Thanks to @aaknopf for the free book - I read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell this past week while on a mini vacation in the mountains. I don’t normally really like historical fiction, but I love Maggie O’Farrell, so I wanted to read this anyway. I’m so glad I did, I loved it!

Something about O’Farrell’s writing gets me invested right away, even if I know the outcome, and in this case, we know the outcome from the beginning: a husband and wife, Shakespeare and Agnes, have three children - Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet dies, and a few years later, Shakespeare writes a tragedy, Hamlet. Hamnet and Hamlet are the same name, interchangeable.

This was one of those books that had me googling everything about the time period - late 1500s/early 1600s England, all the towns that were named, the old London Bridge (did you know there were buildings and vendors ON the bridge?!), falconry, what is a kestrel, who WAS Shakespeare, really, and of course, the plague.

If you are like me, and you feel meh about historical fiction, I’d still give this one a shot. A favorite of the year for me, for sure! 

I read The White Card by Claudia Rankine yesterday, all in one sitting, for my #toreadinaday book of the weekend.

This play depicts a dinner hosted by a white couple who want to buy the latest collection of art by a Black artist. I found it really powerful in that just by portraying a dinner party and the imagined conversations in the first act, I was left with so much to reflect on. I’m left thinking about white saviorism, appropriation, microaggressions, white people commodifying blackness, and more. There is so much to unpack in this slim work. I would have loved to see it live, but reading it is still so impactful. If you haven’t read Rankine yet, what are you waiting for?