Memoirs by Leslie Jamison and David Sedaris, a short story by Caki Wilkinson, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, and extras

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Of course I’d heard babies were always waking up. But this now seemed like a joke. How did anyone get them to sleep in the first place? Every time I put the baby in her bassinet, she cried and cried. She slept only when she was being held. 
—From Splinters, a memoir by Leslie Jamison (Little, Brown and Company, 2024). If you have access to it, Hachette Audio released an unabridged audiobook, narrated by the author, which is excellent. In January 2024, The New Yorker included an edited excerpt from this memoir in the Personal History section.

Here are a few links to items referenced in the memoir, to accompany you as you read and/or listen:

- A clip from "Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable," the episode of the PBS show American Masters about American street photographer Garry Winogrand (Season 33, Episode 6). Many of his photographs are available online if you search his name.

- The Maggie B., a children's picture book by Irene Haas (Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster, 1975).  

- "Inside the Apple," a poem by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch, from The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (University of California Press, 1996).

It's several hours after my sister's wedding reception and I'm sitting next to Dave, the hotel bartender, on the loveseat in his room, which looks just like my room but backwards. We're watching Cash or Crash and missing the questions that would make us rich. Our outer knees are touching. 
—From "A Little Bit of a Scene," a piece of flash fiction by Caki Wilkinson, The Hopkins Review, web feature.  

They don't seem to be expecting me. The man in the ticket booth checks the list of names for the hundredth time. He's just ushered out a group of women, all with the same muscular build, their hair scraped back. . . . I'm here for the costumes, I tell him again. In the end he turns away, stares at a television screen. He probably doesn't understand English, I think to myself. I sit down on my suitcase, try calling Leon, the director, the one I've been corresponding with. My phone battery flashes low, only three percent left. I hear myself laugh nervously as I look around for somewhere to charge it. 
—From Vladivostok Circus, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter Books, 2024). Originally published in French by Éditions Zoé (2023) and in English, in the United Kingdom, by Daunt Book Originals (2023).   

Bonus book to read again: 

As with pot, it was astonishing how quickly I took to cigarettes. It was as if my life was a play, and the prop mistress had finally shown up. Suddenly there were packs to unwrap, matches to strike, ashtrays to fill and then empty. My hands were at one with their labor, the way a cook's might be, or a knitter's. 
—From When You Are Engulfed in Flames, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2008). This segment is from "The Smoking Section," a lengthy essay that closes the book and which appears on pages 240-323 of the original hardcover. (The cover of the paperback being sold now is decidedly different. The original cover, which I really like, incorporates Van Gogh's Skull with Cigarette, 1885.) Also, if you have the option, I always recommend listening to David Sedaris read his books himself and/or seeing him read live. 

Short fiction by Tove Ditlevsen and Hiroko Oyamada, and novels by María José Ferrada, Alina Bronsky, and Elisa Shua Dusapin

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She closed her eyes and heard Hanne's voice from the kitchen. She was sitting drinking coffee with the children, fresh and in good moods, while the record player from her son's bedroom babbled some vacuous pop melody. All day long there was a cacophony around this difficult young woman, whom Helene was constantly on the brink of firing, though it hadn't amounted to anything yet. 
—From The Trouble with Happiness, a collection of short stories by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman. This book was originally published in Danish as Paraplyen (The Umbrella) and Den onde lykke (The Trouble with Happiness) (Hasselbalch: Copenhagen, Denmark, 1952 and 1963). The English translation was first published in Great Britain by Penguin Random House (2022) and in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022). The collection is also available as an audiobook, narrated by Stine Wintlev, from Macmillan Audio.

This segment is from my favorite story in the collection, "The Little Shoes" (pp. 142-152 in the hardcover). It was first published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review. 

My other favorite, "The Knife," was first published in English in the Fall 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review. This was the last issue of the journal published in our original format. "The Knife" appears on pages 95-103 of the hardcover version of The Trouble with Happiness. 

Ramón climbed up the Coca-Cola billboard near the highway one Monday. That evening, as the sun was disappearing behind the hills that surround the housing complex, he decided he would stay. Even though it was late, the air was still warm. It was a heat that seemed even drier in this patch of the city, which had missed out on its share of pavement and trees because there had not been enough to spare.
—From How to Turn into a Bird, a novel by María José Ferrada, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer (Tin House, 2022). This book was previously published as El hombre del cartel (2021).

