ten things I love and the person they made
I believe that the things people return to in terms of music and books gives you some insight into who they are. So here's my attempt to show a little of myself.
Before we jump into today’s post, here are some editions you may have missed:
Hi friends —
I started writing this week’s newsletter while sitting in the braid shop for eight hours on Saturday. I’d like to believe that had more to do with the complexity of my style than the size of my head. It turned out to be a good place to read: I finished Start With Yourself, made good progress on Enormous Wings, and started A Harlem Wedding. It was also a good place to sit with my thoughts.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation about taste and preferences when it comes to books and music. I’ve always believed you can tell a lot about a person by what they return to: the books they reread, the albums they can recite, and the memories they bring up unprompted. Taste is never just taste. It’s biographical.
So today, I’m sharing five books and five albums that don’t just entertain me. They explain me. And as an indecisive Libra, narrowing this down was a challenge — almost as hard as the desert island book list I once asked Ingrid Haring-Mendes to make.
Five books and what they say about me
I’m Down by Mishna Wolff
If you’ve been a reader of this newsletter for a while, you’ve probably seen me mention this book tons of times. It’s my favorite book. It’s a memoir about a girl trying to fit in, trying to belong, and trying to be seen in a world where she sticks out like a sore thumb, and she learns to find humor in that. Every time I reread it, I find something new to hold onto. Some books you meet once. This one has met me at many points in my life and speaks to the gap between who you are and who the world thinks you should be.
Jazz by Toni Morrison
My first Toni Morrison book, stolen from my stepmom’s bookshelf because I wanted to read an adult book. The way she puts words together mesmerized me. The subject matter was something I had never lived through, but I felt I understood it instinctively. That was when I learned stories don’t need to be your lived experiences to stick with you. This book made me feel like I could read other people’s truths and secrets as if they were my own.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Not to be hella dramatic, but this book kind of changed my trajectory. I read it in college and wrote a review about it for my journalism class. Professor Wallace, my favorite professor ever, read it and told me to pitch it to my school newspaper, The Pioneer, and it got published. At the time, I was a conflicted broadcast major: I enjoyed talking but hated having to redo segments because of my facial expressions (still tracks), so this book and that encouragement gave me the confidence to focus on print journalism instead. If I had to sum it up, again in dramatic terms, this book helped me find my confidence. Not to mention, the story stirred up so many emotions.
The Color of Water by James McBride
This is my second-favorite book of all time. I had to read it for class, but I kept highlighting passages and copying lines into my journal. This is the book that made me a James McBride fan. With this book, I loved how he wrote about his family with tenderness, specificity, humor, and grace. He understands that the smallest details are often where love lives. Every time I return to it, I’m reminded that great writing is not just about what happened, but how closely you paid attention.
Love by the Book by Jessica George
This is a newbie book. It came out last month, and I loved it so much. What I loved about this book is how honest it felt about the kinds of relationships adulthood asks us to maintain. Friendships. Love lives. Careers. Responsibilities. The people we show up for, and the people and things we unintentionally neglect. This book made me think about how I move through my own friendships and the ways I want to be better in them. To me, this book shows me constantly learning how to show up for the people I love, and I loved Remy and Simone’s friendship.
Five albums and what they say about who I am
Christina Aguilera’s self-titled debut
This album made me a digital creator. Before Tumblr, Myspace, and Blackplanet, where you could show off your coding skills, there was Geocities, and a girl with braces, a press and curl, and glasses who had a love for Christina Aguilera. My best friend and I created a fan site for Christina, xtinaland.geocities.com, devoted to her, complete with a scrolling marquee of lyrics and nicknames. Long before “content creation” was a career path, I was already making things because I loved something. This album still hits, though I must say. Let this be your push to listen to “Love for All Seasons,” “Somebody’s Somebody,” and “When You Put Your Hands on Me” on a loop.
