I arrived home at dinnertime, braindead from a long day of car and plane travel but determined to eat a home-cooked meal. “There are all these vegetables,” my boyfriend had told me on the phone, when I was in the cab from LaGuardia. “Should I do something to them? I could boil some water and put some pasta in it.”

If you are not familiar with the Emily Books Book Club, or simply have that condition where you struggle to form short-term memories, you may click here. Maybe you already did! This month, Emily and I read and discussed Dorothy Baker's Cassandra at the Wedding (discount code, as always, at the bottom of the post) and had a tiny fight about Sylvia Plath. Emily - Oh, hello there! Nicole - HI EMILY, this…

Earlier this month, we announced the formation of the Emily Books Book Club (man, am I ever good at naming things! call me, Childlike Empress!) in conjunction with, right, Emily Books. As promised, I read the book (King Kong Theory, by Virginie Despentes, discount code at bottom of post for late adopters!) and gchatted with Emily about it yesterday. Here is the raw e-footage of said exchange: Emily - hi Nicole!! Nicole…

I've subscribed to Emily Books since the beginning, mostly just because Emily and Ruth have dynamite, dynamite taste, and it's like having a personal shopper for reasonably-obscure, fabulous reading. So we asked Emily if she would tell us a bit about how Emily Books came to be, and wheedled a discount code out of her (readers of The Toast can take 20% off purchases from Emily Books -- subscriptions or individual books -- by…