Issue No. 33: The Summer of Small Fruits
July Shmuly + belated thoughts on the NYT Best 100 books
Good afternoon, tomato lovers. This is your time to shine.
If anyone tells July is their most productive month of the year, they’re obviously lying to your face. I’m feeling low on energy and motivation, and very clearly need that burst of Oldest Daughter adrenaline that comes from ordering a new planner and a fresh set of ballpoint pens.
Here’s my super hot culinary / productivity tip for the last day of July: do not underestimate what a Sam’s Club $1.38 hot dog combo with a Dr. Pepper can do for you.
With that Nobel Prize winning advice, welcome to July’s edition of Editor & Chef.
Happy reading,
Allison
If I haven’t met you In The Flesh, I’m Allison. I live outside Oklahoma City with my husband Mitchell East and our two precious children. I am a literary agent, sometimes book designer, and always a home chef, among other things. I run a small bookish agency called North Parade Press. My work here on Substack often explores the intersection of food writing, my faith, and literature.
The Journal: The Summer of Small Fruits
The photo above is my tomato harvest so far. I would say it’s been a summer of small fruits.
I searched for the bright red spots among the leaves, stalks heavy and falling over themselves without the support stakes they really need. I ate the jewels straight off the vine, still warm from the sun. I can’t really explain why I have always been afraid of popping a whole little tomato in my mouth. Some lingering fear that it might taste watery or that the texture might set off my always sensitive gag reflex, I guess. But the smell and the sun and the warmth of these tiny orbs in my hand went straight to my head. I popped one in my mouth. Smiles all around.
I don’t know why my tomatoes are so small. Might be because I mixed up my seedlings and I don’t know which are cherry tomatoes and which were heirlooms that should grow larger. I’m sure my soil is deficient in something. I probably have underwatered them. Considering I know nothing about gardening or soil or seeds, it’s miracle enough to me that these fruits have come forth.
This summer in the garden, I had a few snap pea pods. My basil is gigantic. The zucchini blossomed but then succumbed to the squash bugs. The eggplants have flowered but set no fruit. The jalapeños never happened. But the garden has been a source of joy none the less.
It’s no wonder Jesus talks about seeds and fruit and trees all the time. After a few months of tending to my small plots, I’m quick to apply metaphors from the garden to other parts of my life. Here in this summer of small fruits, I’m left thinking about my tiny tomatoes and everything I’ve left undone over the last month. In my metaphor, I’m more the tomato vine and less of the gardener.
There’s no shortcut to ripening. Overcrowded seeds won’t grow strong enough to bear fruit. Rest and sunlight and water are absolutely necessary. July heat is a struggle for anyone to thrive in. But! Despite our shortcomings and imperfect efforts, the fruit is there, tucked in the tangle of the vines, growing and ripening even on the still, hot days. In the smallness there is sweetness, potency, depth, richness. I’ll leave you to decide where the metaphor begins and ends.
The Bookshelf
Here’s what I’m thinking I’ll talk about briefly. I know everyone’s in a tizzy about a number of things—elections, olympics, attempted assassinations—but I haven’t chimed in about the NYT best 100 books of the 21st century yet, so I’ll just hop back there for a minute. Oh when we were young and naive and arguing about books only three weeks ago…
Ok.
If you missed it, which surely you didn’t, but if you did.
The New York Times Book Review published their list of best books of the 21st century. Bold move considering we are not even one fourth through the century. But gotta get those clicks somehow, so more power to you NYT. Thanks for the slow rollout of your picks each day, it worked, I went to your website every day for a week.
I consider myself a reader. I pay attention. I’m working as a literary agent for crying out loud.
EMBARASSING.
I could come up with reasons why I have read only 8 of these books. I was a child for the beginning of this century, I was not an english major, I like 19th and 20th century literature, I’m too mass market in my taste, yada yada. I have a friend who got close to 20. I heard of a friend of a friend who read 39. But that guy has a PhD in English so there.
Also, I had my frustrations with the list. I wish they had just done 100 novels and not tried to capture the breadth of publishing. It was difficult for me to see how they could evaluate nonfiction and fiction on the same list.
The readers of America responded. The Times knew they’d make us all angry with their list, so they gave us a chance to chime in. Here are my 10. Am I confident in my choices, well no not really, do you know how hard it is to recall the 10 best books you’ve read that have been published since the year you turned five? That aside, these are ten 21st century books that shaped me as a reader. I’d also include Outliers and David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. And how could I forget… My Life in France. 2006!
On the reader’s choice list, I fared better. 24 out of 100. Still have some work to do. But maybe if I hadn’t spent half my life reading Middlemarch two years ago I could tell you something that was written on this side of the year 2000.
I’m back reading Niall Williams again — this time, History of the Rain — and have decided surely I was Irish in a past life.
Do you have thoughts on the book review list? Please tell me if you read more than 8.
Thanks for reading today!
Allison