I love doing these book posts and if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see more of in the future, let me know in the comments!

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Novels you’ll want to read this summer

Last Night in Brooklyn—Xochitl Gonzalez

A retelling of The Great Gatsby set in 2007 Brooklyn with the financial crisis looming ahead? Sign me up. This book captures some of the fun and excess of a gentrifying but not quite Brooklyn-the-brand-Brooklyn while totally pulling me into the characters and their relationships. It’s smart, well-written, and just a good time. It also made me want to reread The Great Gatsby, It’s been a while!

Bring the House Down—Charlotte Runcie

A male critic writes a one-star review of an Edinburgh Fringe Festival show then sleeps with the show’s main actress without telling her who he is. Then the performer writes a show about how terrible he is, becoming a viral sensation. This is the set up for a stunning novel by Charlotte Runcie, told entirely from the perspective of Sophie—the critic’s junior colleague. I’ve read a few novels that tried to capture something about the MeToo era and largely fell flat.

This is the book I’ve been waiting for. It’s well written, sharp, and explores male-female relationships in a thoughtful way. Every character, including the male critic, is explored fully and I found myself really invested in Sophie’s own life choices and her changing feelings about the events at the Festival. I couldn’t put this book down and wound up reading it in one evening. The perfect book when you want something that feels fun but still leaves you thinking.

Age of Innocence—Edith Wharton

Have you heard of this book? Yes. Have you actually read it? Maybe not. Edith Wharton’s society love triangle novel made her the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize and the book is still un-put-down-able 100 years later. This book felt incredibly modern and I loved the span of it which echoed the changes in New York itself as much as society.

A Good Animal—Sara Maurer

A beautiful coming-of-age novel set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the main narrative is a love story between a young man who wants to spend his life on his family’s sheep farm and a woman who wants a different life for herself. This book kept my heart in its grip the whole time. Quiet but full of heart and tension. The descriptions of place and the characters made it all feel so real I couldn’t believe they disappeared when I finished the last page.

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Books for curious readers

Map of Future Ruins—Lauren Markham

Map of Future Ruins is ostensibly about the Greek refugee crisis and policies toward refugees generally but along the way there are some deep and painful questions raised about mythmaking, migration, and journalism itself.

Markham, who has spent years writing about and working with refugees, writes poignantly about the stories journalism is unable to tell when there are no easily verifiable facts or when the most poignant details of a story don’t fit the established narrative. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I find myself lately less interested in strict reporting. Her eye for detail and story is brilliant and, in the book, it was often the “asides” to the main narrative that stuck in my heart.

Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History —Caroline Tracey

I had a vague concept of what a salt lake was before I read this book but then I picked it up and a whole new world opened up for me. Tracey’s book is full of wonder for these strange, disappearing ecosystems. I now can’t wait to visit Lake Abert, Oregon’s one and only salt lake later this summer!

The Lonely City—Olivia Laing

I love that books can find you at exactly the right moment for you to read them. The Lonely City was released a decade ago but I didn’t start hearing about it until recently. It’s a personal and critical exploration of loneliness, mostly centered on artists in New York City. I found the explorations of loneliness and how other people respond to it to be fascinating and heartbreaking. Highly recommend this one and another favorite, Olivia Laing’s newer book, The Garden Against Time.

The Fullness of Time—Cathy Haynes

This was just a lovely book and a quick and easy read. It’s technically about ways people have told time without and before clocks but is, at its heart, a book about finding a deeper attunement to the natural world. There are sections on sundials and birdsong and stars and gardens with flowers planted like a clock, opening one after another every hour.

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Books I just loved

Scattered Snows, To the North—Carl Phillips

I loved the poems in this book. Phillips has a way of writing that’s clear but has a dream’s slanted logic. It’s abstract without being confusing. I haven’t read anything like it before and look forward to revisiting this book again. If you’d like a sample, Literary Hub has excerpted one of the poems from this collection.

