The actual context and wording of the argument varies and is worth reading about, if only to be armed with how it’s being deployed, but putting aside the nuance meant to provide cover, it still is what it is. Cruel. Selfish. Vile. Even as I’m dumbfounded by this latest fuckery, I am in awe at the dastardly genius of it. What an impressive display of moral jiujitsu. Use humanity’s innate tendency toward compassion against itself. If a pesky conscience gets in the way of behavior that harms broad swaths of people, why actively halt the cruelty when you can just rebrand empathy as weakness, as something that holds us back from the greatness we’ve been promised. Yikes.

Nothing says ‘we’re fucked’ like a movement to crap on compassion. I’m no scholar and I have nothing to add that’s more eloquent or insightful than what the experts have already said, but seriously, WTF? Imagine being such a colossal POS that you mastermind a strategy of weaponizing compassion. As if anyone lives in such a bubble of privilege that they never will need the compassion of others.

That’s not how communities work.

As David French writes in the NYT piece linked above, “Empathy stands as a firewall against bigotry. But it’s more than that — it can also free you from bigotry. Understanding another person’s experience (and imagining if it happened to you) softens our hearts and creates human connection.”

In the face of such vileness, what if we double down on compassion and empathy? With apologies to Eleanor Roosevelt1, no one can force us to be douchebags without our permission.

One of the ways to double-down (in addition to, ya know, just continuing to be empathetic and compassionate) may be to read more. There have been many studies devoted to the idea that readers, especially readers of fiction, are more empathetic. The idea, of course, is that immersing yourself in the experiences of imaginary characters and feeling the feelings that skillful authors wrest from us exercises our innate compassion and empathy. Through stories, we step outside the bubbles of our own lived experiences. If there weren’t truth to this, why would books be under such attack? Clearly, certain groups believe that books and reading can be harmful. (Not bombs, apparently, but books. Got it.)

So as we head into summer reading season, I hope we’ll all do our parts to stick it to the pro-cruelty crowd.

Among my recs this month is the book I mentioned briefly last month, Robert Isaacs’s It’s Hard to Be An Animal. Introverted, cautious Henry and extroverted, daring Molly follow the spark of their impulses and emotions all over Manhattan, aided by Henry’s sudden ability to hear the animals around him talking. This becomes problematic when Henry hears some foul-mouthed rats bragging about bodies being dumped in an abandoned subway tunnel. Naturally, he and Molly investigate. The talking-animals conceit sets up a fun dynamic for, among other things, considering what the animals in our midst might really think of us. Abandoned bodies aside, the story has a lot of heart. As an antidote to the current ambient douchebaggery, it also emphasizes the value and importance of our communities. No matter how much someone tells us to ignore the stirrings of our weak, woke, compassion-laden hearts, our shared humanity is much harder to ignore when we interact with it every day. I think most of us want our immigrant neighbors to be safe, want the females in our lives to have agency over their bodies, want the neighbors’ children to be able to go to school without fear and violence. It doesn’t feel like a far stretch to then extend that concern to, say, children in Texas. Or Africa. Or Iraq. If that makes us weak, so be it. Tell it to my heart. (My achey-wokey heart. I just don’t think they understand.)

It’s hard to be an animal indeed.

Serendipitously, my other anti-anxiety rec this month also takes readers into the mind of an animal. Annie Hartnett’s The Road to Tender Hearts is a delightful road trip book with humor, warmth, and a precocious cat who’s a bit of an angel of death (but in a fun way?!). It’s about a flawed divorcee named PJ who finds himself the caretaker of his estranged brother’s grandchildren and embarks on a road trip with them from Massachusetts to visit an old friend in Arizona. Hijinks, and at least one roadside attraction, ensue. The characters are all a little bit broken, hurtful to each other in ways that feel true to their spiritual fractures, and ultimately stronger for being part of their odd little community. It’s an excellent book, for summer or otherwise.

