EEDA Newsletter Vol 6, Res 7: Books and a Boycott
This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!
Hi friends! Some housekeeping: Please share this newsletter wherever and however you can! My audience growth potential, that is, the number of people I’m able to get free resources in front of, is limited because I refuse to support the n@zi newsletter platform and benefit from their algorithm and reach. Any sharing you’re able to do, whether it’s 1:1 or on social media is a huge help. Thanks in advance!
I’m mostly keeping sane by keeping busy. I’ve started seeing a new therapist and doing more focused work on my OCD, which worsens when I’m stressed. I’m learning a lot (and cringing a lot) but I think it’s probably good for me. I’m managing my stress by cooking more (which keeps me off my phone) and also singing more (again, keeps me off my phone). Pretty much anything to keep me off my phone lately. After I schedule this newsletter, I’m gonna go paint my nails for this exact reason.
New EEDA Pod episode this week: Revisiting Goals? In THIS Economy? Focusing on Purpose & Joy
In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole discuss their progress (or not) on various 2025 goals and intentions, including decluttering, therapy, and being more social. The episode wraps up with reflections on the importance of revisiting goals with curiosity and adjusting them to better serve one’s current needs.
You can find our show, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also support the show on Patreon, where we have some perks for paid subscribers with even more coming this year.
It’s a resource week and I’ve got a couple of book recommendations for you that I first wrote for Book Riot!
Resource 1: Boycott Target
40-day Target boycott started this week. The last time I shopped at Target was January 26th and I’m not mad about it. I’m buying less unnecessary bullshit, that’s for sure. I appreciate the exercise of finding other places to acquire things I want or need. Reminder of this handy document http://bit.ly/corpdei that I shared in a previous newsletter resource roundup. I’ve found I’ve been to Best Buy more times this year than the past four years combined, so that’s interesting!
Resource 2: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer and illustrated by John Burgoyne
This book is a short and powerful read by the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Like Braiding Sweetgrass, this is a book that has the power to change readers, as I have certainly been changed by reading it. Robin Wall Kimmerer is an Indigenous scientist and in this book, she helps us imagine a new way of being in relationship with each other and nature which is actually an established and necessary way of being for our shared survival.
The natural world depends on reciprocity, which Kimmerer describes as “hundreds of gift exchanges” in the case of her pail of Juneberries that she is picking at the beginning of this book. The maple trees gave their leaves to the ground where microbes gave nutrients to allow for the berry seeds to take root. A bird may have given that seed by dropping it in that place, the sun gives light and warmth, the rain gives much-needed hydration, and many, many other gifts are given to result in the pail of berries the author has harvested.
Rooted in this, the author expands to the ways that many Indigenous Peoples have a “culture of gratitude” and asks readers to reflect on the idea of enough. For example, there is enough food on the planet to feed everyone so the problem isn’t abundance, it’s that some have more than they need. She writes about the importance of the gift economy, with multiple examples, such as neighbors setting up a makeshift farmstand where they share things like extra zucchini. If you have ever successfully grown zucchini, then you understand that it can very easily go from, “Yum, I love zucchini!” to “Oh my god this is more zucchini than any family can eat on our own! Please for the love of all that is holy, take some!”
The author explores the ways in which we can expand this gift economy in various spaces beyond rural, such as the more urban and online spaces that many of us inhabit. She writes about how we can move from overconsumption to recognizing abundance and opportunities for gifting. She also gives a lesson on the Honorable Harvest, which I think is something that should be taught to everyone.
This book has immediately been added to my list of favorites and it may be one I reread each season. It is an incredibly important read and of course, a wonderful book to gift.
Resource 3: Syme's Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence About (Almost) Every Imaginable Subject of Daily Life, with Odes to Desktop Ephemera and Selected Letters of Famous Writers by Rachel Syme
This is a book about one of the eternal loves of my life: snail mail. I never really stopped being a pen pal since childhood. Back in the early 90s, we used to get pamphlets at school where one could pick some countries, send in a dollar per country, and get the name and address of someone their age in that country who wanted an American pen pal. Getting mail from Ireland and Japan and New Zealand and the Philippines when I was in fifth grade was amazing and even now, I delight in every piece of mail that arrives that is not a bill (or junk). If you think any of this sounds even a little bit interesting, you're going to love it.
This book is an updated take on a smaller book from 1867 called Frost’s Original Letter Writer, a guide to everything about and for written correspondence. Syme’s Letter Writer is both for people who want to start sending snail mail and don’t know how and also for seasoned pen pals who may want to learn a few new tricks. This book isn’t a bunch of stodgy letter-writing etiquette—it’s actually the opposite of that. The author does go over the basics like how to be a pen pal and how to write your first letter and I found it to be an accessible introduction to a hobby that could come off as a bit intimidating.
Throughout the book, the author does something that I deeply appreciate: she offers ideas for what to write in a letter or on a postcard or whatever you happen to be sending. For folks who don’t have an established letter-writing relationship with the person they’re writing to, it can be really hard to think of what to even write. It can also feel like a lot of pressure as well and this book does a lot to relieve the pressure and increase the fun.
The author also makes a ton of recommendations of who to write letters to, whether they be fan mail, or writing to a friend or family member, or even writing to yourself. There are some great recommendations of letter-writing projects that a person could get involved with from writing to kids in hospitals to incarcerated folks to elders.
There is just so much good stuff in here like how to send a recipe, how to write about the weather, and ideas for small, flat things to send through the mail that don’t take a lot of extra postage. It has a helpful section on how postage works, especially the important non-machinable item stamps. There are also some basics on flower-pressing and the important response to: Should I spritz my letter with perfume?
Throughout the book, Syme includes examples of letters and sign-offs from famous authors. The resources in this book are incredibly helpful and the artwork and layouts are so great with lots of vintage artwork that gives a sort of scrapbook and zine energy.
New Project: Optimistic Hoarder
My mother was aggressively happy and extremely sad. She bought, collected, scavenged, and hoarded when she was joyful and when she was depressed. She passed suddenly in March 2023, leaving a lifetime of belongings in multiple caches.
This newsletter is my attempt to make sense of things as I, her only child, sort through them one box at a time.
Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice is not the right place for these essays so you can find & subscribe to Optimistic Hoarder here: https://buttondown.com/optimistic-hoarder. I do not know how frequently I will write nor do I know if I will ever paywall it (currently, sign-ups are free).
Recent & Current Reads
Inclusion of a book in this section is not necessarily a recommendation and these books won’t necessarily be added to my Bookshop. Links are affiliate links.
Recently Read:
New Nigeria County by Clare Brown (audiobook only)
A Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander (out 3/11)
Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite (out 3/18)
Currently Reading:
A Short History of Black Craft in Ten Objects by Robell Awake
Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age by Leah Sottile (out 3/25)
Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
You can find our podcast, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.