Memoir

Honest Looks at Motherhood for Mother’s Day

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

I once, briefly, had beautiful hair. In 2019, tired of the constant maintenance required by my standard-issue short bob, I decided to stop visiting the hairstylist. The Covid lockdowns in 2020 were a convenient excuse to continue the experiment. By the time I had my first child in the summer of 2021, my hair was lustrous, thicker and longer than ever (thanks, pregnancy hormones!), and shot through with cinnamon-brown highlights. On the rare occasions that I washed and dried my hair during maternity leave, I could almost pass for a mildly successful TikTok influencer.

Then, on cue, the postpartum hair loss started. Strands fell out at an alarming rate. Bouts with Covid and daycare-transmitted viral infections caused even more hair loss. I saw parts of my scalp I didn’t know existed. By the time I returned to work from having my second child, my hair resembled Albus Dumbledore’s phoenix, sad and ragged, a dark echo of its former glory (except for the new grays, of course). So, I went to the salon and had them take it all off, snipping and shaving me down until I had a pixie cut. I officially had my Mom Hair. I was in the club. I was no longer subverting gendered expectations, but living the reality of the most gendered expectation of them all.

I’ll spare you the other indignities that come with giving birth to another human being, but know, if you haven’t done it yourself, that they are legion. So are the complex social and emotional changes that happen when you transition to parenthood, and specifically to motherhood. Your whole identity changes overnight. That’s harder to talk about than the stupid hair thing. And the longer I’m mired in the day-to-day reality of being Mama / Mom / Mamba to two young kids, the harder it is for me to remember those changes, let alone articulate it to others. Luckily, there are women out there who have been able to do it. It’s not all beautiful, not like the flower arrangements and the precious handprint art that will be exchanged on Mother’s Day. But they provide an illuminating glimpse into motherhood for those on the outside. If you’re a mom like me, these titles might hit you right where you used to have ab muscles.

Honest Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself by Libby Ward (2026)

From the publisher: In Honest Motherhood, Libby candidly shares her journey of unlearning the myth of the ideal mother. She dives headfirst into the experiences many mothers have but few feel safe enough to say out loud—the lack of support, the guilt, the invisibility, the cycles they’re breaking, and the fantasies about a hospital stay just to get a flippin’ break. Libby untangles her social conditioning from learned trauma responses and discovers that letting go of unrealistic standards, asking for help, and prioritizing herself aren’t failures—they’re necessities.

I’ll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood by Jessi Klein (2022)

From the publisher: In Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explores the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife. Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments, and bittersweetness.

Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood by Jessica Grose (2022)

From the publisher: In this timely and necessary book, New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose dismantles two hundred years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children, and their communities.

Nightbitch: A Novel by Rachel Yoder (2021)

From the publisher: An artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced that she is turning into a dog and, as her symptoms intensify, struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity a secret, until she meets a group of mothers who may also be more than what they seem.

Mama Needs a Minute!: A Candid, Funny, All-Too-Relatable Comic Memoir About Surviving Motherhood by Mary Catherine Starr (2025)

From the publisher: Filled with Starr’s signature wit, warmth, and observational humor, Mama Needs a Minute! tackles all the absurdities of modern motherhood through illuminating anecdotes and delightful illustrations. Whether you’re navigating a hellish sleep regression, wiping sweet potato off the walls, singing your four-thousandth lullaby, or simply hoping to pee without a toddler watching, this honest and irreverent account of motherhood will make you laugh, cry, and feel seen in a way that only a true mom-friend can.

I Was Told There’d Be a Village: Transforming Motherhood Through the Power of Connection by Melissa Wirt (2025)

From the publisher: Melissa Wirt thought she had everything-she’d built her own company and moved to a beautiful farm with her family. Then during a personal crisis, she realized: despite having created an online community reaching thousands of moms, she’d also somehow, become utterly isolated. In I Was Told There’d Be a Village, Melissa describes how she began making small changes-leaving behind a damaging Isolation Mindset and developing an advantageous Village Mindset. Using personal anecdotes and stories from moms across the country, this book provides specific, actionable steps to transform oppressive, solitary parenting into a connected, collective (even joyful) endeavor.

