Books
What I'm reading
Books on the nightstand, in the bag, and next in line.
A Young Girl Reading, c. 1776 · Jean-Honoré Fragonard · National Gallery of Art, Washington
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was a French painter of the Rococo — known for wit, lightness, and scenes of private pleasure. This one, painted in a single sitting around 1776, shows a young woman absorbed in a book: yellow silk, a tilted head, and the complete unavailability of someone lost in a page. That's what a good book does.
Currently reading
Dan Brown at his most propulsive. The Langdon novels work because they make you feel like the cleverest person in the room — right up until you aren't. A book you pick up meaning to read one chapter and put down an hour later.
Next
A memoir in fragments — Pakistan, memory, food, and loss braided together in prose that refuses to be straightforward about any of it. One of those books that people who've read it tend to bring up unprompted years later.