While Reading and Walking

My name is Leah Rachel von Essen (she/her/hers). I am a Chicago-based curvy, chronically ill book blogger, reviewer, and novelist writing about books, illness, travel, and mental health. My specialties include books in translation, science fiction & fantasy, surrealism and genre-bending, strange short story collections, and nonfiction around health feminism and bias in medicine and healthcare. I read wherever I go, but I read the most while walking.

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Y’all know I love Spain…but a big part of my dream trip there was always visiting Camp Nou. To see FC Barça…to see Messi. I’ve been a Messi fan since I was 14 and saw him play live, and he reminded me of my favorite striker, Marta. Let’s go Argentina!! I can only pray that Spain still lets me visit!

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“We lay here for years or for hours,

So long we become the flowers.”

—Hozier

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Have you read anything by the author Jonny Garza Villa?

I haven't! Should I? Please tell.

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Meet me in fives! This was so fun to put together, a perfect activity for a tired Wednesday after getting dental surgery done. All around a solid introduction to me as a person and reader.

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I love Chicago very much, but the Jersey shore will always be calling me home.

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“I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn’t forget, I’m alive, I know I’m alive, I mustn’t forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.”—Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

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The Joy-Luck Club is such a treasure. I will say, even on reread, it’s hard to remember which are the mother-daughter pairs. Two different characters having divorces and the random-seeming order of chapters doesn’t help. But the book is gorgeous. The little connections, the richness of the story, and the emotion, authentic, honest, raw behind both the daughters and mothers are stark and beautiful. Amy Tan is such a good author, and her gift for last sentences is genuine. With my little chart to keep people straight, an all-time read.

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Always bring a book. ☀️

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The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby is a damning exposé of the powerful Green family and all that they've done in our country to power Christian Nationalism and the rise of Donald Trump. This family, the founders of Hobby Lobby, are, through channels including Signatry, some of the strongest funders behind the powerful Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, a powerful force behind Supreme Court decisions including Dobbs; the insidious "He Gets Us" advertisement campaign; and Project 2025. They are a powerful symbol of how entwined capitalism, the "prosperity gospel," and the idea that the USA is, and should be, a Christian nation run by Christian faith, have all contributed to the fierce rise of conservatives in our current politics.

While the book takes a moment to set its scene, explaining how the Green family rose into its wealth and forged an empire rooted in an evangelizing mission, it picks up strongly. Most of all when it hits a story that went under-reported as it peaked during the pandemic: the Museum of the Bible, founded by the Greens and funded by them through donations that they carefully purchased, sorted, "donated," and then wrote off on their taxes, was revealed to hold a tremendous number of stolen, trafficked, and forged artifacts that were seized and returned to Egypt, Iraq, and others. This museum is intensely misleading and a center for Christian nationalism, and meanwhile its artifacts are stored (yes, really) in a Hobby Lobby warehouse. Next to the crafts inventory.

Michael Blanding's revelatory book is an extremely dark look into the insidiousness of modern-day Christian nationalism and its underappreciated, growing impact on the Republican party over the last few decades. It's also a disturbing view into the impact of the power the US has granted corporations to influence our society, and into the way elites are able to use their millions to influence, persecute, and evangelize without ever showing the real faces behind the impact. A revealing read, with a thousand reasons to boycott Hobby Lobby once and forever contained inside. Out July 14 from Public Affairs Books.

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I recently saw Kimberlé Crenshaw speak. She said that many think we shouldn’t tell the “ugly” stories of history. But are they only ugly? Protestors at Selma march into a violent crowd, head held high. The story of America is that of courage and determined effort leading to change.

We have far to go. We have the opportunity, if we’re willing to change, to do the work, and pull others with us. These authors are all doing the research and work that can move us forward by educating us about our past and present. Read and pass it on. Speak up, and spread the word.

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Ah, to be landing somewhere new and beautiful.

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My favorite corner of paradise is this little row of gorgeous gardens in Hyde Park. I go out of my way to wander through, even in winter.

