The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2023
by LaToya Jordan
Books:
I started off 2023 with two novels that will stay with me for a long time: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and The Change by Kirsten Miller. These were perfect to read back to back because they spoke to each other and could’ve been in the same universe. In both, women channel their rage, transform it, and use it to change their situations.
In Nightbitch,
a stay-at-home mother solo parents her two-year-old during the week. She’s
angry with her husband who’s only home on the weekends from work. She is an
artist, or was one, because she hasn’t been able to make any art since becoming
a mother and being primary caretaker. She starts physically transforming at
night, into what she thinks is a dog. As she begins to accept the animalistic
nature in her, she makes dramatic changes that lead her to being able to be a
mother, wife, and an artist again.
In The Change, three middle-aged women experiencing changes in their lives: empty nest, widowed, divorce, career failings – all of that while starting menopause. But as they experience the change of life, they also come into powers. Working together, they use their powers to solve the murder of a teenage girl.
As a perimenopausal mother-writer, these books hit me in the gut. What I wouldn’t give to have more time to work on my craft and how I’d love to develop superpowers and channel my hormonal rage into something that could help the world.
Other books and stories I enjoyed reading this year:
Books:
Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker - (I read this one with my tween daughter!)
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings
Jackal by Erin E. Adams
Bad Moon Rising by Luisa Colón
Bleak Houses by Kate Maruyama
Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell
Stories:
“Light Spitter” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah in his short story collection Friday Black. I read most of the stories in this book but read this particular story five times. It’s about a college campus shooter and his victim as ghosts.
“Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge” by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Uncanny Magazine
“Clown’s Balloons” by Sam Rebelein in Bourbon Penn
Streaming:
Almost all of my favorite series, except for Black Mirror, are book adaptations.
Netflix:
Bodies
I love time-travel and mysteries. This series was a slow burn of confusion in the beginning but by the end I was hooked and wanting more. It follows four detectives in four different timelines, two set in the past, one in present day, and one in the future.
Shadow and Bone, Season 2
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
Sweet Tooth, Season 2
Black Mirror, Season 6. My two favorites of the season were Episode 1, “Joan Is Awful” and episode 5, “Demon 79.”
"Joan Is Awful" is about a woman who discovers that the hottest new show on a popular streaming platform is based on her life and it reveals secrets about her life to her boyfriend, colleagues, and everyone watching. One of the biggest things I learned from the episode is that we all really need to be reading the terms and conditions before we agree to purchase a product or services.
Demon 79 is about a demon who needs to help the protagonist make three sacrificial murders to save the world. It is supernatural horror, which is a deviation from the sci-fi and technology aspects of Black Mirror, but still holds up a mirror to the social and political issues we face.
Hulu:
Black Cake
Podcasts:
2023 was the year I finally gave
podcasts a chance.
“Shame Spiral” with Ely Kreimendahl is a shameless plug, I was featured on this podcast this yea). Ely speaks with guests about shame; it’s funny, it’s deep. She asks thoughtful questions and has a beautiful voice for radio. One of my favorite episodes of the year was “Embarrassing Myself In Front of Jon Hamm” with Mara Wilson.
I also listened to “Scamanda,” hosted by journalist Charlie Webster. This
podcast is the story of Amanda C. Riley, who scammed her friends, family, and
town into believing she had cancer. I love that this podcast uses an actor to
read the blog and social media posts written by Amanda.
Just when you think you’ve learned everything about Michael Jackson, you find out you don’t know it all with “Think Twice: Michael Jackson” from journalists Leon Neyfakh and Jay Smooth.
Finally, true crime podcast “Anatomy of Murder” with Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and
Scott Weinberger. Of all the true crime podcasts in the world, I enjoy this one
the most because I prefer a journalistic style to true crime and because of the
expertise the hosts bring to the show: Nicolazzi was formerly a NYC prosecutor
and Weinberger was a former deputy sheriff.
LaToya Jordan is a writer from Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in Anomaly, Literary Mama, Shirley Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Raising Mothers, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, and more. Her flash story “Offering” was a spotlight story in Best Small Fictions 2021 and named in Wigleaf’s Top 50 2021. Her essay “The Zig Zag Mother,” appears in My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After and another essay, “After Striking a Fixed Object,” published by The Manifest-Station, was notable in Best American Essays 2016. She is also the author of a poetry chapbook, Thick-Skinned Sugar. Aqueduct Press released her novella To the Woman in the Pink Hat as a volume in the Conversation Pieces series earlier this year Follow her on Twitter @latoyadjordan.
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