Horses—Jake Skeets

I read this while taking a class on writing with sound and immediately noticed that Skeets is a master of it. The rhythm and music of these poems is sublime and I was moved to read more than a few out loud just to enjoy tripping my tongue over them. The book copy says this is a meditation on climate change and land and I felt the deep connection to place in the poems but this is not a particularly narrative collection and it feels limiting to say it’s “about” any one thing. If you’re open to reading a collection that asks you to let yourself be washed by language, I can’t recommend this enough. I’m looking forward to reading it a second time. I felt every poem in this collection in my bones.

If you liked this post and want more reading recommendations, I have good news ↓

📕 The 6 best books I read in Winter 2026

📖 If you want books that specifically feel “springy”, check out this list!

📚 The 25 best books I read in 2025

or, check out this essay on The Dangers of Being a Reader

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Have you read any of these books? Tell me about it in the comments!

Until next week,

Happy reading!

-Tove

You can directly support my work by upgrading to a paid subscription to A Little Detour, sharing this post with someone who might enjoy it, or buying a copy of my book Under the Henfluence.

If you feel so inclined, you can also Venmo me a one-time cup of coffee.

If you really really love this newsletter but can’t afford to become a paid subscriber, send me an email to get a comped subscription.

Because all writers have a never-ending hope of finding ways to make writing financially sustainable, I’ve opened a Bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy any of the books I mention in this newsletter, I will get a small commission and will use it to buy myself more books.

I went to the Wayback Machine—a trusted source for recovering deleted internet history—it had never been there either. Other than a document on my computer and some emails with my editor, the feature was gone. Vanished. As though it had never been there at all. The only thing that exists is a brief blurb on my website with a link leading nowhere.

I’ve always been a big saver. I still have old school books and photos and letters from pen pals I wrote to when I was ten. When it comes to letters, my only regret is that I didn’t save even more. What about the notes I passed in class or friends left in my mailbox? What about the emails I sent in high school? What about my Gmail archive? (I realized six years ago that Google had randomly deleted every email I wrote before 2013.)

So after being told repeatedly as a teen that “what happens on the internet is forever” it’s strange to find out that this isn’t exactly the case. My Myspace profile—for better or worse—is gone forever. So are the journal entries friends and I posted online.

I came to freelance writing during the 2010s, in hindsight, a boom period for internet writing. Tech hopefuls poured tons of money into longform or print publications only later realizing that journalism wasn’t going to become the next Facebook. I’ve lost count of the places I’ve written for that have closed down: Lucky Peach, Modern Farmer, Topic, NPR’s The Salt, among my favorites. Some of them live on in archives or print issues. Others have simply disappeared and closed the door behind them. It’s a nice thing about wanting to write books which, of course, can go out of print but circulate by the hundreds or thousands even after their “death”.

It’s not a new problem. Back when newspapers were physical, reporters had to cut out and save their clips or issues of magazines they’d written for in order to save their work. Newspapers kept rooms dedicated to archives of past issues—and what happened when they closed down? Some things have always gotten lost.

But I think, when items were physical, we had a better sense of what we were doing when we threw out an archival copy. For too long I lived with the vague sense that anything I’d written would always just be a click away. It’s only recently that I’ve started saving anything I write as a PDF so I know it will never get lost. The Wayback Machine and the Internet Archive are incredible resources but they don’t archive everything and even they may not be forever.

Whereas people knew what they were doing when they threw out a clip of an old article or a magazine issue, online links and websites and entire publications now disappear before anyone has time to save them. A Harvard Law School study found that half of all hyperlinks in New York Times stories had been broken, no longer bringing readers to anything at all.

As s.e. smith wrote in a piece for The Verge about digital decay,

“When you describe yourself as a “writer” but your writing has become hard to find, it creates a crisis not just of profession, but identity. Who am I, if not my content?”

But there are deeper concerns about the ephemerality of the internet than the potential loss of an article I wrote about people who collect and sell Flaming Hot Cheetos (now saved as a PDF).

For decades, the internet has represented “the first draft of history” as Niemen Reports put it. In an age where fake news was a problem even before AI revisions of reality, the possibility that records of “what really happened” could be deleted forever is chilling.

