winter reading roundup

december, january, and february reads

Hello from rainy LA. I hope you’ve found a shred of sanity, a cornerstone of zen, or an effective pill cocktail to counter the craziness of 2025 thus far.

To those of you who are new here - welcome! I send out monthly reading recaps featuring the books I’ve read the month prior. Due to force(s) majeure, I’m a bit behind schedule, so this recap will entail Dec / Jan / Feb.

Force majeure? Oui. The horrific fires that scorched parts of LA in January prompted me to postpone my December reading roundup. I spent the latter half of Jan preparing for, and celebrating, the Lunar New Year (Happy Year of the Snake!). February was spent toiling away at work. This was expected, as Q1 is traditionally the busiest time of year for travel planning. What was not expected was the hostile government takeover. I’m tired.

On a brighter note - spring is approaching! Things are still wild out there, but seeing a non-winter month on the calendar teases the potential for a fresh-ish start. It feels like a good time to reflect on this past winter and the books that provided me with an escape. I can’t call it a sweet escape because the first book on this list was actually quite scary.

Chaos by Tom O’Neill

I’m not a conspiratorial person, but by the time I finished reading Chaos, I started to wonder how many official historical narratives have been shaped through deceptive means.

Chaos was published in 2019. A whopping twenty years of O’Neill’s career went into researching and writing this book prior to its release. Prior to reading, I knew very little about the Manson murders, save for the basic cultural touchpoints. Namely, the tragedy of beautiful, innocent, pregnant Sharon Tate being murdered in cold blood by the Manson Family. I presumed Chaos would cover the origins of the Manson cult and the murder itself, but it went much, much deeper, and took some truly wild turns.

O’Neill began the research for Chaos back in 1999 when he was hired to write an article for Premiere Magazine. The idea was to look back on how the 1969 Manson murders imprinted upon Hollywood’s collective memory thirty years later. After attempting to schedule some interviews, O’Neill found that many Hollywood stars were cagey about sharing their firsthand recollections of the time. Sketchy! As he continued his research, he discovered significant inconsistencies between the public narrative surrounding the trial and the facts he had uncovered. Some examples: someone had tampered with the crime scene at Cielo Drive. Key evidence had been omitted from the trial. Police reports about the Manson Family’s crimes (committed prior to their infamous murdering spree) had been sealed away from the public.

All these inconsistencies collectively pointed towards a cover-up. So what started as a straightforward magazine piece for O’Neill became an all-encompassing, multi-decade investigative journey.

What really instigated the Manson murders? The answers are to be found in the book’s 520 pages. Here’s a Stefon-esque preview of the wild ride that awaits you in this sweeping investigative story. No spoilers, obviously.

credit: snl

This book has everything: damning indictments, hallucinogens, stinky hippies in a recording studio, C.I.A. operatives, a vest made of pubic hair, government-funded mind control research, and - what’s that? It’s a belligerent Beach Boy.

If you’re into true crime, Chaos is for you. If you’re deterred by its length, GOOD NEWS. I just found out that it’s been adapted into a Netflix documentary which comes out this Friday, March 7th. I’ll be watching. Will you?

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

We read this novel in

Marco Marquez

’s book club. It just came out last summer (July 2024) and had some buzz surrounding its release. The cover made me think it was going to be a straightforward, rom-commy love story within a wedding setting. I was pleasantly surprised by the incredibly macabre premise I found instead! Fans of dark humor, this one’s for you.

We meet Phoebe, a forty-year old professor, as she’s checking into an idyllic coastal Rhode Island hotel. She’s not visiting for a blissful weekend getaway; she’s there to kill herself. Her meticulously planned suicide is delayed by the ongoings of a giant, expensive wedding happening onsite that same weekend. Though initially hostile towards the wedding party, Phoebe gets swept up in their pageantry.

I enjoyed The Wedding People. It was a fine book club read; it’s funny and relatable with a dash of drama. I particularly appreciated Phoebe’s inner monologue. As a literature professor she’s full of references to classic novels, and as a suicidal person with nothing to lose, she doesn’t hold her back on her opinions.

You might enjoy this novel if 1) you’re a depressed girlie 2) you were once a depressed girlie 3) you’ve been a bridesmaid one too many times and are about to fucking lose it 4) you’re into books about self-discovery 5) you’d love to visit Newport, Rhode Island but don’t have any current plans to do so.

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

I’m continuing my way through the Rooneyverse. Beautiful World, Where Are You is Sally Rooney’s third novel, published in 2021. Friends of this newsletter may recall that I didn’t love Normal People - which is, to my knowledge, her most popular novel - so I went into her third book with zero expectations.

I adored Beautiful World. It follows the lives of two erudite thirty-something best friends navigating their respective romantic interests, career crises, and of course, the ups and downs which characterize their own friendship. About half of the book is narrated through their email correspondence, which vacillates between tenderness for one another and cold observations of what they perceive as the crumbling world around them.

I couldn’t get enough of this book. I savored it, read it slowly, and still found myself melancholic when it ended and I had to part ways with Alice and Eileen. What a gorgeous depiction of friendship and millennial ennui. I’ll definitely read it again.

I’d recommend Beautiful World, Where Are You to the angsty overthinkers out there. And anyone else who’d like a reminder of the ever-present beauty which quietly thrums in the background of our lives.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

This novel by Barbara Kingsolver won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023. It’s a modern retelling of David Copperfield which takes place in Appalachia during the inception of the opioid epidemic. I learned a new vocab word of German origin which describes what kind of book this is: a bildungsroman.

sure, you could just say coming-of-age story, but this is more fun

Have I read the source material? No. But the bookseller at B&N told me it’s fine to read Demon before I read David Copperfield.

I confess that it took me months to get through this book - not because I was savoring it, as was the case with Beautiful World, but because I had to take breaks from absorbing poor Demon’s misfortunes. He’s an incredibly likable protagonist but life deals him a hard hand.

The story addresses difficult topics: addiction, poverty, child labor, the broken foster care system, overdoses… it’s not an easy breezy read. Fortunately, Demon’s plucky attitude and humor shine through the narrative and balance out his life’s lows. As I found myself more and more invested in his outcomes, my intermittent reading pauses decreased. By the time I finished the book I was in literal tears. I won’t reveal what kind - that’s a surprise for you, future reader.

I’d recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

C’est tout! That’s all.

Have you read any of these books? Are you now wanting to read any of them?

Who’s going to watch Chaos on Netflix?

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