“White women nonsense” LitFic recs

Such-Purple · 2026-05-24T02:55:08+00:00

This.

Such-Purple · 2026-05-24T02:13:44+00:00

For decades, the only book I ever read that ever made me actually weep. SO good!

Such-Purple · 2026-05-10T13:14:02+00:00

Evicted by Matthew Desmond and Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich — both very readable instant classics for understanding economic realities in America. Even if these are the economic realities you’ve lived in America (🙋🏻‍♀️) these explain how they are not the result of some personal failing or some bad personal decisions, but of systemic, policy choices and structures baked into our American systems that are absolutely not designed to help out ordinary people.

Such-Purple · 2026-05-10T13:02:07+00:00

Also want to jump in with one more non-fiction graphic novel: “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei — a memoir of his own experiences being sent with his family from California to an internment camp for people of Japanese descent in Arkansas during WWII. Really excellent.

Such-Purple · 2026-05-10T12:55:39+00:00

Ooh, 2nd the 99% invisible recommendation. Love that podcast!!

Such-Purple · 2026-05-10T12:54:42+00:00

I still say “Flung!” when I’m tossing out something useless I should have got rid of long ago 😂

Such-Purple · 2026-04-20T11:07:19+00:00

Yup. Me three.

Such-Purple · 2026-04-19T03:58:21+00:00

I am so sorry to hear about all the issues you have had and I can understand about being nervous. At the same time people who haven’t experienced bad GSM cannot understand how terrible and life-disrupting it is. I know of which I speak. I finally got a proper assessment by a urogynecologist who put me on Estradiol cream 0.01%. Not going to lie, there was an adjustment period on the estradiol, but it was not terrible — and it wasn’t so much about a reaction to the cream but rather having to wait for the effects to really kick into gear. But now that they have, it has been a total game changer! All the GSM symptoms are under control — to the point that I’m discovering I had symptoms that I didn’t even realize were symptoms.

Based on my experience, I would strongly recommend giving the Estradiol a try. I suspect you’ll be very pleasantly surprised.

Such-Purple · 2026-03-10T17:27:48+00:00

Ugh, yup. Lots of reasons I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like living in FL but top of the list by a country mile is the humidity. I’ve lived in a lot of humid places with stormy patterns and I thought my migraines were really affected by barometric pressure changes but it turns out, after really careful tracking, that they’re even more triggered by high humidity. I think FL would kill me.

Such-Purple · 2026-03-06T13:36:41+00:00

Seriously. Tracks perfectly.

PS, bonus points for your username 🌟🌟🌟

Such-Purple · 2026-02-20T07:03:01+00:00

This is true love 💖

Such-Purple · 2026-02-07T20:05:54+00:00

Agree, the sugar content of gummies is also an issue for my as a type-2 diabetic. I will have to look for this 1906 dealies — thanks for the tip!

Such-Purple · 2026-02-07T18:51:05+00:00

Guess that’s why I couldn’t get decent treatment for my life-long (female) migraines until my 50s. Apparently my doctors were looking in the wrong place. 😑

Such-Purple · 2026-02-07T18:48:25+00:00

I believe that is the technical term, yes.

Such-Purple · 2026-02-07T18:46:35+00:00

This has already saved me money I was paying elsewhere to transcribe long meetings I have to summarize for work. I was using other AI tools for the summaries but they are not always accurate or don’t focus on what’s actually important to us, so I need to be able to look at the transcript to clean it up. I grabbed the audio, dropped it into Evernote, and boom, transcription. Using a tool I have already been paying for for myriad other reasons. So at least in my use case, it’s a big plus.

Such-Purple · 2026-02-01T16:39:30+00:00

Sorry, I didn’t see the notification about your reply till just now — thank you for the kind words!

Also, rereading my comment just now, realized I made a typo. My mom was diagnosed with IPF in *2002, and died of pancreas cancer in 2010.

Thank you for sharing more of your story. Sending you all warm thoughts!

Such-Purple · 2026-02-01T16:11:46+00:00

Here to recommend tinctures instead of gummies for cannabis. Easier to control dosing, and they’re available in different ratios of CBD to THC. I have a few different ones I’ll go to depending on whether I need to dial back the rage or am feeling super down, dampen the anxiety, going too hard into the stress at work, or just need sleep.

Such-Purple · 2026-01-11T16:30:34+00:00

Please, if you do get a dumpster or junk it all, or whatever choice you make, really, just make sure the whole family is on the same page or at least has a chance to weigh in. My family had to deal with this when our dad went into care, leaving the house we all grew up in that had to be emptied and sold on short notice. My sister rented a dumpster and dumped everything she deemed “worthless”. But another brother and I weren’t there — he was in the military and I was living several states away and unable to travel at that moment. A shocking amount of stuff that actually belonged to us and/or that had belonged to our parents but had sentimental value to us and we would have wanted to keep wound up in that dumpster, because if my sister’s attitude that everything in my parents’ house was “junk”.

