A summer book is a state of mind

This summer, I’m reading Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout, again. I’ve read it about 50 times already and plan to read it as many more times as it takes before I get either a repetitive strain injury of the imagination or Stockholm syndrome and am forced to move to the coast of Maine to be a burden to myself and others.

There is nothing I love better than a good linked short-story collection, unless that linked short-story collection is about an idiosyncratic New England narcissist with all sorts of relatable personality disorders, and sideways compassions, and big, wrong feelings. It’s funny and excruciating and brilliant and hurts my feelings enormously every time I read it. I’m totally obsessed. If you don’t trust me, you can take Oprah’s word for it.

I’m also reading , the first book of short stories by Irish writer Wendy Erskine. Like Elizabeth Strout, her stories are both mundane and compulsive at the same time — they have that same depth of