Hi readers, I’m back! It feels great to be writing to you again. If you stuck around and hung onto your paid subscription during my leave, thank you. If you upgraded to a paid subscription during my leave, thank you doubly. All of your subscriptions added up to help support my leave, and I don’t take it for granted.¹ (And hey, if you haven’t upgraded yet, it’s never too late!)
Dear Lisa, you are the best :,)
There are a lot of new subscribers here, so hello to you all, and thanks for joining. Some of you may have subscribed unbeknownst to you by clicking “continue” somewhere on the Substack platform while subscribing to another newsletter, so allow me to reintroduce myself…
some scenes from leave: harvesting peonies with my daughter, TIRED but happy newborn snuggles, 2 siblings 1 crib
I’m Alisha, the writer of Downtime, a newsletter about books and other good things worth slowing down for. I publish book recs, interviews with authors and people I love, and these weekly installments of recommendations. One of my favorite things a reader has ever said about this newsletter is that it’s “a good mix of seriousness and frivolity.” That’s me and Downtime in a nutshell; we embrace that high-low, baby.
Before Downtime, I quit my job in tech to found a media brand called Girls’ Night In which I started in my late 20’s. It grew and became popular; I was once interviewed about it on Good Morning America while sporting a look of sheer terror. And I haven’t been in front of a video camera since!!
Now, I’m in my 30’s and live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with my husband, two kids, and dog. I’ve slowly rebuilt my life around creativity and working sustainably after living that age-old burnout tale of the millennial-girlboss who girlbossed too hard. I’m still navigating newish motherhood, though my oldest is nearly three. (I’m assuming that never ends.) I’m glad you’re here to read and chat about books and good things with many other readers and cultureheads (there’s about 100,000ish of you here). Okay, let’s have some fun…
You’re reading the weekly Recs edition of Downtime, a weekly dispatch of good things I loved this week that are worth your time. Today’s post is free but these posts are usually available in full exclusively to paid Downtime subscribers. Join us for $5/month and support the letter if you love it.
This week’s recommendations is really a big catch-up of the past three months, including everything I read during my leave and five things, recipes, and products I feel very passionately about right now and need to tell you about.
Books I read and recommend
I know some of you magician moms out there have mastered the “Kindle in one hand, nursing baby with the other” trick, but I have YET to see the day. Instead, maternity leave wasa good reminder of the convenience and pleasure of audiobooks, which are what helped me read any books at all. During stroller walks, folding laundry, and middle-of-the-night feeding sessions, audiobooks were the way to go.
The books I read can be cleanly divided into “buzzy books of the moment” and “very me books I just wanted to read.” Here are quick 3-sentence reviews of each of them…
