What's on your nightstand? Vol. 1: Haley Larsen, PhD
A new bookish series for & by book lovers.
Hello and welcome to the inaugural edition of What’s on your nightstand? An interview series for & by book lovers. I’m thrilled to welcome my dear friend and fellow bookworm, Haley Larsen, PhD, to this cozy autumnal series. Haley and I first connected on Instagram over our graduate studies—she has since completed her PhD in English while I am still plugging away at my dissertation, but our friendship continues over our shared love of books, and the myriad ways in which they sustain and anchor our personal and creative lives. Welcome, Haley!
Alexandra (A): How do the books on your nightstand reflect where you are in life right now?
Haley (H): You can see Girl, Interrupted perched against the wall, which is always always always on my nightstand. I think I’ve read it twice a year since 2008. It is a mainstay, as is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which has not been out of my sight since I read it for the first time two summers ago.
Everything else reflects my shifting moods. I never quite know what I’ll be in the mood for when I climb into bed, though it’s often not whatever I’m reading during the day. Edith Wharton, Henry James, Willa Cather all have dedicated shelves in my home office, where I read at my desk, but my nightstand is really a place where I’m collecting my thoughts around central questions or ideas. Right now, I’m very into questions of selfhood and how we experience the world differently based on our subject position—so Simone de Beauvoir’s exquisite book The Ethics of Ambiguity, which I highly recommend, is sitting sandwiched between contemporary fiction about relationships.
I’m also very into women writing about liminal spaces, verging on the horror or the uncanny. So, of course, you’ve got some Kelly Link (I love her short stories so much!) and Jenny Offill’s Department of Speculation, which I haven’t read yet but want to keep within reach for the moment I’m ready.
A: What’s a book that’s brought you peace or a new perspective during a difficult time?
H: I read Girl, Interrupted in college, when I was deconstructing my religious beliefs and figuring out who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live. It struck such a deep chord in me—as if it was written just for me—and so I’ve kept it close ever since. For me, it is the book that changed my life.
A more recent read that brought me a lot of peace was The Secret Garden. I read it over a weekend filled with dark, rainy afternoons, and it brought me so much comfort. Reading it was like realizing I was holding my breath and finally feeling safe enough to let it go. A big, relaxing sigh.
A: Besides books, what other treasures do you keep on your nightstand?
H: If you can’t tell from the photos, the top of my nightstand goes almost entirely to books. I have a lamp with a warm glow that lights up with a little touchpad, which is so great for reading at night (it’s the tall black bar you can see in the photos — the back of the bar is lined with LED). I used to keep a lovely tobacco-scented candle on top of my book pile, but I have a cat who has never learned not to touch fire, despite repeated encounters. So, a lamp it is.
I always have my Owalla water bottle or a mason jar of iced decaf, and of course my phone charger. My nightstand has two deep drawers, which I will not be showing to anyone, ever because they are the messiest drawers in the whole universe (probably).
In those drawers, I have everything from night creams (I love Biossance eye cream and CeraVe body lotion) to medications, spare pairs of glasses, and an old tea tin from my grandma that I keep things like coins and hair ties in. I have a rather large bundle of silk scrunchies in my nightstand—I’m always pulling my hair away from my face as I read. I also found a pile of old Vogue magazines in the bottom drawer as part of this exercise, so thank you for helping me remember those were there!
A: Do you have a seasonal reading ritual or a specific type of book/genre you gravitate toward during the cooler months?
H: Give me all the spooky books! I love, love, love reading ghost stories in the cooler months. I also love reading philosophy during the winter. Something about the darker days, early nights, and gloomy clouds makes me feel so introspective and alive at the same time—and writers like Foucault, Sartre, Deleuze, and de Beauvoir resonate so much with me during these months.
A: What book are you always recommending to friends, and why do you think it deserves a spot on everyone’s nightstand?
H: There are two. I’m always recommending Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, which is a slim collection of poetry by one of the most beloved poets in American history. I like this collection, in particular, because it is so slim and easy to tuck in with. And the imagery is so loving and peaceful for a good night of rest.
The other is Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, which is another book that changed my life. We read it in my Substack book club last spring and I loved sharing it with other people so much. It deserves a spot on your nightstand because of its unrelenting compassion for a person who cannot make self-sustaining decisions. A woman’s ruin is such a frequent story in fiction in the early twentieth century: Lydia Bennet’s bad marriage choice; the tragic outcomes for Hardy’s and Eliot’s young ladies who are tricked by cruel men; the Daisy Millers and women in scarlet letters. But Wharton takes a story of “female defeat,” as one scholar terms it, and flips the emotional turmoil around in a way that you cannot help but second-guess your impulses to judge her heroine; you’d never, ever laugh at her demise or dare believe that she deserved it. It’s one of the most emotionally intelligent renderings of a story about a woman that I’ve ever read, and its indictment against a society that fails women so profoundly is both a balm for aching hearts and a fuel to the fires that help us remember that because we cannot know anyone else’s inner life, we’d do better to lead with patience and grace than judgment or scorn. I believe that’s an excellent reminder to keep nearby.
To read more from Haley and follow her work, subscribe to her Substack, Closely Reading:
Thank you so much, Haley!
Until next week,
Nightstands are like an aura reading; this was so fun!
"You can see Girl, Interrupted perched against the wall, which is always always always on my nightstand. I think I’ve read it twice a year since 2008. " ... that paints a picture! I'm compelled.