One other reading rec to share:

In keeping with the subject of empathy and how we’re strengthened by compassion and our communities, I highly recommend my lovely friend Anne’s Substack Ordinary Holiness. To crib from her, it’s about “the ordinary holiness of showing up for one another. About the ways humans used to live. The long echo of lost villages. . . . About what it costs when we stop receiving, and when care stops circulating.” She was involved in one of the most phenomenal examples of empathy I’ve ever seen, as she and a group of dear friends cared for a fellow mom in their circle who was battling cancer. Theirs was the kind of deep act of compassion that’s a direct refutation of the “war on empathy”, and, if it’s possible, makes those fools look like even bigger d--ks than they already do. This is what being a compassionate human means. Not selectively deploying empathy only when it furthers an agenda.

That’s enough out of me. Happy reading, and power to the compassionate people.

All this is to say that aging has its silver linings, or something. To that end, I’ve been thinking about some other delights of aging. One of them is the simple joy of anticipation (which is, of course, the prune of the emotions). The onslaught of summer reading fills me with the kind of giddy anticipation that I used to reserve for new notebooks and a freshly minted Trapper Keeper. Sure to be on many summer reading lists is a fun novel I just finished called Alan Opts Out, by Courtney Maum. It comes out at the beginning of June, but thanks to a dear client who passed along an advance reader’s copy, I got to dive in early.

It’ll be the only book out in June with a man on the cover walking a lobster on a leash. If there ends up being another book featuring a lobster on a leash, color me delighted. (Delight being, of course, the Junior Mints of the emotions.) If you liked Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble (highly recommend) or saw the limited-series adaptation, you’ll love Alan Opts Out. The premise: When an aging ad guy is forced to reassess his life—and his life’s work—after a pitch goes awry, he begins to see the corrosiveness of our cultural obsession with mass consumption. The book is delightful–witty, insightful, surprising, and just a touch absurd, in the best way. Courtney writes with a fantastic flair for sarcasm, which for me is a love language. Is there a slightly stressful element to reading it, knowing how much stuff is crammed into my own house? Maybe. Is it also a little too on-the-nose for comfort sometimes? Also yes. But nobody is getting their faces eaten off, so the stress feels reasonable, maybe even necessary. Nobody said self-awareness wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

What else I’m reading: I don’t want to be obnoxious here, but I also got early access to Elizabeth Strout’s new book The Things We Never Say, which comes out May 5 (thank you, Random House publicity team, for not being put off by my puny operation and granting me a digital download).

I’ve read many an Elizabeth Strout book and consider her a patron saint of TAABC even if she doesn’t know it. And I admired and enjoyed reading this, but I can’t completely say it’s anti-anxiety. About a high school teacher named Artie who experiences a reckoning that shifts how he perceives his world, it is a deeply moving consideration of what we reveal about ourselves to those around us, and the cost of what we don’t. Elizabeth is an expert at picking the just-right details that lay her characters bare, and this book is no exception. But I did find it sad and in some ways maybe too real, which probably has more to do with me and with the state of the world these days. But if you love her, which I do, and you don’t mind a little melancholy, it’s a good (and quick) read.

I’ve followed that with another upcoming release, It’s Hard to Be An Animal by Robert Isaacs, and it is a perfect chaser.

I’m still reading and it doesn’t come out until May 19, so I’ll have more about it next month, but it’s about a guy, Henry, who suddenly can hear the animals around him talk, and they all (so far) are a bunch of potty mouths. Even without having finished it yet, I’d recommend this solely on the basis of the Shakespearean insults hurled at each other by two pugnacious beta fish. Subway rats spewing f-bombs? Yes, please!

If you have summer reading recommendations of your own, send them my way.

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Hope your spring reading has been as delightful as mine! Until next month, may your prunes stay unctuous and your animals keep their thoughts to themselves.

Enter The Book of Delights by Ross Gay—a collection of short “essayettes” about the many small moments in life that we can easily overlook but that exist as tiny treasures to savor, if we take the time to notice them.

Ross Gay is an accomplished poet (he’s written three books of poetry, as well as the Delights follow-ups Incite Joy and The Book of (More) Delights.) His poet’s heart is abundantly clear from how he can hold forth on something as simple as the delight of a high five from strangers and make it sound like a secret for living well.

