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Greenwich village , Harlem, and seaside France just after WWII. sad and beautiful and tragic and even a little bit funny. about a friend group in NY — containing black, white, queer, straight, and married people , men and women, girls and boys, actors, writers, jazz musicians, and housewives. all figuring out how why and whether they love each other when American segregation, misogyny, and homophobia are structures of daily life that make love difficult or impossible. Deals with race relations and bisexuality but in a way that is mostly narrative-driven, not theoretical. read it if you love the tv show Mad Men or the book Giovanni’s room. Or bisexuals
Jan 23, 2024
Related Recs
The way Baldwin writes really makes you feel it. I highly recommend if you like being messy or wonder what it would be like to be a bisexual man in 1950s paris.
Apr 11, 2025
🙃
slow reader, so all books are long... but i loved this! captured the same loneliness as camus' the stranger, but much more tender and emphatic. adored the early meet-cute stuff as well :(((
Mar 22, 2025
Lyrical and tender, this is a short book but you’ll want to read it slowly simply because every page is packed with something devastating or gorgeous...or both
“For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not.”
Jul 8, 2024
Top Recs from @mysocalledwife
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not to be indelicate but… they’re nice ! why get rid of tthem ?? let Them stay!!!
Feb 26, 2024
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This is a key rec for any context in which you need to burn a few hours by yourself, especially at a bar, coffee shop, restaurant, etc. where you dont just want to be staring into space. Bring a bunch of postcards or stationery and stamps to the bar, camp out at the best people-watching table in the corner, order a little drinky, and write out some postcards about your day to your friends. (pro tip: you probably have their addresses saved in Google maps)
This is one of my favorite things to do when traveling alone...kill several birds with one stone by 1) sending sweet little trip updates to the besties back home 💌 2) burning a few hours when you don’t know what to do with yourself 🕰️ 3) looking busy while enjoying a bev in a nice place 🍸 4) getting off that damn phone for a bit 📴
Feb 5, 2024
🗑
dont treat your shit like it’s disposable! . My laptop is old as hell and doesn’t work unless it’s plugged into a wall, but you know what I am proud that I cared for it like the finely arranged clump of precious metals and plastics that it is instead of like something I have to upgrade because there’s been 10 new versions in the last 8 years I’ve had it. In fact it makes me a fucking saint. I also always hang dry my undies so they don’t stretch out and get holes in them from heat damage. Things will last if you invest just a modicum of care into them..additionally it feels really nice to be able to point to a hideous Victoria’s Secret thong on the drying rack and say “I’ve had that for 14 years”. Also probably in 2 more years gen alpha kids will point to my laptop and call it “vintage”, so that’s something to look forward to. Ok Rec over
Feb 2, 2024