Too Early for Resolutions?
plus Damon Young on Kyrie Irving, the best beers of 2022, best albums of the year lists, and much more
As the year ends, I am happy to say goodbye to 2022 and start 2023.
I don’t make official resolutions, but am always looking to change my life for the better in big ways and small. More reading is always a goal, as is more writing. Wrangle the unfinished essays in my writing folder. Get a handle on the novel I started. Wrap up a couple of interviews.
Finding time is easy for the writing and reading projects, creating quality time is more difficult. Less television (often just a distraction) is literally the biggest takeaway from next year. Often I will have something mindless in the background while I read (lately 90 Day Fiance), but the video and sound steals from my concentration.
Spending more quality time with music is also a goal, giving albums and singles all my attention instead of them being relegated to background sound.
Cooking more is high on my list for 2023. I love to cook and bake, but have put that passion on the back burner (figuratively if not literally) the past couple of years. I see much ice cream being made next year.
Are you making any resolutions for the future?
Largehearted Likes
The New York Times’ 20 most popular recipes of 2022
One of my resolutions this year is to cook more, and this batch of recipes is weighted toward ease of preparation and flavor.
Damon Young’s thoughtful piece on Kyrie Irving
…now you have a man without an intellectual anchor, armed with the confidence of decades of positive reinforcement of one particular type of unrelated genius, and backed by thousands who see him as an unusually principled martyr instead of an intellectually immature man lost at sea.Alex Shephard & Daniel Strauss on Morocco’s surprising World Cup performance
After Morocco’s victories there are, inevitably, a flood of images and videos from not only from Casablanca and Marrakech, but also across the Arab world, Africa, Europe, and even America. Fans celebrate in Cameroon and in Libya, but also in Belgium, France, and England—countries where, incidentally, many of Morocco’s players were born. The Moroccan team’s embrace of Palestine—its flag is frequently paraded around grounds after victories, alongside Morocco’s striking green star—has only deepened the sense of solidarity. “I didn’t expect this. It’s spreading the word and showing that Palestine is not just a political issue, it’s a human issue,” said Ahmed Sabri, a Palestinian fan told the Associated Press in Doha over the weekend.The best horror movies of 2022
My partner will be out of town over Christmas. One of the things I plan to do is catch up on the year’s horror films. Any suggestions?
Beer and Brewing’s best beers of 2022
I haven’t tasted any of these beers yet, but am already making plans for future side trips to many of the breweries.
Rachel Bossett’s vegan desserts at Dirt Candy are unforgettable, I can’t wait to taste her new chocolate line.
The Bubble
Last weekend we erected our clear plastic bubble in the backyard. Complete with furniture, electricity, music, and a heater, it’s our winter space for reading, writing, and birdwatching.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
One of my co-workers, a legendary New York City bookseller, routinely hands me a couple of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups when I enter the bookstore in the mornings. To a person like me who has altered his diet for health reasons (wheat bricks & soy milk for breakfast, a salad for lunch, a balanced dinner heavy on vegetables), this is always appreciated.
Writing prompts, advice, and book reviews, this newsletter from the talented author has it all.
AM Homes on books and reading
I have often returned to the collected stories of John Cheever and Richard Yates. They were formative in my literary development for their ability to use language to identify and explore what was hidden under the surface: for deftly illustrating ambivalence and hidden tensions, the unspoken fear of failure and the split between the public and private self.
Largehearted Links
Michael Hann on the current music memoir, biography, and history book boom.
There are probably a few reasons for this glut, suggests Pete Selby, founder of Nine Eight. “A lot of it is generational,” he says – hence new books by 90s acts such as Jarvis Cocker, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite and the Charlatans’ Tim Burgess “whose thoughts are starting to turn to getting it all down on paper”. Plus, “the calibre of music publishing has never been stronger than over the past 10 years – the bar is really high, which acts as its own self-fulfilling virtuous circle”.
An interview with Yuki Tejima, the person behind the @booknerdtokyo Instagram account.
It’s rare to find bilingual book accounts on social media, was it always your intention to write in both languages? If I’d been living in New York City when I started my account, it probably would have just been in English. But because I’m living in Tokyo and I’m writing about a lot of Japanese books that aren’t translated into English, I had to think about who would read the posts. If I wrote in Japanese as well, I could talk about Japanese books with people who read Japanese books in Japan. It was a natural choice.
Joshua Barone’s profile of Yo Yo Ma and Ma’s nature performance series
The audience, so casually assembled, didn’t know that it was taking part in Ma’s latest project, Our Common Nature, an intentionally broad and searching initiative that explores ways in which we can heal, and enrich, our relationship with the world around us. It has taken him to the Grand Canyon and Acadia National Park, to the Great Smoky Mountains and Hawaii; as it expands beyond national parks, he hopes that it will also lead to Antarctica.
Lauren Groff’s review of Brigitta Olubas’s Shirley Hazzard biography
A group interview with Bret Easton Ellis
DENNIS COOPER: A nerdy but sincere question: Please describe, if you can, what makes a sentence you write in your fiction acceptable to you? And same question about your paragraphs if you’re feeling ambitious. Thanks!ELLIS: That word-by-word it stays true to the narrator’s voice and the overall style is a reflection of that voice as well. I prefer a clean direct sentence, preferably unadorned, and that applies to the long run-on sentence I lean toward, if the book at a certain point calls for it. As for paragraphs, it’s a feeling, nothing technical or intellectualized. If it looks good and sounds good and works for me: That’s it.
Last Week’s Largehearted Boy Features:
Erin Langner's Playlist for Her Essay Collection "Souvenirs from Paradise"
Graeme Macrae Burnet's Playlist for His Novel "Case Study"
Janice Obuchowski's Playlist for Her Story Collection "The Woods"