In this, the month of sloppy weather and existential inefficiencies (really, March? Tax prep, car inspections and losing an hour of sleep??), this book is in fact a delight. There’s the toddler who charms an airplane’s worth of passengers, the wonder of found objects, the delight simply from some of the vignettes’ titles (eg., a vignette called “Get Thee to the Nutrient Cycle!”, another titled “Among the Rewards of My Sloth…”, which is an A+ ode to not getting shit done).

Part of the delight of delights, Gay writes, is the impulse to share those delights with others. He describes the birds that fly around inside the Detroit airport, and how they prompt an impulse to nudge your seat neighbor to bring them into your found joy. Maybe, he speculates, that particular impulse suggests that “our delight grows as we share it.” What a perfect and wonderful way to resist the madness of March: to seek out delights and share them with those around us.

In that spirit then, a few other delights:

• On Substack, artist and author Austin Kleon’s (Steal Like an Artist) weekly roundup “10 Things Worth Sharing”: In a recent issue, he leads readers to the observations of writer Christopher Brown on the cognitive and spiritual dissonance of “trying to process so much beauty and tragedy at the same time.” Sometimes there’s subtle delight in just discovering that someone else has given voice to what you’re experiencing.

• News from Yale School of Health that with the right mindset we can still improve as we age (the abstract from Geriatrics is here, a TL;DR from Nautilus is here). According to Nautilus, “participants who possessed more positive age beliefs were significantly more likely to see their cognition and physical condition improve.”

• A new newsletter from the New York Times, which is definitely on theme and promises “ideas, rituals, and cultural artifacts to add joy to your days”, called the Good List.

• The simple fact that our pets are animals—animals!?!—creatures who not too long ago lived out in the wild, and now take up our spot on the couch. And they let us house, feed and love them.

• An endearing nugget at the heart of a story I researched once about the wild horses of Corona, on N.C.’s Outer Banks, wherein one horse in particular had learned to trigger the automatic doors of the local grocery store and dined gratis in the store’s produce section.

• Also, otters! (Big otter fan here.) Next month sees the publication of a book all about otters called Romp!—which, I just learned, is the name of a group of them. The author is represented by one of my fabulous colleagues and the fact that there are otters in the world is its own delight.

I hope you find some delights of your own, whether in books or out in the world!

Another follow-up to last month’s post: One thing that I didn’t make clear initially, which I’d like to remedy now, is that TAABC is a book club in name only. That is, there’s no required reading, no class participation, no book reports. This is all just for funsies, no muss no fuss*.

(*Because I like a good rabbit hole, I googled this phrase to confirm that it was from an ‘80s shampoo commercial, as I recalled. It is not. Google tells me it’s from a commercial for Uncle Ben’s. And now I just see a perforated boil-in bag of 80s feathered hair, which is a very different vibe. There will be no book reports required for this observation either.)

Another note about the book club’s conceit: When I say anti-anxiety, I don’t mean that the books won’t have plot, won’t have tension, won’t have heavy emotions. Stories fall flat without those things, of course. Conflict is part and parcel to being human, ergo it’s at the heart of compelling stories. Also worth noting, things that feel anxiety-producing to me may not inflame someone else’s agita (and vice versa). So as with anything subjective, a recommendation here may not be everyone’s idea of an anti-anxiety read. And that’s okay. We’re all free to move along with our lives without ever touching said book, no muss, no fuss. (Boil-in bag not included.)

My book rec this month isn’t likely to be stress-inducing, unless witnessing characters walk and talk makes you anxious.

David Nicholls—the author of One Day, which was turned into a movie with Ann Hathaway that I haven’t seen, and a Netflix series, which I loved—has a way with witty characters and pithy dialogue. You Are Here is not trying to be anything other than what it is: a charming story about two people walking England’s Coast-to-Coast Trail and getting on each other’s nerves. This is what happens when a gifted writer with (I assume) a great sense of humor puts words in the mouths of the bookish and socially awkward. Whereas in real life they might be boring as hell, or spend the whole book ruminating on something stupid they said three years earlier (why yes, I am projecting just a little), in You Are Here they’re on to the next opportunity to accidentally offend. It’s about relating, relationships, and the hard work of trying to be human.