The Push: A Novel by Ashley Audrain (2021)

From the publisher: Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering by Elinor Cleghorn (2026)

From the publisher: Mothers make history. But what it has meant for mothers to do the physical and emotional work of mothering has, for centuries, been neglected in the stories of the past. Patriarchal control of motherhood has relegated the acts of growing, birthing, nurturing, and loving to the sidelines, and deemed it unimportant, women’s work. Now, through the voices of women themselves, Elinor Cleghorn reclaims and retells the history of motherhood, showcasing the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, community leaders, and more who have shaped the course of history.

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth (2022)

From the publisher: A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law. Abby Lamb has done it. She’s found the Great Good in her husband, Ralph, and together they will start a family and put all the darkness in her childhood to rest. But then the Lambs move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, whose depression has made it impossible for her to live on her own. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, who has a complicated understanding of motherhood given the way her own, now-estranged, mother raised her. When Laura takes her own life, her ghost starts to haunt Abby and Ralph in very different ways. Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is being terrorized by a force intent on taking everything she loves away from her. With everything on the line, Abby must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to prove her adoration to Ralph and break Laura’s hold on the family for good.

The Mill on the Brook

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Huckins Road, circa 1983, when it was passable until it rained.

While Cheshire is currently known as the Bedding Plant capital of Connecticut, did you know we were once a powerhouse of apples?

Way back when, in another century, when I was quite young, I can remember there being two apple trees far in the back of our yard. They were ancient, barely alive, and looked like something out of the Wizard of Oz, black and gnarled like a corpse’s hand. If they put out ten apples a year, it was a record. In fact, the entire neighborhood – the triangle of streets just past Darcey School – had these apple trees. It’s not surprising, since the old farmhouse at the top was built in 1780, the same year Cheshire was incorporated. Farms grew apples not so much for pies, but for animal feed, cider, and vinegar, which was used in pickling and preserving foods, as well as a cleaning agent and for curing hides. Apples were important.

Some fifty-five years ago, when the lower half of Huckins Road was nothing more than a dirt path, impassable to anything short of a jacked-up four wheel drive truck or tank, and the first house was being built, my father would take us for walks there, down this exotic uninhabited Brigadoon, most importantly teaching us to avoid the poison ivy that grew thick on the sides. There were two paths through the forest, and both led to beautiful waterfalls. The near one, across from our property (and loaded with poison ivy), was small, no more than 2-3 feet high, and narrow enough that if you put your feet on the right stones, you could hop across. But further down the road, past Darcey, was a high one, with a pond above it (since badly silted in by the flood of 1982). And by the pond, above the waterfall, were two stone pillars. My father, who not only had two degrees in history but whose babysitter so many eons ago had been the Prospect Town Historian, who could possibly have been born in the 1600’s, told me back then that the pillars had belonged to a mill, to hold a mill wheel driven by the waterfall. The fact there could have been industry nearby made sense to me, since the land and trees between our house and Darcey suggested an old road, and we had come across old coal deposits and odd bits of rusty tools buried in the dirt, waiting for child archeologists to treasure them.

They were fond memories, but that was all. No information seemed to exist about it. Most old maps of Cheshire stopped at the Notch, since that was where trolley and train stops were (check out the old track humps on Pamela Lane, or the bridge by Mixville Park). The Historical Society had never heard of it.

But the pillars remained. They knew they existed, and they remembered the history better than I did. Although in my teen years we played in that stream, walked up it to the big waterfall, the thick brush, briars, and mud discouraged us from further exploration (as well as the man who owned the property, who liked to fire his gun if he saw anyone so much walk down the road. And I was his papergirl.).

This view of Cuff Brook became a bookcover

But I am a determined researcher, and after decades of waiting for an internet to be built and the right information to be loaded onto it, I hit paydirt. I came across an old map of Cheshire, from 1868, that not only showed a cider mill, but two cider mills on what is actually known as Cuff Brook (no one ever knew it had a name, it was just The Brook). The T. H. Barnes Homestead still stands, built in 1817 (we knew it as the Bear’s House, because the Bears lived in it at the time, but the Barnes family took it back, and I know this because one of the Barnes was my babysitter), and these pillars may very well have been part of their old property (they have a small pond by the house, but no waterfall to turn a wheel). I believe the house marked Jos. Barnes is the one on the corner of Huckins and Hickory Lane, which dates from 1742, and has an entire tree as a crossbeam (because I used to babysit the kids in that house. Maybe we need a book called The History of Cheshire Through Babysitting). I find it amusing that the same streets are already there, including the unpaved Moneta Lane across from Winslow, and that across the street from the newly built Barnum School at Marion and Jarvis is a label of “School No. 5.” (The Hotchkiss house across from it dates from 1805, and still stands). The more things change, the more they remain the same.