Dictatorships have a long history of purposefully erasing or revising history. Every social studies class I ever took in school spoke of the value of knowing our past and learning lessons from it.

With the changes to Google search, which unravel a once-great research tool into an AI-generated answer and a couple links, viewpoints are already being compressed into one reduced and simplified truth. It might be convenient to be presented with one easy narrative but history has always been complex and full of different viewpoints. What happens when we forget they even exist?

It’s not like searching was easy in a pre-internet age. I’ve had the pleasure of using microfiche to research a feature—another article that only lives in the Wayback Machine—sitting in a library, scrolling for hours while I took notes by hand. I remember being amazed that someone had taken the time to save and archive the court transcripts I was using, the details I needed to make this story come alive. Even if they only existed in a handful of libraries, it was enough.

On the internet, data is everywhere and so we rarely take the time to save it somewhere specific. It’s time we started treating our online writing with as much preciousness as we would for a treasured film photo or a handwritten letter from a friend. Once it’s gone, everything is irreplaceable.

Notes:

I’d announced last week that my next newsletter was going to be about books but, well, sometimes an essay just lands in your lap. This newsletter isn’t exactly full of breaking news but some pieces are more evergreen than others.

For the five of you who might be really sad to have to wait even longer, I will share a book recommendation. If you feel bad you haven’t read the classics but want something that is an absolute banger, I highly recommend Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence. I read it with my book club and we all loved it. It’s funny, it’s full of descriptions of decor and fashion, (did you know Edith Wharton’s first big book was about interior design and architecture?? True story!), the female characters are fascinating and complex. It is a classic you will absolutely enjoy!

I’m so glad I’ve read it and can now watch the 1993 movie adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Until next week,

what do you want to save?

-Tove

You can directly support my work by upgrading to a paid subscription to A Little Detour, sharing this post with someone who might enjoy it, or buying a copy of my book Under the Henfluence.

If you feel so inclined, you can also Venmo me a one-time cup of coffee.

If you really really love this newsletter but can’t afford to become a paid subscriber, send me an email to get a comped subscription.

Because all writers have a never-ending hope of finding ways to make writing financially sustainable, I’ve opened a Bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy any of the books I mention in this newsletter, I will get a small commission and will use it to buy myself more books.

For years, I’ve dreamed of doing a photo series of dogs sticking their heads out of cars but hardly even manage to snap a picture on my phone. I often see dogs in cars when I’m driving which is a dangerous time to try to photograph anything (in addition to the fact that the photos wouldn’t turn out anyway). Sometimes people say you should “take a picture with your heart” when you don’t have a camera. Part of me hates the sentiment but what else can I do? So, click goes my heart as I put each sighting into my memory.

It’s rare to see another being in what looks like a moment of pure joy. We’re lucky to see it in other people on occasion. There’s a letting-go-ness you have to do to fully inhabit your joyfulness that’s difficult to do. Our emotions are messy and tinged with worry.

And then there are dogs.

This is why we love them. They are unabashed in their happiness. They wag and wiggle and jump with their whole bodies to greet you. They cover your body in licks. They worm themselves into your lap. Even new lovers would have trouble showing affection as thoroughly as a dog does every day.

And dogs largely experience the world through scent with 100 million sensory receptors in their nose and a large part of their brain devoted to olfactory processing. It’s why a walk where dogs are allowed to stop and sniff as long as they want can actually be more tiring than a longer, smell-free jaunt.

So for a dog, I imagine sticking their head out of the window is the sensory equivalent to a day at a theme park with a fast pass, running from one ride to another and filling their bodies with sugary snacks. It’s delightfully overwhelming. It’s why their faces can’t help but radiate joy while they do it. An open mouth, relaxed ears, a lolling tongue.

One of my dogs is quite nervous in the car and will shiver most of the drive until we reach a familiar place: a park, the home of my friend and her dog, a few blocks away from our home. She can tell—through a combination of scent and sight—that we are nearing a location she’s happy to be going (rather than the vet’s office) and visibly relaxes. They know things about the world through scent that we humans can only dream of.