The other thing I liked about You Are Here is the travelogue element, which might be a nice added treat for anybody who is mentally done with winter but can’t physically escape it. Mind you, the book takes place in England, so you’re not going to be transported to a sunny tropical beach. But also, it’s England, which is charming in its Britishness and made me want to add the coast-to-coast trek to my bucket list. If I ever make it there, I’ll be thinking of this book. And isn’t that the ultimate magic trick of a good book?

Another candy heart for the housebound:

If you’re stuck inside because of the weather, trying to stop doomscrolling, and/or have ten minutes to spare, might I recommend the New York Times’ art challenge. It’s an opportunity to study, for 10 uninterrupted minutes, a specific work of art, which they change every month. They provide a bit of context, a few things to take note of in the piece, set a timer, and turn you loose. I have yet to make it the full 10 minutes, but I like the challenge, as well as the dip into a little bit of art history. It’s informative and meditative and a nice little escape. Give it a try:

https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/10-minute-challenge

Last thing for this month: With the new year, a heap of new books entered the public domain. You can learn about which ones here:

I haven’t done this yet, but it could be fun to pick one, just to mix up ye ol’ TBR. Maybe I’m on a British bender, because I’m eyeing Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale. (I mean, I like both of those things.) Wikipedia describes it thusly: “Maugham exposes the misguided social snobbery leveled at the character Rosie Driffield, whose frankness, honesty, and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative opprobrium.” Nothing says ‘fresh as a 1930s novel’ like conservative opprobrium. Who wants to read with me? I recently learned about openlibrary.org, which has a few free copies to borrow.

Until next month, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

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For reasons both sentimental—she lives in my home state of North Carolina (yay for the success of the home folks!)—and thematic, The Correspondent is a perfect inaugural recommendation for TAABC. As far as charmingly irascible protagonists go, Sybil Van Antwerp is *chef’s kiss*. At this point in the book’s fairy tale–like arc, I probably don’t even need to summarize it, but just in case, it’s told through Sybil’s sometimes blunt, sometimes beautiful, always engaging letters to family, friends and famous authors. It delivers just the right kind of wallop. Virginia Evans is masterful at wresting tension, humor, pathos and heart from the epistolary form, and now I wish I had a Sybil to correspond with. This may set the standard by which all other TAABC books will be judged.

Oldies, Goodies Etc…

I had a vision when I started this newsletter. I wanted it to look less like a newsletter and more like the front matter of a magazine from the days of yore (the 90s). This vision was … hampered. I could not force the tools in Substack to bend to my will. So I MacGyvered (Macgrubered?) it, designing the whole thing in Canva, to satisfy my own stubbornness, then went low-fi and took a screenshot, which I’ve embedded here. This may be the beginning and the end of that fancy. Time and coding skills will tell. At any rate, I envisioned the newsletter not being bound to just new releases. I wanted to fan girl over anything that struck my fancy and kept my blood pressure low. Ergo, part two of this, the inaugural installment of TAABC, for your consideration:

And Finally… Some Book Nerds

(crunchy lil extras that won’t break your teeth)

Have your own zen favs? Send ‘em my way: theantianxietybookclub@gmail.com

*Who the hell am I? Besides being unashamed to make an outdated Real Housewives reference (alas, the Atlanta season that gifted us with ‘tardy to the party’ is the only season I can quote), I’m also a professional nerd who works in book publishing. You can expect more outdated pop culture references, very few insights into publishing, and a lot of em dashes. I am not AI. Beyond that, pay no attention to the nerd behind the curtain.

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These days, the real world feels like a lot. Props to those whose idea of escape is to dive right into the belly of the beast. How do you do it, fans of thrillers, horror, true crime, gory fantasy or any other high-wire reading experience?? Some of us seek less frazzling fare. That doesn’t mean books that are boring. No sirree. We still want great writing, compelling characters, engaging narratives, ideas that make us go hmmm. We still want to be transported, just not to an emotional hell.

If this sounds like you, welcome to The Anti-Anxiety Book Club. Here be reading recs for the frazzled, the over-stimulated, the seekers of stories that don’t need a Xanax chaser. Book love is, of course, subjective, and (**hat tip, Primus**) they won’t all be zingers. But hopefully you’ll find some great reads and a place for your weary psyche to peace out. You don’t even have to like yoga. Nary an om required.

Feel free to share your own recs too. Happy reading and welcome to the club!