So plant some apple trees this year, and bring back a piece of Cheshire history (I had two at my old house on Marion, and one was certainly old enough to date back to at least 1920). It’s good for the bees, and heirloom apples are a treat (there are more than 7500 varieties!). Cheshire is ripe with orchards, the oldest being the now-closed Norton Brothers Farm (1757), followed by Bishop Farms (circa 1780, where, in that other century, before houses seized the land, I worked picking apples, peaches, and cherries). If you need help, check out these books on apples and Cheshire!

Grow a Little Fruit Tree

How to Grow Food

Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques

Gardening for Dummies

Home Grown Pantry

Apples of Uncommon Character

Legendary CT

New England Orchard Cookbook

Apples are from Kazakhstan

Fire cider! : 101 zesty recipes for health-boosting remedies made with apple cider vinegar

Cheshire

Landmarks of Old Cheshire

Context for Conflict: The Iran War

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I took four college courses in Russian, and “Ya ne panimayu pa-Russki” – translated, “I don’t understand Russian” – is about all I have to show for it. It’s not surprising. It was the late 2000s, and the U.S. was neither in active competition nor actively antagonistic toward Russia. Enrollment in Russian was so low at my university that my professor, a Ukrainian by birth, padded out most of his semesters by teaching basic Spanish courses. Even the writers of the textbook seemed apathetic; they included vocabulary referring to Soviet-era stores, even though the Soviet state had dissolved 15 years prior to the edition’s publication.

For anyone who can remember all those case declensions, Russian language media must be a fascinating read these days.

Russia and Ukraine have been at war since 2014, with February 24, 2022 marking the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and a new phase of the war. It’s not the only war in the headlines. Israel has been at war with Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023. And now, with the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei mere days ago on February 28, it appears that the U.S. and Israel are actively at war with Iran. I can’t say what could or should happen in any of these conflicts. I am a terrible student of history and I’m even worse at geopolitics. However, I am a librarian who can present you with works by experts to contextualize these conflicts, and I can find narratives by reporters and memoirists who are documenting their experiences as they happen. From there, you can read and draw your own conclusions.

I can’t do justice to these three conflicts in one blog post, so I’m going to break this down into parts, starting with today’s biggest headline dominator: the Iran War. If you know of an informative resource that’s not on the list, please feel free to leave a comment so other readers can find it!

Iran: A Modern History by Abbas Amanat (2017)

A comprehensive treatment of Iran’s history written by a top scholar. From the publisher: “Amanat combines chronological and thematic approaches, exploring events with lasting implications for modern Iran and the world. Drawing on diverse historical scholarship and emphasizing the twentieth century, he addresses debates about Iran’s culture and politics. Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat’s decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage.”

A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind by Michael Axworthy (2008)

If you’re looking for a quicker read, try this book by another excellent Iran historian. From the publisher: “Although frequently vilified, Iran is a nation of great intellectual variety and depth, and one of the oldest continuing civilizations in the world. Its political impact has been tremendous, not only on its neighbors in the Middle East but also throughout the world. From the time of the prophet Zoroaster, to the powerful ancient Persian Empires, to the revolution of 1979, the hostage crisis, and the current standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Michael Axworthy vividly narrates the nation’s rich history.”

America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian (2021)

From the publisher: “In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the eighteenth century—the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams—and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government. Drawing on years of archival research both in the United States and Iran—including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars—the Iranian-born, Oxford-educated historian… makes clear where, how, and when it all went wrong. America and Iran shows why two countries that once had such heartfelt admiration for each other became such committed enemies—and why it didn’t have to turn out this way.”

The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations by Ervand Abrahamian (2013)

From the publisher: “In this authoritative new history of the coup and its aftermath, noted Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian uncovers little-known documents that challenge conventional interpretations and sheds new light on how the American role in the coup influenced diplomatic relations between the two countries, past and present. Drawing from the hitherto closed archives of British Petroleum, the Foreign Office, and the US State Department, as well as from Iranian memoirs and published interviews, Abrahamian’s riveting account of this key historical event will change America’s understanding of a crucial turning point in modern United States-Iranian relations.”

All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer (2003)

Kinzer is a former journalist who knows how to craft a compelling and factual story. From the publisher: “This national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East.”

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas (2020)

A fresh perspective on Iran’s place in the Middle East, from a Beirut-based journalist. From the publisher: “Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy.”

