Book Date No. 09

A trip to Three Lives and Co. with writer Roxane Gay.

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Hinge (they took me and Roxane on a book date!). Beyond that, I’m not affiliated with Hinge or any of the books mentioned in the post.

Things have been quiet on the book date front for the past few months but I’m excited to share my latest book date with writer Roxane Gay. We were connected because of Hinge’s No Ordinary Love campaign, where they made a zine based on six couples that met on the app. Roxane’s is called Work in Progress and charts the early days of Chanti and Najib who were able to figure things out after a bout of shaky communication. It was sweet. I liked it! Read it here.

For our date we went to Three Lives & Company in the Village–a first for me!--and talked about S.A. Cosby as a master of the craft, Edith Wharton, and home libraries. Read about our date below!

Can you state your name for the record?

Roxane Gay.

What do you do?

I’m a writer.

Tell me about the books that shaped you.

Even though in retrospect they're very problematic and racist, Little House On the Prairie, that series. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and it was one of the first books I ever read where I saw a girl from the Midwest. I loved the adventures. I loved the detail. I just would lose myself. I've read those books probably a hundred times each. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, which is my favorite book. Beloved by Toni Morrison, which is a confounding but absolutely masterful book.

Every book date I’ve spoken to this year has mentioned Toni Morrison, which, I guess speaks to the power of her writing.

A range, man. She can do anything. Fiction, nonfiction. She just has the skill. I admire it. She just seems interesting.

What’s the first book you remember reading?

Probably Little House on the Prairie.

What’s the first book you read this year and the most recent one?

The first book was Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin. The last one I finished was Audition by Katie Kitamura. It comes out next year and is excellent.

Where do you get your reading recommendations?

Well, as a writer, I get a lot of advanced copies, and so I have a lot of access to galleys. I get a ridiculous amount of publicity emails from publishers, publicists and so on. So that's not necessarily recommendations, but that's how a lot of books get on my radar. And then the usual places. Online, what people are talking about, Lit Hub, Electric literature. Friends. Sometimes I'm walking by a bookstore and I see a display that looks interesting. An author I liked who I didn't know had a new book come out.

Who's the person in your life with the best book taste?

I mean me, honestly.

What's a book you've been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to yet?

The Three Body Problem. I really enjoyed the show on Netflix. It looks incredible and also very long.

What's your favorite love story?

Because I love Age of Innocence so much, Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska. My favorite book about love is The Brutal Language of Love by Alicia Erian. It's a collection of short stories. It's not romantic. It's, I think, a very authentic portrayal of love.

What was it like making a narrative out of a real life love story for Hinge’s No Ordinary Love?

Oh, that was fun. A lot of what I do is pretty dark and depressing because I write about feminism. It was really interesting to talk to a young couple. I am 50 years old, so dating now is very different from any sort of dating experiences I've had. I've never really used the apps or anything like that. So to learn about how they came to find each other. They're not even living together yet, and they've been together for a year and a half. It was interesting to see that every relationship is different. And I was reminded that there are some people who never move in together, but they seem very happy and are both very creative people. The guy, Najib has a day job and also makes music, and then Chanti is a stylist among other things. She’s bi-coastal between here and LA. I admire how they've made it work and how they learned to communicate with one another. Early on, they were perhaps spending a little too much time together, and one of the things that he told her was this is his first long-term relationship. He had to learn how to be a boyfriend. She actually was not interested in teaching a man how to be in a relationship. But in the end, she was like, okay, this guy might be worth it. I found all of those details very compelling, and tried to do their story justice as best I could.

What I really like about the project as a whole was the fact that there's a million ways to make a relationship happen and everybody does it in a different way. Absolutely.

I think we are now starting to interrogate what modern love looks like and recognizing that the fairytale thing isn't realistic. I think it's really interesting that Hinge invested the time and energy in a project like this.

That's actually why I called it Work in Progress, because they are works in progress romantically speaking, And that's okay. Najib & Chanti are putting in the work, they're making progress. They laughed a lot during our conversation. They seem to genuinely like each other. I always enjoy seeing that in couples because so many of our cultural narratives about love are that marriage and relationships are a slog, and they're a lot of work. And I'm like, oh, you're in the wrong relationship. I actually find marriage delightful. It's awesome. Every day I'm like, what are we going to do today?

