📚️🏳️⚧️✨ Being Alive Book Club reads How Far the Light Reaches
Writer Sabrina Imbler will join us Mon, Feb 24 to discuss their memoir
On this snowy Sunday evening, I had two assignments:
Post our February Being Alive Book Club details
Stream my friend Sam Feder’s new documentary, Heightened Scrutiny, which just premiered at Sundance.
Because watching is more fun than writing and because Sundance streaming rules are rightfully rigid, I opted for the documentary first. Lo and behold, right there at minute 31, our February author, Sabrina Imbler.
I can’t stop talking about Sabrina’s work. I fell in love with their writing instantly, devouring their clever, attention-grabbing 2020 chapbook Dyke (geology), which the discerning Books are Magic booksellers placed at checkout.
Here’s a taste:
The Earth’s magnetic field has been waning slowly over millions of years. This means magnetism was three times as strong for the dinosaurs as we experience it now. This means their auroras burned three times as bright. I wonder if I will recover that feeling of attraction, of being pulled outside myself without foresight or hesitation. Of succumbing entirely to longing, dormant for as long as I can remember.
I went back the next day and bought How Far the Light Reaches.
Sabrina’s 2022 memoir is an unexpected delight, as science writer extraordinaire Ed Yong sums it up on the paperback’s inside cover: “This is a miraculous, transcendental book.” Every essay in this collection is a portal under the sea and into Sabrina’s heart. And a very good way to shake up our collective energy after the politics of January.
For the listeners in the group, start with this 2023 Radio Lab episode, where Sabrina shares with host Lulu Miller that studying creatures allows them to “consider possibilities for myself that I had never imagined.” You’ll also hear one of the poignant essays in the book, which delicately weaves together reckoning with traumatic memories, theories of predation, and the enigmatic sand striker (a killer worm that almost no one has seen.) All underscored with Radio Lab’s signature ethereal soundscape.
Sabrina is a staff writer at Defector Media on “the creature beat.” And a fellow Brooklynite who lives here with their partner, two cats, and a school of fish. We’re going log into Zoom from our different parts of this borough Monday, February 24th and you are all invited.
As a reminder, BABC is open to ALL—and there are many ways to participate (none of which absolutely require reading the entire book.)
Opt A: Learn alongside me by reading this newsletter and Sabrina’s book. I’ll post more of my thoughts, reflections, and links to more of Sabrina’s writing throughout the month.
Opt B: Join the conversation with other members in chat. See the thread below.
Opt C: Join the Being Alive Book Club gathering on Zoom. (RSVP) I told myself I’d be happy if just five people attended the first book club. I was stunned when thirty people joined our last call, one of whom said after that it was “the most tender Zoom meeting I’ve ever attended.” If you haven’t seen the recap yet, I recommend reading my conversation with Victoria Foster. It was such a pleasure to get to talk politics and love with her.
Now, I’m going to go read about Chinese sturgeon.
xx Kyle