significance of them bringing the Sex Pistols to Manchester twice, and kick starting indie music. Then there is the fact that Pete Shelley was a song writing genius who could say more in a three minute pop song than most writers could say in a whole album. But most importantly they were my favourite band between the ages of 14 and 16, which is about the only time in your life when it’s OK to have a favourite band.

7. Auraist
   We recently posted pieces on prose style by Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, Eskor David Johnson, Nicola Griffith, Anna Della Subin, and Lavie Tidhar.

8. Simon Reynolds has a new book forthcoming!
   Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines And Tomorrow's Music Today is a sequel of sorts to Reynolds' famous book Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past, which was published in 2010.

9. A new essay by Kate Christensen

10. 32 Books NYLON’s Excited About in 2024

11. How Do You Even Sell a Book Anymore?

    The enigma of how to sell a book touches all corners of literary culture. It affects what kinds of titles publishers acquire and, at the other end of the pipeline, which titles readers see the most.

    
    

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Last Two Weeks’ LHB Feature Posts:

Camille A. Collins’s playlist for her short story in the anthology Black Punk Now

Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ’s playlist for her novel Dazzling

Mike Barnes’s playlist for his book Sleep is Now a Foreign Country

Nate Patrin’s playlist for his book The Needle and the Lens

Victoria Lancelotta’s playlist for her story collection Ways to Disappear

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This year’s lists from Said the Gramophone’s Sean Michaels (my favorite year-end music list), The Quietus, and Bandcamp Daily have already introduced me to some great music, and I am looking forward to all the other lists forthcoming.

Do you have a favorite year-end music list? What was your favorite song this year? Favorite album?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Albums (5 albums, 88 songs, 4 hours and 28 minutes)

This week’s best new music includes albums from Bory, Car Seat Headrest, Wings of Desire, Jerskin Fendrix, and James Elkington.

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Largehearted Likes:

1. NYLON’s 10 Painters To Watch
   For the 2023 Art Issue, NYLON brings you the newest crop of talented and thrilling artists, those who are pushing the boundaries in the ever-evolving medium of painting — and they’re only getting started.

2. Reservoir Dogs

   I started watching Reservation Dogs because it featured music by Mali Obomsawin in its third season. Brilliantly and unforgettably told stories about young Native Americans make this one of the year’s best television series.

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. A Book Club Took 28 Years to Read ‘Finnegans Wake.’ Now, It’s Starting Over.
   Fritz Senn, the founder and director of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation, which runs two weekly reading groups for “Finnegans Wake,” described the communal readings as akin to working slowly through a religious text, often intended to be read over and over.

2. Said the Gramophone’s best songs of 2023

3. Publishers Weekly’s Spring 2024 book preview

4. Fluxblog’s “At the Holiday Party” playlist

5. Ben Lerner on the Dangers of Digital Technology

6. Bandcamp Daily’s best albums of 2023

7. An excerpt from E. J. Koh’s novel The Liberators

8. Philip Glass on Moondog, Pop Music, and Mahatma Gandhi
   BROOKE WENTZ: How would you describe your music?

   PHILIP GLASS: That’s always a problem. The ways that composers define themselves are broken down now, and that’s a really good thing. It used to be called avant-garde music. Nobody calls it that anymore. Then we called it new music, but that could mean anything. So I think of it as concert music as opposed to, say, popular music.

9. Pitchfork’s best albums and songs of the year

10. The Best Podcasts Engaged in Literary Activism

11. Beirut’s Zach Condon discusses Hadsel, the Arctic country album he made in the warmth of a funeral
    “We put on a Hank Williams record and that knocked something loose in me. It was like all my pretensions just fell away. Then I started listening to everything […] it was all these guys being like, ‘I’m lonely; I’ve got a drinking problem,’ and they’re so honest and almost ridiculously baron.”

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Ben Meyerson’s playlist for his poetry collection Seguiriyas

James Elkins’s playlist for his novel Weak in Comparison to Dreams

Essential and Interesting “Best of 2023” Book Lists

Olatunde Osinaike’s playlist for his poetry collection Tender Headed

Scott Gould’s playlist for his story collection Idiot Men

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These are my favorite books of the year, titles that inspired and informed my own writing while also being entertaining and expanding my world. Choosing my favorite books for poetry, short fiction collections, nonfiction, and novels is surprisingly emotional. I am connected to every book I read, a bit moreso if the author took the time to share a playlist for the book on Largehearted Boy.

Check out Largehearted Boy’s list of essential and interesting year-end book lists to see what others think are the best books of the year.

What were your favorite books this year?

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Albums (6 albums, 76 songs, 5 hours and 14 minutes)

This week’s best new music includes albums from Jonathan Rado; field medic; Thy Slaughter, A. G. Cook & Easyfun; Guided By Voices; Gabby’s World; and Peter Gabriel.

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Largehearted Likes:

1. This interview between artist Hannah Beerman and Eileen Myles
   BEERMAN: Well, living in what seems like chaos is the way that I’m able to get anything done. While I’m looking for things in the studio, I’m able to have really un-self conscious thoughts and solve problems. While I think I’m looking to find a brush or a pair of scissors or a bottle of yellow paint and I can’t find it, and I’m crawling through here, I’ll have found an accidental sculpture. Then I’ll put that on the wall and deal with it from there. So many things that happen are just consequences of living.

2. Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

   

   With holiday gift-giving season here, Levain’s cookies are my go-to gift for friends both near and far.
   