What I really admired about ‘Work in Progress’ was that miscommunication is part of it, and that doesn't necessarily discount the validity or the value of the relationship or make it suddenly bad. I was charmed by them.

I was too.

How would you describe your reading taste?

Eclectic. I read a lot. I read very omnivorously. I read across genre. Of course I like what I like and I’ll read very deeply in what I like but I’ll read almost anything. I just like reading. It’s fun, it relaxes me. I am always surprised by what writers are capable of, so I just enjoy it.

Okay onto the books we bought. Why these?

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 edited by S.A. Cosby

The Best American Short Stories 2024 edited by Lauren Groff

The Best American Essays 2024 edited by Wesley Morris

Best American Short Stories because I love to pick those anthologies up every year. I actually edited Best American Short Stories 2018, and it was an incredible experience. I've been reading these anthologies for as long as I can remember. This year there were some really interesting editors. I'm a real fan of SA Cosby and his crime writing.I would just say his writing in general. Same with Lauren Groff, and Wesley Morris. I knew they were going to make interesting selections.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Han Kang recently won the Nobel for Literature, and it was kind of unexpected in that she's relatively young in the pantheon of Nobel winners, but eminently deserving. The Vegetarian is actually one of her books that I haven't read yet, even though it's probably one of the more well-known ones. So I thought, well, since I'm here and this book is staring at me, why not pick it up?

Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology edited by Rigoberto González

I'm a fan of Rigoberto Gonzalez's poetry. He is an incredible poet, and so I am excited to see what kind of anthology he's been able to assemble. I started looking at some of the poems in the store and they were really interesting, so I'm looking forward to diving in.

What’s your reading routine like?

I read every day. I try to read in the morning, and I also read right before I go to bed, and also at many points in between, but I absolutely do read every night before going to bed. I do crossword puzzles. I find that it's just a great way to sort of wind down, and so yeah, that's definitely a big part of my routine.

Are you a vacation book person?

Yes.

What’s your strategy?

I don't necessarily have a strategy. I have to read a lot for work, and so oftentimes I take all of the things that I might need. I always take five or six books for pleasure because I don't know what I'm going to be in the mood for. But it could be anything. Spy novels, thrillers, international intrigue, stuff like that—and of course, a good romance novel goes a long way. I read on Kindle for travel because I don't want to have to carry a bunch of books.

How do you store your books?

I have a library at home in LA. I do read on the Kindle but everything I have on my Kindle, I buy a physical copy of at my favorite local bookstores to kind of even out the karmic balance. Also because I like physical books. I actually have a library in both houses, but the one in LA is very big, and then I have a bin of books next to my bedside in both cities. Of course there are books all over the house, but in neat piles. You can see the floor.

What’s your hottest literary take?

It's not even that hot–but–there should be a lot more transparency around the realities of publishing. So many debut authors set themselves up for disappointment when they don't understand the realities of how most books will sell a thousand copies if they're lucky. You generally hear about the books that sell very well, but you don't hear about the half million books that don't. That's normal and there's no shame in it. You wrote a book, which is a very difficult thing to do, and a very wonderful thing to do. And so I just wish that we could talk more about sales numbers and advances and how very few people get six figure advances.

What do you use as a bookmark?

I read so much on the Kindle but I get bookmarks all the time. With hardbacks I use the book flap—very sort of built in. I'll use a piece of paper that's nearby. I will shove a pen in the pages. I'm not precious about it. I just need something to hold my place so I can get back to it.

Do you use any reading accessories?

Before the Kindle I used to have a little book light with the little AA battery that you hook on your book so you can read in the dark. I love to not have the overhead light on.

The last thing that you Googled?

How to beat Giovanni in November 2024 for PokemonGo.

What are you thinking deeply about right now?

The election.

It’s dark sided.

It’s very dark. I'm just thinking, what is going to happen to me? Trump seems very vindictive, and I have written very critical things about him. I don't think I'm on his radar, but you just never know. You have to be prepared for anything. More importantly, I am very worried about undocumented Americans. I'm worried about trans people. I just don't understand why you would attack this community. They're so vulnerable. I mean, they're incredible and strong and all of those things, but my God, it's like 1% of the population. What the fuck are we doing? I'm very ashamed of anyone who would suggest that we should leave someone behind. So that's really what's on my mind right now. How do we figure out a way out forward?