On my radar: Tayari Jones's cultural highlights
Tayari Jones is an American novelist whose fourth book, An American Marriage, won the 2019 Women’s prize for fiction. Born in Atlanta in 1970, she graduated from Arizona State University in 2000 and is currently a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University. Her latest novel, Silver Sparrow, in which two teenagers deal with family fragmentation and deception, was published earlier this year.
1. Podcast
I’ve been bingeing on this podcast hosted by memoirist Dani Shapiro. She talks to people who have hidden something from their families. The guests are really diverse and the secrets range from a newscaster who has hidden the fact that he grew up in great poverty, or a woman who finds out that her successful husband has a serious drug addiction. The interviews are so authentic. It feels like you get the entire memoir of the guest within an hour. It always ends on an uplifting note, but they really make you work for the happy ending.
2. Nonfiction
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
This pandemic is giving me writer’s block. All of the anxiety that I had when I was beginning as a writer is coming back. So I have returned to this book that I first came across in the early 90s. It’s a 12-week, 12-step programme for creatives. One of the challenges is to take yourself out on an artist date, but as I can’t leave the house, I’ve figured out how to do this in the confines of my own house. It’s a great tool for any type of creative person. I’ve given away so many copies.
3. Cookbook
Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food by Nik Sharma
I’ve been doing a lot of cooking recently and have been exploring this cookbook. I love it because many of the meals are unfamiliar to me, and sometimes I want to cook something elaborate to take my mind off the news and the stress in the world. So I’ve gone all out. I’ve made the steak with orange peel and coriander and the turmeric and roasted chilli red snapper. You can’t make great food easily. I have to concentrate, and that’s part of the pleasure of it – I can’t worry and concentrate at the same time. It requires my undivided attention.
4. Documentary
I have around 10 typewriters. I even have a typewriter doctor who takes care of my machines. I love this film, which is about typewriters, but also about the community of analogue people. Especially in this current moment, when we’re Zooming or we’re FaceTiming, there’s something to be said for slow writing. I write my novels on a typewriter because it causes me to slow down. It’s so satisfying making all of that noise. I found out that the typewriter shop featured in the film is closing down. I guess not enough people are typing. Well, I’m doing my part.
5. App
The app that I can’t stop using right now is Houseparty. I love it. I’m constantly scanning to see who is online. It offers spontaneity, so you can just pop in on someone. It has games and you can include a number of people, so it’s not so private, unlike FaceTime. I feel like it maintains the feeling of being social. Maybe because I use Zoom for work, when my friends have a social Zoom it feels like I’m at a work party. I can’t get enough Houseparty and I want everyone to get on there so I can talk to them.
6. Audiobook
This is a novel from the 1940s that has recently been rereleased in the UK and the US. It’s about a single mother in Harlem who is struggling in a terrible economy. It sold over a million copies and was the first blockbuster by a black woman. I was listening to the audiobook and it’s so well done. I listen to it while I’m on my exercise bike and have found that I am exercising much longer because I cannot stop listening to it. Even though I’ve read this book so many times, even though I know what is going to happen, the narrator is so engaging.
