Reading list: Why safe abortion access matters

Person holding a black "Abortion is Healthcare" sign decorated with butterflies at a protest — Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

I compiled this list a few years ago on Twitter, but I wanted to make it available here too.

If there are people in your life who don't understand the urgency or importance of abortion (or you yourself don't), here are some of the most compelling, moving, and informative things I've read on the topic of abortion over the years:

Stop It With The Fucking Coat Hangers, Andrea Grimes.

The Betrayal of Roe, The Cut.

Volunteering At An Abortion Clinic Made Me Lose Patience With The Abortion Debate, BuzzFeed.

The Abortion That Let Me Be a Mother, BuzzFeed News.

What Having An Abortion In 1959 Was Like, BuzzFeed News.

Interview With a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks, Jezebel.

Interview with Dr., The Hairpin.

The Abortion Ministry of Dr. Willie Parker, GQ.

This Is How Judges Humiliate Pregnant Teens Who Want Abortions, Mother Jones.

How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t, The New Yorker.

Stop Telling People in Red States to Move When They're Faced With Devastating Bans, Jezebel.

And the six-part Ordeal of the Bitter Waters, which is a firsthand account of how a religious woman went from anti-choice to pro-choice — in part via a close read of biblical texts.

If you or someone you know needs abortion pills, Plan C has up-to-date information to help you access them in the U.S. online.

Finally, if you’re able, please consider donating to or volunteering with a state-level abortion org; The Cut and Defector have round-ups of organizations that could use your support. 🤍

Just a bunch of gentle ways to entertain yourself without leaving your home

Image: Jonathan Howard Kemp via Unsplash

Hi, friends. Things feel pretty scary right now, and once you’ve had your fill of the day’s (or hour’s) news, you might find yourself with a lot of time on your hands and no idea how to fill it… and that boredom and anxiety can make going out very tempting. (BTW, if you’re not self-isolating yet but really could be, read Your Social Life Is Going on Hiatus and all the links within.)

With that in mind, I put together a list of things to occupy your mind and time for the next little while. (And I’ll update it if/when I think of other ideas!) I hope something on here will be just the thing you were looking for.

To read

The best things I’ve written and edited over the years

The best things I read and wrote in 2019

Old BuzzFeed posts from my team: Terri Pous, Tom Vellner, Anna Borges, and Gyan Yankovich. (And me!)

My Goodreads profile (note: I was adding pretty haphazardly prior to 2019)

Reading list: Pride edition

Just good summer reading

My favorite Ask a Manager posts

PSA: You can check out e-books from your local library through the Libby app.

This also seems like a great time to pick up Elin Hildebrand novels!

To listen to

Here are my all-time favorite podcast episodes

More playlists to have on for background noise, including a new one for March + bonus fun bops

To watch

Jane the Virgin

Cheer

Black Mirror (Just “San Junipero” and “Nosedive” for now)

Our Planet (because Netflix pulled Planet Earth recently)

Ken Burns’ Prohibition

Steven Universe: The Movie

Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé

Pen15

Nailed It

Jeopardy!

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I Love Lucy

Are You the One? Season 8 (It’ll repair some of the rot caused by Love Is Blind)

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Feel Good on Netflix

To do*

*As long as you already possess the necessary supplies/ingredients

Make delicious use of all your beans and pasta. (Related: Chickpea pasta, lemon butter pasta, and simple recipes to make when your life is in shambles.)

Make friendship bracelets. Also consider this list of creative hobbies to try when everything is awful and you're not okay.

Pour your anxious energy into a tiny home project that will leave you feeling accomplished.

Use YouTube tutorials to teach yourself music video choreography.

Try Yoga with Adriene or a Ryan Heffington IG Live dance class.

Do a puzzle.

Get on the Marco Polo app — it’s a fun/easy way to keep in touch.

Read How to Solve The New York Times Crossword, download the app, and try your first Monday puzzle. (Tip: Doing all the old Monday and Tuesday puzzles in the archives is a great way to get better very quickly.)

Make friendship bracelets. Also consider this list of creative hobbies to try when everything is awful and you're not okay.

Journal daily.

Create DIY/art projects/collages with whatever supplies you have! I’m probably going to dust off my Cricut at some point this weekend and make weird/silly shit with it, and/or make a zine.

Be a good neighbor.

And remember to call/FaceTime friends and family to stay connected, especially if you (or they!) live alone — it really does help! 💛

🍑

Reading list: Race, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism in America

James Baldwin quote on light blue background that begins "White people are astounded by Birmingham. / Black people aren't.” and ends with “between Birmingham and Los Angeles.”

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I put together a list of the best writing (and podcast episodes) about white supremacy, race, and anti-Black racism in America that I’ve come across in the past several years. These are pieces that affected me, helped me better understand my own history and our current moment, and made me more equipped to discuss race and racism. They are the things that I most want white people to read.

Canonical texts

These are, to me, the foundational texts for this topic — the things I feel everyone has a duty to not look away from, to read in good faith, to fundamentally get.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Amazon; IndieBound).

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Amazon; IndieBound).

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (Amazon; IndieBound).

The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic.

Segregation Now, Pro Publica.

