Among our many reading recommendations this week, two books bring into focus the nature of plenitude, both its pleasures and its pitfalls. In The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, beloved author Robin Wall Kimmerer gently inspires readers "to embrace a sense of 'enoughness' "; while debut essayist Emily Mester "presents an affable and humble study of the senses that consumption can satisfy and the ones it can't" in American Bulk: Essays on Excess. Plus, the thrilling dystopian YA novel HappyHead by Josh Silver follows an anxious 17-year-old who enters "a questionable mental health program" to secure a sense of happiness.
In The Writer's Life, Naomi Wood discusses the way little moments in her personal life have influenced her "wickedly entertaining" short fiction. Along the way, she touches on what she refers to as the "over-resilience" of women and the dynamics in which they antagonize one another over parenting methods and in the workplace.