The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran by Roy Mottahedeh (1985)

From the publisher: “Drawn from the first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses, Roy Mottahedeh’s absorbing tale of Islam and Politics in revolutionary Iran is widely regarded as one of the best records of that turbulent time ever written.” Forty years after its initial publication, it’s still a great book to help one understand the 1979 revolution – especially the role that clerics and religion played.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)

There’s little I can say that hasn’t already been said about Persepolis. This graphic novel is a personal account of a girl living through the revolution and the social restrictions that followed, then her young adulthood as she goes between Europe and Iran. It’s wonderfully accessible, even for those who aren’t usually graphic novel readers.

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson (2025)

From the publisher: “From the author of the landmark bestseller Lawrence in Arabia comes a stunningly revelatory narrative history of the Iranian Revolution, one of the most momentous events in modern times. This groundbreaking work exposes the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American government and traces the rise of religious nationalism, offering essential insights into today’s global unrest.”

For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy (2025)

From the publisher: “A moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists.”

As a millennial whose male friends all wanted to be Anthony Bourdain, I have to give a shout-out to Bourdain’s CNN documentary travel show Parts Unknown. The late chef-turned-travel-host had a gift for finding connections with people across the world, and it was on display during his visit to Iran in 2014. You can watch it in season 4 episode 6. Parts Unknown is available through multiple free and paid streaming services.

And if you’re interested in Iran’s contributions to art, please check out our Islamic Art program on Tuesday, March 17. Wadsworth curator Hamid Hemat will take us on an art journey through the Islamic world, including Iran’s famous Nastaliq calligraphy. You’ll also get to try writing Persian script yourself! Register here: https://cheshirelibrary.libcal.com/event/15030026

Disappearing Authors

/ Susan O. / 1 Comment

Barbara Newhall Follett was a writer who disappeared. Not fell out of favor or faded out of print, but disappeared. Considered a child genius who published a successful novel at the age of 12, The House Without Windows (it helped, of course, that her father was an editor at Alfred Knopf publishers), Follett was emotionally destroyed by her father’s divorce when she was 14, and never did much more. In 1939, Follett had a fight with her husband, walked out her door in Boston, and was never seen again…

Some authors are known for being extremely reclusive – J. D. Salinger, for one. Salinger had numerous personal and family issues, many, his daughter believed, stemming from PTSD from serving in World War II, and he hid from the intense fame he acquired from Catcher in the Rye. He seldom gave interviews or made appearances.

Thomas Pynchon is another, not having given an interview or even having a photo published in more than fifty years. He has no media accounts. In his late 80’s, it’s believed he’s living in Mexico, but no one except perhaps his publisher knows for certain.

Some authors aren’t lost, they’re just taking forever on that next novel – sometimes 10 years or more (staring right at you, George R. R. Martin). There are only a handful who have actually disappeared, becoming their own mystery.

Agatha Christie is perhaps the most famous. The Queen of Mystery herself disappeared in 1926, after a fight with her husband over his request for a divorce. Her car was discovered, empty. More than 15,000 people turned out to look for her, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle going so far as to hire mediums. Eleven days later, she turned up in a hotel, 185 miles away, with no memory of what happened. Some publicists called it revenge against her husband that backfired when so many people got involved, while doctors said she had a nervous breakdown from the strain.

Solomon Northup is a name you may be familiar with. His memoir was made into an Oscar-Winning film, Twelve Years a Slave. Northup, who was born free in upstate New York but kidnapped and sold into slavery, wrote and published his memoir in 1853. Then, in 1857, he seems to disappear from historical records. Some thought he may have been kidnapped again, but his age at the time (around 50) made it unlikely. A Methodist minister in Vermont claimed to have worked with him in the early 1860’s, and last saw him in 1863. It’s assumed he died sometime between 1863 and 1864.

Elena Ferrante is a well-known author of more than 30 books, some of which have been made into movies or TV series, such as My Brilliant Friend. It’s also a pseudonym. Her true identity is a secret and almost nothing is known about her, except that she was born in Naples. In interviews, she claims it’s from shyness and fear of coming out of her shell. Speculation claims the author is actually Anita Raja, or her husband. Both people, and Ferrante’s publisher, deny it emphatically.

