Solitude and reading

Today was farmer's market day, which almost always means this dinner, made with things we got at the market with the addition of a few herbs from the backyard. Sourdough is our once a week indulgence (we eat gluten free during the rest of the week) and it always tastes so amazing. This one is olive and rosemary!

I think that Digital Minimalism had more impact on me than I originally imagined. I keep thinking about the chapter on solitude and was emboldened to leave my phone behind for most of today, though even so I still managed to go beyond the 30 minutes I had allowed myself on Instagram. In the chapter on solitude, Cal Newport talks about how important it is to make time to be alone with our own thoughts. He isn't just talking about a social media hiatus, here. He's talking about podcasts, music, streaming shows...all of the things we use to busy ourselves. Sometimes I even feel virtuous about this kind of media consumption. It feels like multi-tasking, like I am able to do several edifying things at once. But, as Newport tells us, it adds an edge of anxiety and loneliness to our days when we don't take the time to be quiet and look inward. You can read more about the effect of constant connectivity here on his website (he links to Jean Twenge's article, which outlines the gravity in stronger terms yet).

We stopped by the library and I spent a good deal of time casting about for a novel. I've only read a handful of novels in the past ten years that held any interest for me, and I was just browsing blind. It always feels like the literary books are too dark and the lighter reading books are too light for me, as well as being full of tropes I'm not interested in. I checked out Anita Brookner's Making Things Better, which I read while sunbathing this afternoon. I'm five chapters in and I'm not sorry, so that's progress! It reads a bit like Stoner, which I hated when I read it, but has really stuck with me, and not in a bad way. I also brought home Dreams of Distant Shores (fantasy/folktale short stories), Young Woman in a Garden (more mystical-ish short stories), and The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter (a sort of fanfic/homage to classic science fiction). I am seeing as I write it out that there is a theme there! I suppose I was hoping that I could break the too dark/too light cycle by sticking to fantastical stories. I read so much non-fiction. I need some kind of fictional breakthrough.

The last piece of fiction that I read and truly loved was probably The Orchardist, which is dreamy and folkloric but also raw and heartbreaking and beautiful. I don't want to say too much about it, because I read it blind on a recommendation and it was revelatory, and I hope you have the same experience! What is the last book you read that really captured you? I'm all ears.