Every time I see a dog sticking their head out of a window, I pause whatever I’m thinking about to appreciate the sight. Some days I see dogs in cars multiple times. Other times I go days without noticing it. Sometimes it’s a dog resting an arm on the doorframe as though they’re a human. Others I just see a chorus of snouts poking over the glass. Every sighting is a cause for celebration. I join in their joy for a brief moment before the driver speeds away and they are gone.

Notes

I went on a long all-day hike with this week to a trail with not one or two but TEN waterfalls! (Plus a lot of tiny ones going down the sides of the trail which I think should count too.) If that wasn’t enough, we also saw a snake, a baby bird, some extremely cute chipmunks and, oh yeah, a black bear.

It’s a fairly popular hike with a lot of people around and it was about 1pm when I turned around because something loud was crashing through the woods. “Deer!” I yelled to my friend and she turned. “BEAR!?” I said a moment later as a black bear ran full speed across the trail ten feet behind us. “What the f***,” I added.

I’ve seen one other bear in my life and it was a baby black bear that had climbed a tree at a campground in Northern California. I was ten. It’s been a long time.

It reminds me of the saying, “when you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras”. 99.9% of the time, a loud animal crashing through the forest is a deer. My brain jumped to that when I saw a blur of motion. It took at least a full second to catch up to what I was actually seeing. We looked at each other in disbelief, glad we’d both turned in time to see the bear. If Joy hadn’t turned around, she said, she would never have quite believed me. I saw it and still can’t quite believe it happened.

(I only had time to take a picture with my heart.)

Next week’s post is all about BOOKS. (So no recommendations this week.) A few months ago, I posted a roundup of my favorite books I’d read so far. Readers liked it so much, it’ll be a running seasonal Detour. If you missed the last list, give it a look.

Until next week,

what sight brings you joy every time you see it?

-Tove

You can directly support my work by upgrading to a paid subscription to A Little Detour, sharing this post with someone who might enjoy it, or buying a copy of my book Under the Henfluence.

If you feel so inclined, you can also Venmo me a one-time cup of coffee.

If you really really love this newsletter but can’t afford to become a paid subscriber, send me an email to get a comped subscription.

Because all writers have a never-ending hope of finding ways to make writing financially sustainable, I’ve opened a Bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy any of the books I mention in this newsletter, I will get a small commission and will use it to buy myself more books.

Michael brought a friend along with him, another Juilliard musician from New Orleans. We stopped by my apartment for a while and then strolled into the city. We talked or I listened to the two of them talk. I wasn’t confident enough then to take up space in my own life, much less a conversation. The New Orleans musician carried a strange instrument in his hand—a toy piano with a mouthpiece attached to it, I learned was called a melodica.

When we reached Astor Place, a drummer was playing a solo on some overturned white plastic buckets. He or another man like him was often there playing and usually I ignored it and walked past. But the New Orleans musician wanted to stop and listen so we did. It wasn’t long before his body was alive with the beat and he motioned to the drummer, getting silent permission to join in.

What followed was one of the most joyful impromptu concerts I’ve ever seen—a melodica and a bucket drummer duetting on the street. Michael and I were the only witnesses. I’ve rarely been to church but when I hear people describe how the spirit moves through the pews, this is what I think of. There was the music and there was the spirit running through it. I knew I’d seen something special.

The two musicians were already enrolled at Juilliard so maybe it wasn’t a stretch to see this and think this stranger from New Orleans was going to be something someday. But I’d gone to an art school where everyone was the best in whatever town they’d come from; not everyone had a spark that couldn’t help but ignite every time they performed.

A year later, watching a YouTube video a former teacher shared of a local talent, I saw that spark again. The video was just grainy footage of a teenage boy from Michigan playing “Girl from the North Country” in his bedroom. His chest was covered in tattoos. There were thousands of videos on the site just like it. Yet, there it was again, the spark. I showed the video to everyone I knew. In my eagerness to do something, I even cold emailed a few record companies who put out bluegrass, telling them they should look at this kid. I was no one and no one responded to me.

