Fangirl Friday

It’s tiiime! This week has been a doozy.

But it’s a beautiful Friday morning, and the time has come for the monthly-mid-monthly Fangirling post. It’s always so difficult to narrow it down, between current reads and listens (and I’ll be the first to own it here, no shame - a smidge of reality tv). Humans are incredible creators, and that is a gorgeous problem.

So without further ado, here are two things that I am loving recently.

Let’s get it.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

A brief summary from The Booker Prizes: One evening, 10-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean émigré, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned. 

Stunningly beautiful writing. Characters that leave you equally obsessed and unsettled. So much suspense that I have dog-eared several pages in a row (several times) attempting and failing to find a stopping point. This is the first novel by Choi that I have read, and already I am itching to read everything else she has written. As I have begun to take my own writing more seriously, my appreciation for and awe of writers like Choi has grown exponentially. I am in awe of her talent and emotional intelligence.

Oscar Peterson

Jazz pianist and composer. Soundtrack to my morning for the last few months. He has a fantastic album with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen called “A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra”, on which they cover 12 of Sinatra’s greatest hits. This one has a special place in my heart. It’s worth two listens.

Until next time, 

R