Secrets by Toni Braxton
This is one of the first albums I remember knowing every word to. I even got in trouble for knowing every word to it, which somehow told me she was talking about a lot. Toni Braxton was, and still is, one of my favorite singers ever, and growing up, she was everything to me. This album raised me before I understood what it was teaching. I revisit this album when I’m in a mood — any kind of mood: obnoxious and wanting to sing loud in the car with my windows down, domestic and want to clean up my house, annoyed and wondering “Why Should I Care.” Truthfully, an iconic album.
Share My World by Mary J. Blige
This is one of the albums I was raised on. It was one of my mom’s favorites, and she would play it ALL the time: while cleaning, and even now, as I type the title, I can hear the title track in my head. Some albums stop being music and become part of your story, and this is that album for me. This one became home. I think with relationships and life, my mom felt the lyrics a lot as I was growing up, and it wasn’t until I was older that I really understood the lyrics of the songs I knew all the words to.
The Listening by Little Brother
To know me is to know I love Little Brother. I’m not sure why I keep using that as a phrase, but let’s roll with it. This album is my comfort album for sure. It’s an album I can play from start to finish without a single skip. If I need to feel lighter, steadier, happier, this is where I go. I think there’s something powerful about knowing exactly what restores you, and what album can change the path of your day. This album also features one of my favorite runs of sequencing, starting with “Speed” and continuing through “The Way You Do It.” Those 8 songs are all back-to-back, so I’m just reiterating that point in hopes you’ll listen if you haven’t.
Heard It In a Past Life by Maggie Rogers
Some albums belong to a season. This one belongs to my life. I listen to some part of this album every single day — on walks, while working, in the car, at the coffee shop, through moods I can name and the ones I can’t. It meets me wherever I am and somehow always leaves me steadier than it found me. For me, this album feels like learning to trust the season that I am in.
Looking at both my book and music lists, I don’t just see favorites. I see breadcrumbs into who raised me, what moved me, what gave me language, what gave me perspective, and what steadies me now.
Maybe that’s all taste really is: a record of the things that helped make us, and the things still shaping who we’re becoming.
⚡ I’m curious: what books or albums do you keep returning to, and what do they say about you?
A little bit more for this week:
🔗 Ebanē Marquice wrote a GREAT piece on Beyonce’s Lemonade which just celebrated its ten-year anniversary. Reading it reminded me that I need to spend more time consuming the album and visuals.
🔗 I sent this to all the Sade fans in my life. As always John Wright writes such a great edition and this one is on Sade who is one of the newest inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
📚 I finished Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel on Sunday and thought it was quirky and fun, with a deeper storyline than it first lets on. I wrote about it on my Storygraph and Goodreads and believe it would be a good book for a book club discussion.
📚 If you’re curious what books should be on your radar next month, Stephanie | That Bookish Life made a pretty good list, which you can read here.
🎧 I have not stopped listening to Kehlani’s new self-titled album.
🎧 Last week I went down a full Disclosure rabbit hole after Spotify shuffled to “Omen” featuring Sam Smith. From there I went to “Holding On” featuring Gregory Porter, then “Voices” featuring Sasha Keable, which is how I first discovered her. That led me to “Giving It All” by Bondax, one of my favorite songs of 2013—which somehow introduced me to Disclosure in the first place. Full circle. Play any of those songs if you need an afternoon dopamine hit. | They are all on my SPRING playlist as well.
⚡ With the lists up top, as mentioned, it was a little hard for me to just one album or one book, but I have written about a few of the other albums that have shaped me recently, so sharing those as well:
That’s it for this week - I’ll catch you next week.
I enjoyed learning more about you from the books and albums you return to. I also really love The Kite Runner.
Thanks so much for the mention, Erin. Reading about your 8 hours in the braid shop reminded me of the time I was 17 and visiting my parents in Uganda. They lived there at the time. I got it in my head that I wanted to get braids. And yes, it took 8 hours! This was in the 90s. No phone, I didn’t even have a book with me. Sigh, I miss the ability to just sit for extended periods without doing anything.