Cati Porter

2008. My first book launch, seventeen years ago. I remember seeing this photo for the first time and thinking I looked fat. Now I see it differently. Why can’t we just be generous with ourselves at the start, why only in hindsight? *sigh*

Tomorrow! This is where I’ll be. Come on out.

Call for Submissions An anti-fascist poetry anthology

I’m reaching out with a one-time request I believe is important. You might remember me from my PEN days.

My social reach has shrunk off Meta. I’m hoping you'll find this worth sharing. @carolee.bsky.social
@catiporter.bsky.social
@robbienestor.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/renpowel...

As a mom of two Gen Z young men, I have been blown away by how my sons and their friends say I love you to each other and basically can’t do anything without one another. Facetime in the bathroom. Constant communication. Their abundant and very public affection gives me hope.

So far this year I have read 9 books and have two significantly in progress. This is how I’m coping with America becoming an absurdist reality TV show. I don’t know any other way to do this. How are you managing?

Taking a knife to this heart seems almost criminal. But I did it. And it was good. (Ally’s Valentine to the household, plus homemade cinnamon rolls with pink frosting.)

Brilliant.

Just finished reading these two memoirs back to back. Highly recommend. Read Grealy first, then Patchett. It is the story of a friendship. It is a medical memoir. It is a memoir about the prize & fellowship circuit. It is a love story. But don’t just read one without the other.

Sometimes conversation / is too fast / for my slow thoughts / so words / fall from my mouth / like a rockslide / bury the thought beneath

Hip the moon / suck light through a straw / ground all the birds tonight / the earth needs the weight of their song

What kind of reader are you? One book at a time, cover to cover? Or several at once, like me? Right now I have three books actively in progress: one paperback, the memoir Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy; audiobook Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro; and eBook How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell.

Thanks, Marian. We just lost his brother in December so this one is a gobsmack on top of a gobsmack. Pets aren’t people but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

There are so many worse things in the world but I’m having a hard time making peace with the fact that our time is limited. Cancer sucks. He is 16.

I’m glad you have him. Hold him close.

I was on a waiting list for months for the Lessons in Chemistry audiobook. A friend loaned me the book but I never got around to reading it. Thought I’d take the shortcut.

Listened until it became evident that the characters were wholly unbelievable.

Returned it same day.

Anyone else read it?

I’m looking forward to reading these next (but must finish Yiyun Li’s Dear Friend first).

memoir rec list on a separate spreadsheet. It helps to have a list when I’m in a bookstore. My last trip was to Half Off Books in Fullerton where I found one on my list, Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty, about her friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy. Nearby on a shelf? Lucy Grealy’s memoir.

I joke that I’m a book junkie but there’s truth to it. I am always on the lookout for my next read, even if some of them are fails, and generally have at least one physical book in progress along with an audiobook.

I have been reading more memoir than anything else lately and started compiling

I’ve been sticking with the audiobook and am into it now, about halfway through. I’ve had to let go of completely following every detail and instead am just letting it flow. It will be interesting to “read” it in hard copy too. There are definite pros and cons to each mode of consumption.

Yes! Mood plays a role.

Ordered! 😍

I do not have a copy! I will look for that one.

I was wondering. I will try that. Thanks, Jessica!

(con’t) so I want to cut myself some slack, but I also wonder if I’m giving up too soon.

How do you all know when to push through a book and when to throw it back? Do you force yourself to finish everything?

Will I end up loving Mrs. Dalloway if I pick it up in hard copy instead?

(con’t) right now, and then I thought I should finally read Virginia Woolf so checked out Mrs. Dalloway, which I really wanted to love but am having trouble following.

All of this to say I’ve read 54 books this year: 18 physical books, 8 e-books, and the rest audiobooks. And some have been intense

(con’t) I can tolerate. If I can’t get into it right away, or if the book seems too ‘easy’ it’s not worth my time. Or maybe I’m just giving up too soon.

This week alone, I’ve checked out and returned a story collection called ROAR, Butler’s FLEDGLING (I love Butler but I just can’t do vampires

(con’t) or eating or whatever. Like consuming books through vision, I sometimes drift off and have to back up. But one big difference is the narrator. If they are theatrical at all, I get annoyed. Just read it like a normal person! This isn’t drama club.

Lately I’ve become more finicky about what

I have stacks of “real” books by the bed, two of which I’ve begun reading this week—and maybe only one that I will finish because I’m just not finding the first one compelling enough.

Which brings me to audiobooks. These are obviously easier to consume because I can listen while driving or shopping

I was with you until the word “cunty”. There are lots of reasons, and if there weren’t, I wouldn’t call anyone in pain a cunt.

#BlueSky, we have pie. (Baked by one of my kids.) Also, I vacuumed the cat hair off the couch covers, finished @appletwigli.bsky.social’s Wednesday’s Child and started Crying in H Mart. And I submitted an essay to @longreads.com.