Antoine de St. Exupery is most famous for the timeless classic, The Little Prince, which was partly based on an airplane crash he and his navigator survived in the Libyan Desert. St. Exupery became a pilot in the 1920’s, joining the French Army, and later the French Air Force. Much of his writing has an aviation theme. When France was pulled into World War II, St. Exupery was assigned to reconnaissance missions, as an experienced pilot. On July 31, 1944, he left the airbase on Corsica in a Lockheed P-38, and was never heard from again. It wasn’t until 1998 – 54 years later, that a fisherman found a bracelet with his name on it. No one believed it, as it was some distance away from his intended flight plan. In 2000, a diver near the same area discovered wreckage of a Lockheed P-38. In 2003, the pieces were recovered and tested, proving indeed it was St. Exupery’s plane, downed in the war, though the details remain a mystery.

Ambrose Bierce was a short story writer and Civil War veteran, most famous for the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. His stories influenced Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway, and he is considered one of America’s best satirists. At the age of 71, he went on a trip to visit his old Civil War battlegrounds, crossed over into Mexico, and wound up joining Pancho Villa’s army, documenting the battles. His last letter is dated December 26, 1913. His secretary believed he threw himself into the Grand Canyon in a suicide move, but witnesses saw him in Chihuahua in January of 1914.  Mexican legend has it he was executed by a firing squad.  Either way, it’s a great story!

Jack Black is one rough figure- no, not the actor! A drifter and burglar born around 1871, his 1926 autobiography You Can’t Win described his life of crime on the road. Disenchanted with both “genteel” life and that of the judicial system, he spent 30 years as a traveling criminal (15 of which he spent in prison). The book was influential for William S. Burroughs, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Another odd fact: The author who helped him with his autobiography was none other than Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. You Can’t Win was adapted into a movie starring Michael Pitt and Jeremy Allen White, but has been in a liminal post-production stage for years. Black himself disappeared in 1932, and is believed to have committed suicide.

Returning to Barbara Newhall Follett’s story, there is something of a conclusion. After her disappearance, her husband didn’t report her missing for two weeks. The police eventually put out a bulletin – four months later. They used her married name, not her maiden name. A body was found, then determined not to be hers but a woman who had been missing years before. Thirteen years later, her mother insisted the police look harder, but nothing new was found. In 2019 – eighty years later – writer Daniel Mills proposed a theory that her body had been found in 1948, just not properly identified. The body had been found in New Hampshire – just a half mile from where she had a rental property and not terribly far from her home in Boston. The possessions found with the body were things Follett was known to have. The cause of death was barbiturate overdose, a substance Follett had taken before. The police in New Hampshire had no idea she’d been missing.

Authors, even the most famous ones, are still people, with the same dramas as everyone else. Does art imitate life, or does life create the art?

For books on “prodigies” who turn away from their potential, check out Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, or Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies by Ann Hulbert.

This Must Be the Place: New Books and Documentaries to Stoke Your Musical Nostalgia

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

There’s this article from The Onion that my husband and I keep chuckling over. The joke headline is “Cool Dad Raising Daughter on Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out of Touch with Her Generation,” and it’s followed by a photo of a middle-aged man presenting a girl with a vinyl copy of the Talking Heads Remain in Light as she regards the album in her hands with utter skepticism. We may or may not have played that very album for our kids before heading to New Haven to watch former Talking Heads members—now septuagenarians—perform it live. That joke article is about us.

Anyone who’s interrupted a Disney playlist to subject their progeny to a few excruciating minutes of A Very Important Music Thing can relate. We want to share the things we love with the people we love. We want them to know who we are. It could be music or movies, hobbies, sports teams, longtime vacation spots. For me, it’s reggae and Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Neil Young’s Harvest, all of which I heard as a kid on weekend mornings. It’s hurtling down the interstate in a car full of teenagers scream-singing along to Jimmy Eat World’s “Sweetness” or Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” or Underworld’s “Born Slippy.” It’s the first two Decemberists albums, played as my future husband and I aimlessly wandered the backroads near the town we were so very desperate to leave. This music is as much me as the cells in my body. So now I sing “Heart of Gold” and “The Crane Wife” to my kids as bedtime lullabies, and for background noise I play Bob Marley and classic R&B songs that were sampled by rappers.

Until the kids are old enough for evening concerts, I’m passing my limited free time by reading and watching documentaries about music, especially the scenes and artists that have dimmed the stage lights for the last time. Did you know that emo was a product of the suburbs? (Thanks, Andy Greenwald!) Or that Carrie Brownstein, half of the hilarious duo on Portlandia, was part of Olympia’s feminist Riot Grrrl movement in the early 90’s? Here’s some recent media if you’re feeling nostalgic for the sounds of the past.

