1,654 books since 2014

Above all else: I am a reader.

When I started this Substack back in 2020, it was originally just for book recommendations. (Some goodies include my favorite books of 2024, my faves of 2023, a bunch I liked in 2021, and my top 50-ish of 2020. I think I was too deep in a post-partum haze to have favorites at the end of 2022… )

I started with books on here because above all else, the thing I feel the most solid-ground on is my identity as a reader.

My mom likes to tell my husband (much to his trolling-me delight) that I learned to read when I was two, which, well, now that I have a two year old of my own, I suspect is not exactly truthful. But still: I learned to read pretty early for my age, and was one of those kids who would read books to avoid being alone with my thoughts.

I’d pick out shampoos at CVS based first on scent and second on what had the most interesting back-of-bottle content. I’d read the back of the cereal box over breakfast, or the user-manual in the glove compartment in the car, or the weird likely age-inappropriate novels left behind in the rental house wherever we’d end up on vacation. I didn’t really care: Whatever words I could get my hands on, I’d read.

When it came to books, like any self-respecting millennial girl, I vividly remember working my way through the American Girl doll books, then devouring the Baby Sitters Club series, since I was signed up for whatever marketing gimmick involved them sending me a new book in the mail every month — nothing can beat the pure delight of those packages arriving and ripping open the envelope to learn what shenanigans Kristy and the gang got into this time.

I read every single one of the Dear America and Royal Diaries historical fiction series, and my copy of Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine was so well-read it had water-marks from falling in the bath too many times. (She came by the Hillary for America office once and phew, we were a particular type of team, because the conference room was absolutely packed full of of 20- and 30-something women who were similarly infatuated with that book.)

As I got into middle and high school, I’d read every book assigned for school, of course, but my real loves were the rom-coms that usually involved flawed-but-charming women and their complicated romantic lives. (Still the genre I fall back on to this day!) I’d read whatever books my mom had on our shelves — I remember my first Jennifer Weiner book, Good in Bed, which I probably read at a too-young age, and the first time I read things by Sophia Kinsella and Jane Green.

When I went off to college I got my first Kindle and have been a 100% e-book reader ever since. (I like the ability to make the font bigger for my tired eyes, I love the backlight for reading in the dark when others are asleep, and as someone who’s moved a ton, lived in small spaces, and still travels a lot, I love having thousands of books with me at all times.)

I started more closely tracking what I read back in 2014 — which means I have a Google sheet going back over a decade of all the books I’ve stuffed into my brain.

Most years, I read somewhere between 125 to 150 books (although in 2020, when all I did was work, work out, and read, I got through 238 books, including the entire Bridgerton series in one whirlwind three-day weekend of reading.) That’s 1,623 books from 2014-2024, plus another 31 so far in 2025.

I don’t have a reading goal, exactly — I keep track mostly because sometimes I forget what I’ve already read and what I just started and did not finish, and I like having an easy reference for when people ask for recs — but I do try to keep an eye on the backgrounds of my authors and the types of plots and books I tend to read a lot of, especially since the Amazon algorithm, top book lists, and reviews tend to drive much of my purchasing habits.

I post my book recs on Instagram, something I started doing while on a solo vacation I went on back in 2017 and never really stopped because it seemed like people found it helpful. Doing so has led to the occasional DM of how I’m able to read so much while also doing other things.

The honest answer is five-fold:

1. I married someone who also loves to read — he has also kept a spreadsheet for himself of his reading (and has for years before we met) and has goals for average pages per day, etc — so we are both happy to spend our downtime together with books.

2. I’m not a great sleeper, so I read a lot at night.

3. I don’t really get motion-sick, so I can read in the car or on the subway.

4. I carry my Kindle everywhere. I don’t get purses unless they’re big enough to fit my Kindle.

5. Especially once I had kids, I basically stopped watching TV and movies outside of one or two shows from time to time. The way our apartment is laid out, our TV is an entirely different space than where we hang out as a family and we don’t have a TV in our bedroom, so once the girls go to bed, my husband and I tend to flop in bed ourselves and read (or, tbh, scroll TikTok.)

Plus, underlying all that, I’m just a fast reader. (It’s why getting my email inbox under control is my superpower.)

I can tell when I’m super stressed by what kind of book I’m drawn to — candy-for-my-brain romance novels, usually— and if I’m unable to genuinely focus on any book at all, that’s when I know my brain and life needs a reset. My reading habits are my best external metric for how I’m feeling.

Reading is the most constant hobby I’ve had my entire life. It’s a core part of my identity. One night at Boat Bar (IYKYK) back in 2016, my laptop and Kindle got stolen out of my purse — losing my laptop was frustrating because it was expensive to eventually replace later, but it was my lost Kindle I couldn’t survive more than a day without. My very kind colleagues chipped in for a giftcard to help me replace it ASAP, knowing how foundational reading was to maintaining my sanity.

Now as a parent, reading to my daughters is one of my all-time favorite ways to spend time together. My toddler is, much to my delight, absolutely book-obsessed. We take her to storytime on the library on weekends, where she picks out book after book for us to read together (sometimes by yanking them out of other kids’ hands, but we’re working on it.)