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Happy final day of Pride Month, everyone. As a pansexual and demisexual woman, it’s been liberating and lovely for the years I’ve been out to celebrate and feel included in the LGBTQ+ community. Let’s keep up the fight, particularly for our trans siblings, all year round. 🏳️‍🌈

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Just some books I got at ALA I’m really excited about…

A graphic novel adaptation by Jules Scheele of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (Avery Hill Publishing). I adore all things Woolf, and this looks gorgeous.

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee (9/29, Cardinal)! Do I need to say more about the newest from the author of Pachinko?

Change of Plans by Sarah Dessen (out now, Simon & Schuster). My tween self adored Dessen’s emotionally rich YA novels.

As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (10/13, Harper Voyager). One I didn’t even know to look for! I love Chambers’s cozy, wondrous sci fi.

Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot (out now, Avon). Cabot was one of my gateways from teen to adult novels back in the day! Excited for this witchy rom-com featuring a plus-size protagonist.

Nothing to See Here by Barbara Dee (10/20, Scholastic). I reviewed Dee’s excellent middle-grade about a tween dealing with sexual harassment last year, and am excited to see this new one incoming!

More Person Than Patient: Finding Your Purpose and Power with Chronic Illness by Gwen Mayes (11/3, Mayo Clinic Press). I had a wonderful conversation with Mayes about the biases patients face and how her new book tries to be a guide and reference for people trying to find care.

The House with Nobody In It by Jon Klassen (7/14, Candlewick). I’ve loved Klassen since my sister gifted me the classic I Want My Hat Back one Christmas. I’ve already read this board book, and in classic Klassen fashion, it is deeply Cursed (compliment).

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Serious things happen to kids, and they should be able to read about serious things. I chose to “read” Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak in the #LetBooksBe “Big Chair” because I find it appalling that we would keep kids and teens from reading about violent situations that they themselves may encounter, and I believe they should be allowed the possibility to read, engage, think, and heal. Kids, teens, and adults alike should have the freedom to read what they wish—about sexual violence, school shootings, war, etc—even when those issues are hard or complicated. Free people read freely! Also, side note, I want this chair.

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Moby-Dick, in many ways, surprised me. It's unexpectedly meta with the way that Herman Melville brings in stories and descriptions of whales from across literature and folklore. And the first half is surprisingly funny, full of dry and dark humor. It's also funny because Melville has an attitude about science that may have made him a raw-milk conspiracy guy today (for example, whales, he emphasizes, are NOT MAMMALS, despite what scientists say. How can he prove it? Look at whales! Are they on land? No. They are in the ocean, so they are FISH.). Paired with Melville likely being queer, and his giant crush on Nathaniel Hawthorne, the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg is delightfully charged, and (for the time) is very open-minded (with modern-day standards, there's a lot of racism in here).

Don't get me wrong: the middle of this book does drag. That's because Melville takes the time to outline whale anatomy, taxonomy, and behavior, as well as the whaling industry details. He passionately wants the reader to know everything he does, to appreciate the wonder that is the whale, and to understand precisely what whalers have to do. There are narrative things that make me understand why this novel bombed on first release. Ishmael utterly disappears for the final section of the book in favor of a voice that is likely Melville's, a much more omniscient narrator. Read as a postmodern text, by using my contemporary appreciation of metatextual and rich prose, there is a lot to unpack and investigate here. My favorite read? Perhaps not at times. But I could write a dozen essays about this book right now.

Content warnings for suicidal ideation, ableism, racism.

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Upstream by Mary Oliver is a gorgeous collection of essays about our relationship with nature by a glorious and beloved poet. The literary essays on Emerson, Wordsworth, and more in the center are a bit denser than the others, but give invaluable insight to the rich visual, emotional, and thought-provoking stories told in the personal essays.

Fans of Oliver’s poetry will love this partial memoir, which gives rich and lovely insight into the ways the poet thought, moved, and explored, and her wanderings and observations on the trails and off them in Provincetown on Cape Cod. I loved her essay on the spider particularly. Also, I didn’t know Oliver was queer! Found out in the investigating.

Content warnings for suicide, g-slur, animal death.