An enticing and problematic classic and a scarily relevant novella
Plus a major milestone and another epic 2025 book preview
Before I get into this week’s books, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you. This weekend, the FictionMatters Newsletter reached 1,000 paid subscribers, and I truly can’t believe it. I started writing this newsletter almost five years ago, turning on paid subscriptions about two-and-a-half years in, and it’s been the best experience. I feel my most creative in this space, and I love dreaming up new ways to connect with you and share my passion for books and reading. Every subscription—free and paid—means so much to me and bolsters me to continue making this newsletter even better. Thank you for being on this literary journey with me. I’m so excited for what’s to come!
P.S. If you’re a new paid subscriber and haven’t yet, be sure to get your Mood Reader’s Almanac for 2025. It’s 38 gorgeous PDF pages with 136 recommendations to keep you in good books all year long.
This week in books.
This week I read…
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I did not read this entire behemoth this week. I think I started the audiobook back in November, listening to it whenever I didn’t have a podcast or another audiobook I was into. But when I hit the halfway point earlier this month, I was all in and finished up in a five hour listening binge on Thursday. I’ll start by saying this book is extremely racist and that makes it hard to recommend it to anyone. I knew it was racist, but I still found myself shocked. The first half was about the level of problematic I was expecting, but then Mitchell brings us to Reconstruction and OMG do her views come out. And they are abhorrent. That could be a full stop, but I must admit that in terms of story, I have to give her credit. This book is intoxicating. Scarlett is the ultimate antiheroine: beautiful, selfish, and determined as anything. She has fabulous success and makes idiotic decisions. Her views are reprehensible. And yet—I could not look away. And I wanted her to get what she wanted! It’s rare for me to think about characters as people instead of artistic creations. I’m prone to thinking about why an author chose to make a character do x, y, and z rather than why a character did x, y, and z. But I haven’t been able to get Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley, and Melanie out of my head. I keep thinking about their pivotal decision points and how things might have ended in different circumstances. I was invested! I remain invested!! This is a topic for a longer post, but I also found this to be a revelatory reading experience in terms of considering American ideologies. Obviously, no one should read Gone With the Wind as history. (And frankly, reading some of the Goodreads reviews almost makes me think that no one should read GWTW at all. The number of people taking this as historical truth is astounding and more than a little bit terrifying.) But the book actually reveals a lot us about foundational Southern and American myths. So while it is a book that might be easy to simply get swept up in and enjoy, it also must be read critically—with a curious investigation of the contextual ideology and history. With this in mind, I plan to read Sarah Churchwell’s book The Wrath to Come: Gone With the Wind and the Lies America Tells very soon on the recommendation of
. I have a lot more to unpack as I continue to read and think about GWTW, but there’s no doubt it’s an enthralling epic with unforgettable characters—and, as ahistorical as it is, it still feels significant to American culture today. Bookshop | Libro.fmUniversality by Natasha Brown. I have lots of thoughts about this book, but similar to Audition (another 2025 release I read recently) this is a book I know would benefit from a reread; it’s also one I highly recommend preordering. The book opens with an article exposé exploring the lead up to and fallout from a brutally violent act in which someone was nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. I have to admit that reading these 40 pages wasn’t particularly enjoyable. The story was fine, but it’s just not that interesting to read a not-so-well-written piece of journalism about a fictitious event. The quality of the writing is explained through the rest of the 110 pages, as is—to a certain extent—what really happened during this event and its aftermath. What I love about this book is the way each section peels back a layer, both in terms of plot and theme, so that you slowly realize what you’re reading and why it matters. Brown is doing a lot here in thinking through language, power, class, persuasion, and how people perform their roles and adapt to changing times. I’m not convinced it was entirely successful at everything it tried to do, but for 150 pages, it was a quick read that held me in its grasp and gave me a ton of eerily relevant ideas to wrestle with. Bookshop | Libro.fm
Now I’m reading…
This Jane Eyre-inspired February release from an author whose previous book I seriously enjoyed.
New on my TBR…
Edinburgh was already on my TBR, but after hearing my friend Eunice rave about it, I’ve bumped it up my list.
Links I love.
The Millions Great Winter Preview is finally live!
I think I might add this exploration of the female Romantics to my TBR. (NYT, gift link)
I haven’t read Fourth Wing, but I enjoyed this little primer on Rebecca Yarros. (Vulture)
This is good: Neil Gaiman and the problem of faux feminists. (Vox)
10 wintery horror novels that will chill you to the bone. (Electric Lit)
Mavis Gallant is on my list of authors to read this year, so it was nice to learn a little more about her. (Lit Hub)
The best cozy romance novels to steam up your nights. (NYT, gift link)
End Notes.
Louise has moved on from Frozen to Frozen 2. Is it Stockholm Syndrome or is that movie genuinely good?? Either way, I’m into it.
I’m back to using my Libby app constantly now that I’m reading books for my Paperback Summer Reading Guide and it’s just the best. Free audiobooks and ebooks sent straight to my devices…what a world we live in.
I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re looking for help curbing your phone and/or social media usage this year, I cannot recommend Brick highly enough. Using Brick helps me turn down the “phone noise.” Yes, it actually would prevent me from opening social media apps if I tried, but the best part is that when I’m Bricked, I’m not even itching for them at all. One thing I love about it is you can have different settings you personalize and choose between. I basically have myself blocked from Instagram all the time unless I’m using it for work. But I also have a deeper focus mode that blocks everything remotely distracting (IG, Substack, Discord, etc) that I use when I sit down to write. It’s a miracle device and I’m so grateful for it.
has a discount code: THESTACKS.
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Happy reading!
Sara
Between GWTW and Brick this might be my favorite newsletter of yours ever.
Sara- What an amazing summation of GWTW! I reread it during the pandemic while holed up in a vacation house. I think there had just been an article written likening GWTW to a Confederate monument and I wanted to go back and look at the book with a new lens. I definitely had remembered much more about the picnics and the Tarleton boys than the Reconstruction politics, boy is it there. One book I would recommend to folks is Jubilee by Margaret Walker- I'm surprised how few people have heard of it. I read it years ago when I lived in Virginia and plan to do a reread this February.