I am constantly buying her new books on ThriftBooks, and I try to always say yes when she asks to read — a tendency she’s for sure taken advantage of on nights where she’s procrastinating bedtime. Lately, she’s been “reading” books to the baby, turning the pages and recounting from memory what the hungry caterpillar ate on Monday and Tuesday.

Watching her love books the way we love books is on of those things I didn’t realize would be so special about parenting until it started happening. Seeing her make connections, repeat back lines from the stories, point out new things she notices in each page — even when it’s wildly annoying to read Monster Meditation one million times in a row, experiencing her joy and comfort in getting lost in a story is as good as when I get lost in a book myself.

I’ve been really busy this week between some big Run for Something projects launching soon, plus traveling for some book publicity (see below!!), so I thought this week, I’d just pull out some of the book reviews from the last few months that I thought should get their own separate email, just ICYMI.

And consider this a heads up that from time to time, I’ll throw in a reading wrap up in this Substack to get back to this newsletter roots

Some book recs:

• Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry - I read this on the train yesterday and then when I woke up at 5am anxious this morning, finished it bright and early — it’s a classic EmHen in that it’s sad people saying funny things and finding love. Alice is a sunny optimist; Hayden is a grumpy stoic; both find themselves living on an island off the coast of Georgia as they audition for writing the memoir of a reclusive former It Girl with a glamorous past and a bunch of secrets. It’s hot, funny, and will make a great movie. If you like her other books, you’ll like this.

• Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine - A very sweet and very hot romance about Margot, a romance writer who falls into scandal thru a leaked file of not-so-happy-endings and ends up absconding to remote Alaska to hide and work on a new genre of books, only to fall into every possible romance trope with the handsome innkeeper/doctor. This took me a minute to get into but once it picked up, it stayed good.

• Passion Project by London Sperry — Bennett moves to New York City while she’s grieving her dead college boyfriend. A few years removed and still listless but nudged to go on a date, she ends up standing up handsome Henry, and then running into him a few hours later — they connect and somehow make a plan for him to help her find her passion again by bouncing around the city. Sparks fly, etc etc. A sweet romance, good grief portrayal, and excellent New York City stuff. I liked this a lot!

• Woodworking by Emily St. James — A funny, tender, beautifully written novel about Erica Skyberg, a 35-year old recently divorced English teacher and about-to-come-out trans woman who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: One of her students, Abigail. This book is so good and so (unsurprisingly) insightful about the interiority of a gender transition in all its forms, and there is a twist of narration toward the end that is so deftly done it floored me. I loved this.

• Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley — Percy Marks (an aspiring music critic/writer) and Joe Morrow (an aspiring musician/singer/songwriter) meet at a bar near Berkeley in 2000 and kick off a partnership/collaboration/romance/situationship that lasts over a decade, across careers, cities, and heartbreaks. I am aggressively uncool about music so only knew maybe half of the references in this but still, really enjoyed the tortured friendship/relationship and the vibes.

• Back After This by Linda Holmes - Cecily, a podcast producer in DC who aspires to host her own show, finally gets the opportunity when she’s offered the chance to be the subject of a dating show as a real-life subject for an influencer/relationship coach. At the same time, whoops, she falls for a handsome man she keeps running into around town. Very funny, very charming, and deeply rooted in the reality of podcast production (as you’d expect from an NPR host!)

• Chris Hayes’ book is really good. Annoyingly I kept finding myself picking up my phone every few pages, basically proving his point.

• The Favorites by Layne Fargo - Juicy messy drama in the world of Olympic-level ice dancing that is a little bit romance, a little bit coming of age, a lot of sports/athletic drama, a lot of fame, and a tiny bit of thrill. Such a propulsive read and only a tiny bit too long.

In the meantime: What are you reading? What do you want to be reading? Let me recommend a book for you! Leave a comment.

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Other reading recs and links I liked:

• “Here’s what I am saying: effective representation can no longer be judged—if it ever could—on the sole basis of a shared identity with an elected official. It is not enough. We can start there, if we must and if we’d like, but then: what else?” [Hmm, That’s Interesting on identity politics, which I basically agree with and might rephrase: representation is necessary but it alone is not sufficient]

• “I propose this radical act: stop listening to and following any parenting advice that relegates our emotions, needs, time, space, and identity.” [Mansplaining motherhood: how parenting advice upholds the patriarchy.]

• Among many things baffling about this, I can’t believe he thought it was okay to write it all down and publish it. What it must be like to have no self-awareness!! [Building our native AI newsroom]

• As mentioned up top: I’m in DC to kick off some book publicity! I joined Pod Save America to talk about a bunch of things Run for Something-related and also have my first big convo about When We’re in Charge, which comes out in just 2.5 weeks! I was really nervous about this — I hope you can’t tell.

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If you’re into this newsletter, you might like my book, When We’re in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership, available for pre-order and officially on sale on May 13th.

Get it in all the normal places:

Amazon
Bookshop.org — get 15% off with code AMANDA15
Barnes & Noble — get 25% thru 4/25 with code PREORDER25
BAM!

Events in NYC on 5/15 & DC on 5/21