The Happiest Hour – 5/11/19

This whirlwind week began with frigid conferences rooms and ended with rosé with authors in a cozy East Side bar. Who can complain about that?

No one, which is why I will complain instead about these dismal days, when the pollen taking up residence in your airways is second only to the permafrost coating your apartment, because it is too warm for heat but not warm enough for air-conditioning.

Here’s what you missed this week:

 

Cheers,

E

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The Club Hasn’t Heard From Sylvie In A While…

…you know. Sylvia Plath. Our fearless leader. Or, as we call her, that b*tch who tells us what to read and where to meet, but never shows up.

Let’s just say it’s been a while since we’ve had a meaningful conversation with her. We’ve seen plenty of posts about her latest collection of letters on the Bookstagram, receiving high praise (and rightfully so). But imagine our surprise when I opened my LitHub newsletter this afternoon to find this: “LIVING AT SYLVIA PLATH AND TED HUGHES’
‘POETICAL’ BOSTON ADDRESS,” an essay penned by a MFA student at my alma mater about unknowingly renting an apartment in the same building Sylvie and that other guy inhabited during their stint in Boston.

The building looks divine on Google Street View. It’s on a quiet, narrow street blocks from the Common, lined with charming bay windows that politely jut out over the sidewalk. You know you would be paying with your firstborn to live in a full-sized apartment in that building, as opposed to the shoebox the author of the piece lives in. While I read this article, I kept thinking: why didn’t Sylvie give us the heads-up first? If there is prime real estate for the taking, should she not have told the Club before letting someone with an astounding mastery of metaphors take up residence? It makes me sick (that she can write better than me, not that she scored a studio in Beacon Hill. You do what you have to do).

So not only did Sylvie auction off that adorable side table (it will always come back to the table), she denied us the perfect space where we could have put it. We’re going to need to talk to her. AM is planning the trip now.

–E

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The Happiest Hour – 11/16/18

The Club is drinking with Ryan Merriman (of Luck of The Irish DCOM fame) tonight. Jealous? We thought you might be. So here’s something that’s (almost) as good: a week’s worth of weird reads. Pour yourself a drink and enjoy.

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The Club Sharpens Its Pencils

Today is the first day of school in NYC, meaning all those empty seats on the subway during this sweaty summer will now be filled by pre-pubescents who have yet to discover the magic of anti-perspirant. Instead of their stench, however, I will be remembering the sweet scent of fresh looseleaf in a binder so obnoxiously bright, I could have landed a plane with it. Back to school shopping was my favorite; I once asked my mother to go to Staples the week after school ended. Color-coding my notebooks and folders by class helped me start the school year on the right foot, along with consulting my friends on their schedules as soon as the envelopes hit our mailboxes. A part of me would be lying if I said the long weekend didn’t make me want to pop into the nearest stationary store for a new notepad, or investigate who would also be taking AP Lit.

Instead, I bring you the next best thing: back-to-school reading, which will definitely put you in the collegiate state of mind, if you weren’t there already. Lit Hub pulled together a comprehensive list of campus novels to transport you to ivy-covered halls, or wherever you wished you had gone to school. No recommendations of your own, you ask? Well, the greatest campus of all would be Hogwarts, so I would certainly suggest dusting off your copies and heading to Platform 9 3/4, especially as Harry and the gang are celebrating 20 years. But why would I need to provide any additional recs, when Lit Hub has proposed THIRTY titles to suit all your desires?

For example, want to read about campus cults? Sign up for The Secret History. Feeling like this is the year you’ll reach #relationshipgoals? Possession, My Education, and The Virgins cover a variety of directions your relationship could go in. I’m devouring the copy of Eligible I picked up during our book brunch, so I’m definitely looking to score a copy of Prep (and if you haven’t, read EW’s interview with the author about her debut novel, and how that cover came to be). Tana French has also been on my list for a while; I’ll be pushing her closer to the top of my TBR list with The Secret Place.

Have a favorite not included on this list? All you teacher’s pets can leave them in the comments section.

 

–E

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