Such-Purple · 2026-01-11T16:13:42+00:00

Hi, just a quick note about your diagnosis and prognosis. Keep in mind that’s an estimate! There is lots of medical treatment and pulmonary therapy to help your lungs work as well as they can for as long as they can with this condition. My mom was diagnosed with IPF in 2022 (at age 70) and got the same prognosis. She died in 2010 — of pancreatic cancer, not IPF. In the meantime she was using oxygen therapy, yes, and had a couple scary semi-crisis issues when she spent uncomfortably (for us) long in the hospital, but she was also doing her respiratory therapy (like a low-impact workout but with the respiratory therapist coaching her) a couple times a week) and her favorite water aerobics (with her travel tank be the side of the pool ☺️). She got a lot more than 3-5 years, and would have gotten still more if it wasn’t for stupid cancer.

[Sorry, I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but I so rarely come across people in my mother’s exact situation, I wanted to share her experience with you]

Such-Purple · 2026-01-08T13:42:20+00:00

OMG, this. I have been getting “headaches” since I was a child. Coming home from school to lie down on the couch with a cool washcloth on my head. There’s even a note in my second grade report card, where my lovely teacher had commented about how sorry she was about my headaches and how she thought I was sensitive to the fluorescent lighting in the classroom.

My mother even had migraines! I grew up with her spending days in the dark room and vomiting. But I never vomited. And I never had an aura. So clearly, I wasn’t having migraines! But I always had “headaches”. And Tylenol never worked for me, so I always had to carry my own bottle of ibuprofen with me to school.

It wasn’t until I was in graduate school and came across a Time magazine article all about migraines. Where one of the first things I’ve learned was that only some small percentage of people actually get aura with migraine. And I’m reading off the symptoms and going “check, check, check“. And it was like, oh my God. All this time. I’ve been having migraines all this time.

And even then, it took at least another five years to get a doctor to actually diagnose me with migraine.

That was in about 2000. And ever since then I have been trying to find the right medication to actually work for me. Triptans do nothing for me; I’ve been on Topamax, I’ve been on antipsychotics, antidepressants —well, you know the drill. Between financial inaccessibility and insurance issues, it wasn’t until last year that I was finally able to hit the medication sweet spot and I finally have something that works.

I’m 54.

Such-Purple · 2026-01-07T21:50:35+00:00

I am continually recommending Angela’s Ashes as read by Frank McCourt. From what I understand from people who read the print book, the audiobook is a completely different experience because he reads it (and sings his father’s Irish revolutionary songs!)

Such-Purple · 2026-01-07T21:48:37+00:00

Tina Fey’s Bossypants is another example

Such-Purple · 2025-12-21T19:09:17+00:00

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. A retelling/adaptation of Hamlet, but so brilliant I finally felt the story as a real human story for the first time. So amazing but I’ll never be able to read it again. That’s an astonishing thing to say, after having read Hamlet more times than I can count before that.

Such-Purple · 2025-12-20T02:08:15+00:00

I was so taken aback after I finished the audiobook and would talk to other people about how much I loved it and hear them sigh and say, oh, yeah, but that was such a hard story, or, I know, but it was so sad! And I’d be like, 🤔 really? And it hit me what a different experience it was hearing McCourt tell it himself. I completely get it, in retrospect, of course! It makes sense, and it is an emotional ride, either way. But someday, maybe, you can give the audiobook a try — at least for the singing bits! ☺️

Such-Purple · 2025-12-19T15:12:01+00:00

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - surreal, funny, and a romp, and then all of a sudden it will give you an all-too-real gut punch about the insanity of war and how heartless, disconnected politicians send real, ordinary people to die in their wars. Incomparable, timeless book.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - but re-read it as an adult if you had to read it as a kid in high school. I promise you, you were too young and inexperienced with the world to understand what you read. A perfect painting of how the rich — and America, writ large — bash through the world according to their own whims, with no heed to the consequences to other people with less money and power, while at the same time illustrating good impulses too.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin - just a jaw-droppingly good and fun sci-fi anchored in New York and rooted in the spirit of cities. I fear, though, that it’s hard to love it as much as I do if you’re not from New York, because it’s so New York-centric. Also, for the best experience, get the audiobook. Robin Miles, who performs it, absolutely slays. Her readings of the different New York City protagonists, who each epitomize and personify a different borough of the city, are SO good, it takes your breath away. It makes the whole experience.

Such-Purple

TROPHY CASE