John Birdsall

2 weeks ago | publishersweekly.com | Alice Bolin |John Birdsall |Caroline Darian |Prabal Gurung

Essayist Bolin (Dead Girls) probes the intersection of technology, culture, and feminism in this ferociously smart collection. In “Enumerated Woman,” she argues that using Fitbits or other devices to track steps, calorie intake, and other data is a manifestation of a “postfeminist” ideal that uses notions of bodily autonomy to uphold traditional standards of beauty while fueling capitalist consumption.

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | Catherine Lacey |John Birdsall |Caroline Darian |Prabal Gurung

Catherine Lacey. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-61540-6Novelist Lacey (Biography of X) reflects on love, faith, and loss in this ambitious genre-bender. Reeling after a breakup, Lacey set out to process it with a “Möbius strip of narrative”: the book’s first half is fiction, and the second—printed backwards and upside-down, requiring readers to physically turn the book over—is memoir. In the first, a woman named Edie visits her friend Marie near Christmas.

Sep 5, 2024 | johnbirdsall.substack.com | John Birdsall

The first boyfriend I ever had died last week—Steve Silberman, 66, of San Francisco: science writer, beloved author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, David Crosby acolyte, Deadhead. Using boyfriend to describe Steve is pathetic, I know, but in ten years together, we never really knew what to call each other. Partners wasn’t used like that in the 1980s, not in the San Francisco we knew. Lovers was icky.

Nov 8, 2023 | sandiegouniontribune.com | John Birdsall

The July sun was barely up, but the heat was already inching well above comfortable. Don Guerra seemed unfazed, though, as if the desert had long ago settled in his bones. He had been moving briskly since 4 a.m. to the clanking soundtrack of an integrated loader, the stiff canvas conveyor belt that sends raw torpedoes of pain au levain, sourdough bread, onto the decks of his four-level oven at Barrio Bread.

Feb 14, 2023 | johnbirdsall.substack.com | John Birdsall