Michael and the New Orleans musician soon started playing in the same band, posting videos of the “pop up” concerts they’d hold in subway cars for commuters. When I saw the musician was playing a show, I brought my mom with me. While we were all lined up outside, waiting for the doors to open, the band appeared as if from nowhere to play us in. There weren’t more than 100 people in the audience. It’s the best show I’ve ever been to, the enthusiasm infectious. The spark.

When the musician was tapped to become the house band for Stephen Colbert’s late night show, I wasn’t surprised. The same with Michael becoming a composer and teacher, among other things. I saw him a few more times in passing, on his way to play one impressive show or another.

When the New Orleans musician went on to have a solo career, earning a Grammy and an Academy Award among numerous other honors, I thought of him playing with the bucket drummer on the street or in the subway, taking music with him wherever he went.

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There’s a lot of talk about genius and what it is. Whether it’s a thing that’s always part of you or something you can cultivate through hard work. I don’t have a firm opinion but have been struck by how, sometimes, it shines so bright you can’t help but see it.

A few years ago, I was listening to the radio and was blown away by the bluegrass solo on the song. The musician, the DJ said, was the boy from YouTube. I still remembered his name over a decade later. His career had taken off and he was now headlining festivals and playing with people from Tool and Post Malone to Béla Fleck and Ringo Starr. (In case this wasn’t clear, it had nothing to do with my email at all.) If that old YouTube video exists, I can’t find it.

Was the YouTube video as good as I thought it was at 19? Was the melodica and bucket drum duet on the street outside a subway as transcendent as I remember it? Was a conversation in a van about Sara Bareilles really so noteworthy? All these things only live in my memory. But I’ve had moments, in my own writing, where after days of slogging through a story something clicked and everything I’d worked on came into focus. I’ve been given a few essays—I always think of them as a gift—which I sat down to write in a flurry of hours and were published largely unchanged, still the best work I’ve ever done.

I believe every hardworking artist who has taken the time to learn their craft has moments of genius. I’ll allow that some of us perhaps are gifted more often than others. Maybe what I saw—despite the undeniable talent of these musicians in their careers—were simply moments when these musicians were dancing with their own muses, harmonizing with the spark that’s waiting there for all of us to touch it.

Notes

If you haven’t already seen it, I also have a new essay out! I wrote about how the changing daylight is affecting my sleep for .

“We think humans are different from non-human animals — with our clothes and cars and houses and ability to destroy or save the world — but here we are, affected by the length of days like every other living thing.”

I hope you’ll give it a read.

I’ve been having trouble focusing the last few weeks. My anxiety has once again flared up to the point where it’s hard to ignore. It feels like I can’t breathe and someone is sitting at my chest at least half of the day. The physical discomfort makes it hard to read or think and so my TBR stacks just keep growing. Sometimes reading a book “for fun” is all I can do. So I was excited to discover that Xochitl Gonzalez’ Last Night in Brooklyn wasn’t just fun but smart and well written and one of my favorite novels of the year.

It’s a retelling of The Great Gatsby set in 2007 Brooklyn with the financial crisis looming ahead. The novel book captures some of the fun and excess of a gentrifying but not quite Brooklyn-the-brand-Brooklyn while totally pulling me into the characters and their relationships. Highly recommend this addition to your summer reading schedule. (Also, now I want to reread The Great Gatsby!)

Until next week,

where have you found the muse/genius/a spark?

-Tove

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

You can directly support my work by upgrading to a paid subscription to A Little Detour, sharing this post with someone who might enjoy it, or buying a copy of my book Under the Henfluence.

If you feel so inclined, you can also Venmo me a one-time cup of coffee.

If you really really love this newsletter but can’t afford to become a paid subscriber, send me an email to get a comped subscription.

Because all writers have a never-ending hope of finding ways to make writing financially sustainable, I’ve opened a Bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy any of the books I mention in this newsletter, I will get a small commission and will use it to buy myself more books.

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