{"id":24678,"date":"2025-09-15T23:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/24678\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:25:07","slug":"a-closer-read-is-harpers-bazaars-new-books-newsletter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/24678\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA Closer Read\u201d Is Harper\u2019s Bazaar\u2019s New Books Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past year, I have found myself returning to reading. I\u2019ve always read, of course, but there is something luxurious, in our current climate of micro attention spans and culture flattened by algorithms and hot takes, about devoting hours at a time to a book that operates on a different rhythm. It feels a little bit rebellious and deeply pleasing. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited to share some of the things I\u2019ve been reading and thinking about in a new newsletter for Harper\u2019s Bazaar called \u201cA Closer Read.\u201d I\u2019m hoping this space will be for not just new releases and the most interesting books of the season but also lesser-known gems.<\/p>\n

For the next few weeks, I\u2019m going to be highlighting one book in each edition that I\u2019m thinking about. Right now, I\u2019m reading Baldwin: A Love Story<\/a>. This is Nicholas Boggs\u2019s upcoming mammoth biography of James Baldwin. It\u2019s smart and lush and part of one of my favorite subsets of books: biographies and memoirs set in midcentury New York City. If I had to live during any time in the past, it would probably be then. <\/p>\n

Once, after reading Baldwin\u2019s short story \u201cSonny\u2019s Blues\u201d in grad school, I went to a bar to wait for a boyfriend and ordered a Scotch and milk, which is what one of the characters in that piece is always drinking. It was such a retro drink, and it made me think of that time in New York. Unfortunately, I ordered it at an old Irish sports bar on Sixth Avenue and Flatbush in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The bartender laughed, went to the end of the bar and opened an ancient minifridge whose door was covered in some kind of gray lint, poured half a carton of coffee creamer into a glass, and filled the rest to the top with Scotch. I couldn\u2019t not drink it, but after I choked it down and the bartender again laughed at me alongside the then-boyfriend, I did some more research on the drink when I got home and found out it was only popular with alcoholics in 1950s New York because it (allegedly) allowed you to soothe a stomach ulcer while also getting wasted.<\/p>\n

The first edition, launching September 16, features a conversation with Arundhati Roy around her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me. In upcoming missives, you can expect to read about writing as embroidery with Joyce Carol Oates, the wonders of taxidermy with Susan Orlean, and Angela Flournoy\u2019s modern classic of Black millennial angst, The Wilderness. Think of this newsletter as a toast to the curiosity and literary joys that might lead you to order a Scotch and milk, in a dark and musty bar, to try to get closer to what you read and loved on a page.<\/p>\n

Sign up here<\/a> to receive \u201cA Closer Read\u201d all season. Keep an eye out for new installments every Tuesday, and stay tuned for more exclusive newsletter content from Bazaar in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This past year, I have found myself returning to reading. I\u2019ve always read, of course, but there is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[17682,489,25110,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-24678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-arundhati-roy","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-books-newsletter","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}