Plot Points #75 💌
Pollen counts, mother bellies, singing lessons, and shy people
Plot Points is a weekly newsletter where I share my favorite books, links, words, and more. If you enjoy what you find here, please consider subscribing or buying me a coffee.
Hi friends! Happy Friday to you all.
The pollen count here was so high this week that it nearly doubled the previous record high from 2012. When I walk onto the porch, it feels like I’m walking on flour. My car is streaked with yellow grime. I can taste the pollen in my mouth.
Ah, spring.
Lucy’s softball games have been tremendous fun for us to watch each week, and she’s loving the camaraderie of her team. One of the girls made a big catch in the outfield Tuesday night—on her birthday, no less—and the resulting decibel levels gave me all the joyful nostalgia. I’m so glad Lucy’s getting to have this experience!
Speaking of…Pierce is joining me on our church’s softball league this season, which starts up again in a few weeks. We haven’t played together since our intramural days in college, so I’m thrilled. Softball + my favorite guy = MUCH FUN.
Thanks for spending some of your time with me today! I hope you all have a lovely, low-pollen weekend.
Wendi
Read The Bluestockings with Me
If you’re new here, we are reading one chapter of my latest novel, The Bluestockings, together every Tuesday. In addition to the serial format, The Bluestockings is also available in paperback everywhere books are sold. Grab a copy for yourself or join us here each week as we follow along on Eleanor and Ruby’s journey to uncover the truth about their mothers and the magical bookshop that binds them together ❤️.
Catch up on previous chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Word of the Week ✍🏻
Mallifuff: (n.) being utterly devoid of the energy to get things done. (See also: me, the week before vacation.)
Point #1: “How could we think it could ever be a spiritually neutral site?”
I cried through this piece. The way women have been taught to view our postpartum bodies as good only once it is no longer obvious that we gave birth is straight from the enemy. As
so beautifully captured, our bellies, as God-given sources of life, are anathema to the one who hates life, and this realization has given me a greater sense of tenderness towards my soft mother-belly. I hope it does for you, as well.Point #2: I’d like to see Dr. Hancock please.
No, not my GP. My old vocal coach. Say what you want about the new Snow White and Rachel Zegler, but, damn, this woman knows how to sing! This mini coaching session with her was so fun to watch! I think Dr. Hancock would approve.
Point #3: “One who learned the liberal arts had actually acquired the tools of learning themselves.”
A liberal arts education does more than educate; it inspires a deeper curiosity about the world that gives children the desire to learn. It’s an education that multiplies. I’m going to be returning to this piece from
again and again:“A liberally educated people is a united people who share in common a certain core which allows for the meaningful exchange of ideas…Such a people will be a prosperous people. Such a people will not be easily enslaved to anyone.”
Point #4: It’s okay. You’ll grow out of it.
Okay, I laughed too hard at this.
Reading in The Nook 📚
I’m not usually a literary fiction type of girl (looking at you, Sally Rooney), but HOLY COW this book is good. (Also, just look at that cover 😍.)
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore is a literary thriller that follows the search for Barbara Van Laar, the missing teenage daughter of the wealthy Van Laar family, who own a wilderness camp in the Adirondacks and whose young son, Bear, went missing from the same camp fourteen years ago. It’s so expertly-paced and delicious with intrigue that I’ve barely been able to put it down. Like a lot of literary fiction, the omniscient narrator bounces around from the POV of one person to the next—staff members, the Van Laars, campers—but Moore’s writing is so riveting I barely notice. What really happened to Bear all those years ago? Who was involved? Is Barbara actually missing…or did she run away from the increasingly disturbed secrets of her family? I don’t know yet, but I can’t wait to find out!
What are you reading right now? 👇🏻
(All Bookshop.org links are affiliates. Thank you for supporting The Nook with your purchase.)
“I wish you a kinder sea.”
—Emily Dickinson—
Let me know how the ending goes for God of the Woods (if it’s as good as the first half)… I’m not super into the topic/thriller but people I like keep saying it’s good.
Also: that is shortest way to describe why I love liberal arts. 💜