Amanda Reads, Issue 17
Thirty, flirty, and thriving for the week of March 21st, 2022
Hello from the other side of the big 3-0, my friends! I have entered a new decade of adulthood and so far, so good(ish).
Yesterday, we officially entered spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I am so here for warmer weather and longer days. Soon, it’ll even be warm enough to sit on the back porch and read.
On this first Monday of spring, I’m bringing you some reading recommendations to keep you warm even if the weather hasn’t caught on where you’re located.
Book Rec of the Week
As conversations continue about what the “new normal” looks like for folks with autoimmune conditions and other populations for whom COVID is a higher risk, I’m recommending a book that examines ableism from a personal lens.
Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body is a memoir-in-essays by disability advocate Rebekah Tausig. In these essays, she explores the ways in which society fails to make space for people whose bodies exist outside an imaginary “norm.” She does this with humor and honesty and unflinching openness.
This book is entertaining as well as informative and really helped me see the ways in which I was not seeing barriers in our society, at all. I highly recommend the audio version, which I listened to, beacuse Tausig gives a phenomenal performance of her own work.
Tarot Reading of the Week
Card of the Week: Mary Shelley
Deck Used: The Literary Witches Tarot
At first I thought, wow, what a weird call to pull on the Spring equinox. Shelley is most famous for writing Frankenstein, which brings Halloween vibes.
But actually, if you look at loss another way, it can be about release. About shedding that which longer serves. Spring invites renewal, regrowth, but we call it “spring cleaning” for a reason. We have to let go of some things in order to make space for the new.
So this week, consider where you might need to tidy up and lose some clutter—literally or figuratively. Make space for the new and the fresh so it can grow.
Words from the Web
I don’t read as much poetry as I’d like, but I’m trying to do better. This week, I very much enjoyed Danielle Loewen’s prose poem, “Searching for Our Extinction Event” which reflects on the feelings and memories left behind in the wake of a breakup.
As for me, it’s been a relatively quiet week, writing wise. I reviewed my most recent read, The League of Gentlewomen Witches, for Your Book Friend, and that’s about it.
That’s all for this week, dear friends. As always, I’d love to hear if this week’s tarot message shows up for you in interesting ways or if you wind up giving my reading recs a go.
Before I sign off, I wanted to quickly note a new way to read this and all those other Substack newsletters you collect in your inbox (just me?). If you’ve got an iPhone, you can now read Amanda Reads in the new Substack app.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated space for this Substack and any others you subscribe to. I’ve checked it out, and it’s a pretty seamless reading and commenting experience! If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.