Jessica Woodbury

I have been a little obsessed lately with the idea of rereading. Not the doing of it, but definitely the idea of it. There was a period when almost everything I read was something I read before. I mined the same books on my shelves over and over again. Now

The thing is, books are not making me happy the way they used to. It is not books' fault. It is not my fault, really. It is not even isolated to books. What's happening is my primary pandemic coping mechanisms are strained beyond what they can bear. Not that reading

I was on a date with a woman and she said that she was going to see a musical that coming weekend. It was one I'd seen before and my first instinct was to respond, "Oh yes, I enjoyed that." But after I spoke I stopped and wondered. "Wait," I

Let us just start by saying that I am not a social media addict. In these sad times I have not even been on Twitter very much. But even I am not immune to the little adrenaline hit of a like. As Twitter is falling apart at the seams, these

It is my last kid-free evening before the holiday stuff all kicks in and I am beyond delighted to tell you that I have a late addition to my Favorites of 2023 book list. This doesn't happen often! Last year my best list was set by the end of August.

I always feel obligated to do a Best Books list. But this year I am not really going to do it. I have written about basically all of them here already so it would be repetitive. You are welcome to look at my list or previous issues of this newsletter.

A question I have started to ask lately is about the relationship between silly and fun. A lot of stories are silly. And that is fine! Silly can be extremely enjoyable. The question is, if you're being silly are you letting us have fun with it or not. The thing

The first time I read Atonement was a few years after its release, in the early 00's. It was a deeply formative time for my tastes, when I was finally allowed to enjoy things even if they weren't endorsed as acceptably uplifting and consistent with the religious principles I was

I would like to start by saying that I do not hate read very often. I don't have the patience for it. And actually a good hate read is even harder to find than a good joyful read. Joy itself is satisfying, hate isn't. For a hate read to work

So you know how a few weeks ago everyone was losing their minds over the new Persuasion adaptation on Netflix? The one that is in period costume but where no one speaks in a period way? I never watched it so I don't have much of an opinion but it