Monday Miscellany: Across the long arc of a life

Notes from July 6 - 12

Jul 13, 2026

Friends! We made it to a new week. Today has been super grey and rainy and almost chilly?! and I’m so excited to go be cozy at home with my cats and my person and some soup. I hope you are holding up okay and looking forward to good things ahead.

Can I tell you about what I’ve been reading and watching recently?

The week in books

Contrapposto1 by Dave Eggers (June 9, 2026)

I’m far from being an Eggers completist, but I’ve enjoyed almost everything of his I’ve read and I was excited to see a new novel from him this year! I went into this one knowing as little as possible, but turns out it’s one of my favorite genres: a friendship saga spanning decades. The story opens on young Rob, who goes by Cricket to distance himself from Robert, his mom’s horrible boyfriend. Cricket loves to draw. As he is starting to expand his skills and horizons through art lessons with an older woman in his neighborhood, he encounters Olympia, a girl slightly older than him who shares his creative leanings. They strike up a friendship, and from there we follow them as they weave in and out of each other’s lives over the next fifty years.

This is, definitively, a book about art—all the forms it takes, its ability to foster human connection, the effect it can have on someone across the long arc of a life. Eggers is exploring a lot of big questions here, like: Is there a difference between contentment and lack of courage? How do we know if we’re truly happy or if we’re simply scared to pursue something greater (and what does “greater” even mean)? Just because a person is good at something, does that mean they should do that thing for a living? In the creative life, what do we owe ourselves and what do we owe our audience? How do hard things like addiction and abuse play into the development of an artistic voice? Does art school matter? Is art even something that can be taught?

This is also a love story, but not necessarily a romance; the ending felt correct, inevitable, and deeply sad. Though I didn’t like it as much as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the flavor is similar.

Sisters of the Midnight Sun2 by Rebecca Wright Stevens (July 14, 2026)

The publisher categorizes this as true crime, which is technically accurate, but it reads more like a memoir of Wright’s time working as a public defender in Utqiagvik, Alaska, which happens to include a case of double homicide. During the period covered in the book, she is assigned to represent Amos Lee, a member of the Native community who was out on a weekend pass from rehab when the crime occurred and is widely suspected to have committed it. This isn’t a strict run-down of the investigation and trial, though. We also experience the rest of Wright’s life in Utqiagvik—interactions with other clients, a potential romantic relationship, the widespread addiction that she watches tragically play out around her, the extreme Arctic cold,3 and even a harrowing up-close encounter with a polar bear. I enjoyed the ride, but did find the ending a bit frustrating in its open-endedness. I’d recommend this more for the memoir and cultural aspects than as a work of true crime, as I feel like fans of that genre might be left unsatisfied by the lack of definitive answers.

Right now and upcoming

I’ve just started a novel I bought on my birthday trip to Richmond earlier in the year, and later today I plan to pick up the first in a mini “catch up on Stacks book club selections” effort.4

What are you reading right now?

This week on screen

Widow’s Bay (2026)

This miniseries expertly combines comedy and folk horror into something that felt legitimately unsettling and scary at times, but also had me cackle-laughing. What a feat. We’re on a spooky island that apparently doesn’t let you leave if you were born there (big yikes), whose mayor is desperately trying to increase tourism and make it the new Martha’s Vineyard as he simultaneously roots out and attempts to eradicate the evil plaguing the town. What could go wrong?5 I can’t fully explain this, but the vibes are kind of Parks and Recreation meets Yellowjackets. The series ends in a tantalizingly open way; there’s enough ambiguity to encourage theories and re-watches, but not so much that it made me mad. Do recommend.

Easy A (2010)

Ugh, remember in the late 1990s and early 2000s when this type of loose literary adaptation was everywhere? 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, She’s the Man (The Taming of the Shrew, Emma, and Twelfth Night, respectively)? I miss those days. They simply don’t make ‘em like they used to. Anyway, this is The Scarlet Letter, kind of, but it’s also just a really satisfying teen rom-com. Emma Stone is perfectly cast as Olive, the Hester Prynne-ish main character who develops a reputation purely based on rumor, and Amanda Bynes is in peak form as the leader of the school’s clique of annoying Christians.6 And Stanley Tucci plays Olive’s platonic ideal of a dad, just the right blend of dorky and funny and supportive; the scenes at Olive’s house with her family are some of the strongest. The whole thing is so quotable and nostalgic and fun. I will now have “Pocketful of Sunshine” stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.

Me & Earl & the Dying Girl (2015)

This movie is like The Fault in Our Stars7 meets Be Kind Rewind,8 with a sprinkling of Mean Girls9 and a side dish of ANOTHER EXCELLENT MOVIE DAD to continue the accidental streak I just realized I’m on.10 There’s a girl who is dying, and a new friendship that develops right before she does, and a lot of stop-motion animation, and some significant Personal Growth™ on the part of the protagonist, a high school senior named Greg. There’s also a lie in here that really got me the first time I watched it, so just trust the title, okay? It really is what it says on the tin.

Haiku round-up

This poetic form, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern, originated in Japan. I’ve been writing one each day since the beginning of 2024 as an exercise in structured creativity. Here are this week’s poems:

Monday, July 6