In Germany, Grandmother took me to the pediatrician. Actually, she explained to me on the way, this was the real reason for our emigration: to finally be able to take me to an upstanding doctor for treatment, one who could give hope to me—and more importantly, to her—that I might survive into adulthood, even if it meant Grandmother would have a millstone around her neck for decades.
—From My Grandmother's Braid, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2021). This book was originally published in German as Der Zopf meiner Großmutter (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln, Germany, 2019). 

I arrive at my grandparents' place to find my grandmother seated on the floor in the living room surrounded by her Playmobil figures. She's removed all their hair. They smile vacantly.
—From The Pachinko Parlor, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2022). This book was originally published in French as Les Billes du Pachinko (Éditions Zoé, 2018). First published in the UK by Daunt Books Publishing (2022). 

When we got to Urabe's place, the old shop sign was still up over the door: WORLD OF WATER—RARE AND EXOTIC FISH. It was too dark to see anything through the window. There was some kind of plastic sheet hanging up on the other side of the glass. Saiki pushed the button on the intercom, then we went around the side and up the stairs to Urabe's apartment. 
—From Weasels in the Attic, a short book containing three linked stories by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd (New Directions, 2022). This segment is from the first story, "Death in the Family," on p. 5 of the paperback. The stories in Weasels in the Attic were originally published by Shinchosa Publishing Co., Tokyo, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. 

Poetry by Danusha Laméris and Marie Howe, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, nonfiction by Ann Patchett, and short stories by Eudora Welty

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At night, my husband takes it off
puts it on the dresser beside his wallet and keys
laying down, for a moment, the accoutrements of manhood. 
—From "The Watch," a poem by Danusha Laméris, The American Poetry Review, Volume 45, Number 06 (November/December 2016) and Best American Poetry 2017. 

That he wrote it with his hand and folded the paper
and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it with his tongue
and pressed it closed so I might open it with my fingers. 
—From "The Letter, 1968," a poem by Marie Howe, The New Yorker (March 21, 2022), p. 59. 

He arrived bundled up in a winter coat.
          He put his suitcase down at my feet and pulled off his hat. Western face. Dark eyes. Hair combed to one side. He looked straight through me, without seeing me. Somewhat impatiently, he asked me in English if he could stay for a few days while he looked around for something else. I gave him a registration form to fill in. He handed me his passport so I could do it for him. Yan Kerrand, 1968, from Granville. A Frenchman. He seemed younger than in the photo, his cheeks less hollow. I held out my pencil for him to sign and he took a pen from his coat.
—From Winter in Sokcho, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2021). It was first published in French in 2016 as Hiver à Sokcho and is now available in several other languages. The first edition in English in the United Kingdom was published by Daunt Books (2020). 

I was no stranger to the single engine. My stepfather Mike had rented planes when I was growing up, and, with my mother, flew to some of the medical meetings where he gave lectures. Sometimes I was in the back with the luggage. My mother had taken enough flying lessons to know how to land should she be called upon to do so. She went so far as to solo, but then quit before she got her license. When we moved to the country outside of Nashville, Mike bought a tiny bright-red helicopter which he flew for years. He kept it in a hangar in the front of the farm where we lived.
—From "Flight Plan," an essay by Ann Patchett, in her collection These Precious Days (HarperCollins, 2021). This essay begins on page 91 of the hardcover. 

When he got to his own house, William Wallace saw to his surprise that it had not rained at all. But there, curved over the roof, was something he had never seen before as long as he could remember, a rainbow at night. In the light of the moon, which had risen again, it looked small and of gauzy material, like a lady’s summer dress, a faint veil through which the stars showed.
—From "The Wide Net," a short story by Eudora Welty, in Selected Stories of Eudora Welty , containing all of A Curtain of Green and Other Stories and The Wide Net and Other Stories (The Modern Library/Random House, 1943). This segment is from page 70 of the second half of the book. I was inspired to pick it back up again after reading one of Ann Patchett's essays in These Precious Days, "Eudora Welty, an Introduction," pp. 85-90.