Reading list: Gun violence in America

It’s another grim Monday in the United States. I woke up at 5:45 a.m. today after having a nightmare about guns, so I put together this list (which I’ll continue to update) of the best articles I’ve read over the past several years about gun violence and the gun industry/lobby/laws in America.

To Keep and Bear Arms, The New York Review of Books.
This is probably the best thing I’ve ever read on gun violence in the United States, because it puts the Second Amendment in linguistic and historical context, and explains all the ways it’s been perverted by lobbyists. The article is currently behind a paywall, but I happened to save the entire thing to Evernote back when I first read it, which you can access here.

The Gun Industry's Deadly Addiction, Rolling Stone.

What Bullets Do to Bodies, Highline / Huffington Post.

The Gun Control Movement Needs Its Own Pro-Life Fanatics, Gawker.

The NRA Supported Gun Control When the Black Panthers Had the Weapons, The Root.

Thou Shalt Kill, Gawker.

A Drumbeat of Multiple Shootings, but America Isn’t Listening, The New York Times.

Stop Calling Children’s Gun Deaths “Accidental”, Slate.

How Credit Cards Are Used to Finance Mass Shootings, The New York Times.

The Florida Airport Gunman Shows How Domestic Violence Predicts Mass Killing, The Cut.

America’s gun problem has everything to do with America’s masculinity problem, Quartz.

Things More Heavily Regulated Than Buying a Gun in the United States, McSweeney’s.

🕊

Just good summer reading

Close-up photo of the novel Valley of the Dolls being read on the beach

When I think about the best summer reading, I think of really entertaining books that you’ll enjoy enough to want to binge read (see also: this great NYT article). But I don’t think they have to be pure fluff! To me, a great summer read should feel less like eating a ton of candy, and more like eating a delicious meal made up of of assorted dips, juicy fruits, delicious crostini, a couple of amazing pasta salads, some great Trader Joe’s appetizers, and sparkling water. It’s satisfying and filling (even if/when it’s light), and consuming it brings real pleasure.

So with that in mind, here are some of my favorites!

Fiction

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

I haven’t read this book in a few years, but it’s one I think of as best in class when it comes to light summer reads. Reading it feels like watching a great Nancy Meyers movie; it’s entertaining and goes down smoothly and easily.

Buy it for $9.70+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Every summer, I get what can only be described as a craving to read Valley of the Dolls. The book is pure camp and I love it. It also has one of the best elements of a great summer novel: rich people and their rich people problems. I might actually start reading it again tonight because it’s been a few years!

Buy it for $7.99+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

The Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante

When I think about these four books — My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child — I just feel such genuine fondness and appreciation for them. (By the way, I actually didn’t really get into My Brilliant Friend until the last few chapters, but then I was all in.)

Buy My Brilliant Friend for $9.32+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Euginedes

The first time I finished Middlesex, I felt like I'd just read a memoir, not a work of fiction. It’s one of my all-time faves. Also, I had heard the audiobook was better than the book itself, which I found preposterous but…the audiobook is truly excellent.

Buy it for $9.99+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar

This was one of my favorite books of 2015, and reminded me just how good short story collections can be. (Also, short story collections feel very summery to me and I don’t know why.)

Buy it from Amazon for $5.10+ or find it at a local bookstore on IndieBound.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Most of this book takes place in the summer and it has loads of “classic novel you read on summer break between junior and senior years” energy.

Buy it for $10.80+ from Amazon or find it at a local bookstore on IndieBound.

A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand

I went back and forth on including this one because I think it’s fluffier than most of my other picks…but I also really enjoyed it (and The Rumor and Beautiful Day, two other Elin Hilderbrand novels I’ve finished this week) and I think Hilderband is so good at what she does that it’s worth your consideration!

Buy it for $7.99+ from Amazon or find it at a local bookstore on IndieBound.

Non-fiction

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

I’ve read almost all of David Sedaris’s books, but Me Talk Pretty One Day is probably my all-time favorite; I think it has the highest concentration of David Sedaris lines/anecdotes that I think about a lot. Also: the audiobook version (which David Sedaris narrates) is fantastic — so good for road trips.

Buy it for $10.38+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

It took more than one recommendation from Terri for me to finally read this book, but once I did, I had to admit: it’s amazing. Like, couldn’t put it down amazing; I’m happy to report I’m now a James Garfield stan.

Buy it for $12.99+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou

By now, you’ve surely watched or listened to or read something about Elizabeth Holmes, but this book is the OG for a reason. It’s gripping (and way better than the podcasts or documentaries have been) and totally worth it.

Buy it for $12.13+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

This book reads like a novel and, despite being about the Civil War, is a bit lighter than you might expect (while still being very informative). If you’re the kind of person who’d prefer to spend their summer vacation taking trips to Gettysburg and the like, this one’s for you.

Buy it for $11.99+ from Amazon or find it at local bookstore on IndieBound. 📚

🍑

Reading list: Pride edition

In honor of Pride Month, I put together this list of the best and most memorable content about the many shades of LGBTQ2IA identity, lived experience, and history that I’ve read over the past several years. It’s a mix (in no particular order!) of moving, funny, sweet, sad, infuriating, and informative content, and is meant for both queer folks and allies.