Night People: How to be a DJ in ’90s NYC by Mark Ronson (2025)

From the publisher: Organized around the venues that defined his experience of the downtown scene, Ronson evokes the specific rush of that decade and those spaces—where fashion folks and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5’ers—and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down. A heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Night People is the definitive account of ’90s New York nightlife and the making of a musical mastermind.

Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Ames Carlin (2025)

From the publisher: From the opening piano notes of “Thunder Road,” to the final outro of “Jungleland”—with American anthems like “Born to Run” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” in between—Bruce Springsteen’s seminal album, Born to Run, established Springsteen as a creative force in rock and roll. With his back against the wall, he wrote what has been hailed as a perfect album, a defining moment, and a roadmap for what would become a legendary career. Peter Ames Carlin, whose bestselling biography, Bruce, gave him rare access to Springsteen’s inner circle, now returns with the full story of the making of this epic album. Released in August, 1975, Born to Run now celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Hip-Hop Is History by Questlove (2024)

From the publisher: Questlove traces the creative and cultural forces that made and shaped hip-hop, highlighting both the forgotten but influential gems and the undeniable chart-topping hits-and weaves it all together with the stories no one else knows. It is at once an intimate, sharply observed story and a sweeping theory of the evolution of the great artistic movement of our time. Questlove approaches it with both the encyclopedic fluency of an obsessive fan and the unique expertise of an innovative participant. Hip-hop is history, and also his history.

Psst: If you prefer to watch a documentary, Questlove’s Hip-Hop Evolution (2016) runs along similar lines. It’s available on Netflix.

Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ’90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene that Followed by Mike Ayers (2025) 

From the publisher: Sharing in the Groove is a rich examination of an underdog genre that helped define the 1990s musical landscape―a scene that paved the way for modern-day cultural institutions such as the Bonnaroo Music Festival and kept the Grateful Dead ethos alive. It was also a world with its own values and its own unique interactions with fame, record labels, MTV, drugs, and success.

The Name of This band is R.E.M.: A Biography by Peter James Carlin (2024)

From the publisher: Deeply descriptive and remarkably poetic, steeped in 80s and 90s nostalgia, The Name of This Band is R.E.M. paints a cultural history of the commercial peak and near-total collapse of a great music era, and the story of the generation that came of age at the apotheosis of rock.

The Harder I Fight the More I Love You by Neko Case (2025)

From the publisher: Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art.

How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music edited by Alison Fensterstock (2024)

From the publisher: Drawn from NPR Music’s acclaimed, groundbreaking series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of Women in Music—from Beyoncé to Odetta, Taylor Swift to Joan Baez, Joan Jett to Dolly Parton—featuring archival interviews, essays, photographs, and illustrations.

The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America by Larry Tye (2024)

From the publisher: This is the story of three revolutionary American musicians, the maestro jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of twentieth-century America… What is far less known about these groundbreakers is that they were bound not just by their music or even the discrimination that they, like nearly all Black performers of their day, routinely encountered. Each defied and ultimately overcame racial boundaries by opening America’s eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music. In the process they wrote the soundtrack for the civil rights movement.

Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna (2024)

From the publisher: An electric, searing memoir by the original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre… As Hanna makes clear, being in a “girl band,” especially a punk girl band, in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination. But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her–including with her bandmates, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Johanna Fateman; her friendships with Kurt Cobain and Ian MacKaye; and her introduction to Joan Jett- were all a testament to how the punk world could nurture and care for its own.

Music by John Williams (2024) Produced and directed by Laurent Bouzereau

My favorite music documentaries fill me to the brim with joy (see: Twenty Feet from Stardom)  and this journey through the most iconic music in cinema history does just that. Williams wrote the scores for Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, E.T., Harry Potter, Jaws, and lots of other movies that are memorable in part due to Williams’ mastery. It’s only available on Disney+, but it’s worth a trial if you aren’t already a subscriber.

Summer of Soul: (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2022) Directed by Questlove

I’m cheating a little here when it comes to “recent” releases, but this is another piece of joy. It follows the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which was overshadowed by Woodstock and hardly made a blip on the radar. You’ll get the context of the almost-forgotten festival, along with footage of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, the 5th Dimension, and Sly and the Family Stone (rest in peace) doing what they do best. If you don’t start moving to Gladys Knight and the Pips’ upbeat rendition of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” then I can’t help you. Borrow the DVD from the library or stream it from your preferred service.