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Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Hernan Diaz on the books of his life
   Henry James changed my mind about the English language in my teens. Theodor Adorno changed my mind about aesthetics a few years later. Samuel Beckett changed my mind about the novel in my mid-20s. George Eliot changed my mind about the ethical implications of storytelling in my 30s. David Markson changed my mind about literature as a whole in my 40s. Joy Williams will always change my mind in unsuspected ways.

2. A Tribute To Shane MacGowan, By Tariq Goddard
   Shane’s voice, even more than his lyrics, was the ultimate instrument of light and darkness.

3. An excerpt from Travis Jeppeson’s novel Settlers Landing

4. How Cat Power Re-created Bob Dylan's Most Controversial Concert
   “Bob was always a superhero to me as a kid,” Marshall says. “I loved his writing, his sense of humor. I loved his beauty, his sense of the world. As a kid, I feel like he taught me critical thinking because of his songwriting.”

5. Sigrid Nunez on writing her new novel
   Including an animal character, even a minor character, is that inevitably—if you like animals, and most of us do—there’s going to be some warmth there, it’s built in. If I start writing out of my own observations about animals, there are two things that are going to happen. Some of it is going to be humorous, and some of it is going to be very poignant. 

6. New music from Empress Of

7. New fiction by Alena Graedon

8. Michael Stipe Is Writing His Next Act. Slowly.

9. Leslie Jamison on finishing her friend’s novel

10. Gorilla vs. Bear’s Albums of 2023

11. Lucy Yu’s thriving New York bookstore burned down. How can she rebuild without burning out?

    Yu is determined to reopen by early next year, and an outpouring of community support has allowed her to fast-track recovery efforts. An online fundraiser brought in $360,000 just days after the fire, including significant contributions from author Celeste Ng and actor Simu Liu. Yu used the funds to retain her staff, pay insurance deductibles and replace damaged inventory.

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Adrienne Chung’s playlist for her poetry collection Organs of Little Importance

Andy Mozina’s playlist for his novel Tandem

December’s Best eBook Deals

Largehearted Boy’s favorite poetry collections of 2023

Lexi Kent-Monning’s playlist for her novel The Burden Of Joy

Travis Jeppesen’s playlist for his novel Settlers Landing

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Also, thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes my way. Between work and school, this week was busy, but I appreciate all the friends and aquaintances who either sent good words or made the time to hang out and celebrate another loop around the sun. I am lucky to be surrounded by such special people.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Albums (14 albums, 188 songs, 12 hours and 33 minutes)

This week’s best new music includes albums from MJ Lenderman, Ali Sethi & Nicolás Jaar, Frog, Thandi Ntuli & Carlos Niño, The Polyphonic Spree, Juliana Hatfield, Bob Dylan, Juan Wauters, Soft Covers, Autogramm, Daniel Bachman, Free Range, Mo Troper, and Kurt Vile.

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Largehearted Likes:

1. So excited to start Justin Taylor’s new novel, Reboot.

   

2. David Small’s comics collection The Werewolf at Dusk is stunning.

   

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Largehearted Links:

1. An excerpt from Celina Baljeet Basra's magnificent debut novel Happy

2. PJ Harvey’s Tiny Desk Concert

3. Bennett Sims on writing his new story collection
   Part of the drafting process for me involves figuring out what a character’s inner monologue or mind voice sounds like: basically, what their style of thought is.

4. Brittney Howard on her new solo album
   Not everybody knows that I engineer and I produce and I play a lot of these instruments. It's not necessarily something I need people to know, but maybe for the young women out there, [I want to show], "This is something we can do. We can dominate in this field."

5. DIRT shared a new essay by Erica Berry

6. Marc Masters profiled the iconic band Meat Joy
   Meat Joy’s try-everything approach wasn’t just productive, it was efficient, too. “It made things go faster,” says band member Mellissa Cobb. “If an idea wasn’t going to work, we would know right away.” The results on Meat Joy never sound over-thought or overworked, though the band could be quite precise in its twists and turns. But all their songs have an exciting immediacy, without a lot of distance between thought and actualisation.

7. Lexi Freiman on her novel The Book of Ayn
   When I’m starting a book, often it starts with this kernel of rage or frustration. That’s the driving force to write. Usually the first draft is bad, because it’s too much of that. It gets better as you calm down and look at all sides.

8. MJ Lenderman on his favorite live albums
   What makes a good live album?

   I think it’s energy. A lot of energy goes into it. When I mean “energy,” I’m talking about, “Was the audience having fun? Was the band getting along?” Stuff like that. Because some of my favorite live albums are not necessarily played the best. The band’s not playing their instruments the best, or it’s not in tune. So I think it’s a lot of, “Does it sound fun? Do you wish you were there?” That kind of thing.

9. New poetry from Hala Alyan

10. Geddy Lee on Rush’s best songs

    At first, a lot of our instrumental factions were indulgences. This song was the indulgence of all indulgences. It was an exercise in self-indulgence. But when you’re doing a song that has lyrics and a lyrical theme you have to adhere to, there’s a very strict script you have to stick to. But with an instrumental song, you can do whatever you want, you can go wherever you want, you can indulge any mood, and you can make it all about mood.

11. New fiction by Alena Graedon

    
    

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Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Celina Baljeet Basra’s playlist for her novel Happy

David Winner’s playlist for his book Master Lovers

Deanne Stillman’s playlist for her book American Confidential

Kevin Clouther’s playlist for his collection Maximum Speed

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