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On Travel, Reading Lists, and Too Much Juice
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31 May 2026 Reader, Is The Summer Travel Juice Worth the Squeeze?Ever since I listened to an interview where Michigan Senator Ellisa Slotkin (D) used the phrase "Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze" no less than four times when describing foreign policy choices---and forcibly reminded myself that she has a background in national intelligence---I have been using the phrase in a kind of overbearing irony. You know, to balance her apparent sincerity. The indifferent off-handedness of it, a cavalier sort of comparison, the arrogant pithiness to say, "You know, all these questions are 'old hat' to me, that I can so casually toss them together with such conclusive abandon." The lives we're talking about: little Iranian girls killed in a missile attack, hundreds dead from Ebola in Central Africa with USAID & CDC unplugged, Mediterranean migrant crossings still ending in the deaths of thousands, the US embargo on Cuban oil causing the collapse of hospital power grids. All involve US foreign policy where, of course, the grand calculation--the moral transaction--is based on a tawdry fruit drink metaphor. Somewhere, our language forms a value-laden worldview that entangles empathy, intention, and (in)action. Some have called this nonchalance "normalization," and I don't disagree, but I don't know that this word, for me, goes far enough. Even that feels like an obfuscation, a euphemism, for a more bald term, like "inhumanity" or "callous and banal evil." "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" Tell me, my good Michigan senator, how many girls' names you can speak aloud where that juice is still tasty enough for you? Yes, this is a gross political positioning, but it is also a line drawn in the hardening clay: our language choices say too much of who we are. No, not too much: our language choices reveal ourselves.
“And this much is easy to surmise: our "escape" to nature implies an escape from unnatural selves, those we have created to function in front of others, the quiet and normalized horror of actuaries and juice metaphors. ”
And this when I set out to write about summer travel! Here in Michigan, there is little else that moves the state between June and August. Upper Michigan residents brace themselves for the at-least profitable invasion of the lower state, not to mention those from Ohio and Indiana and elsewhere who somehow find their way across our stalwart borders. And why this sudden and desperate need to escape? From what? This much is easy to surmise: our "escape" to nature implies an escape from unnatural selves, those we have created to function in front of others, the quiet and normalized horror of actuaries and juice metaphors. And I would never suggest we deny ourselves a decompressive vacation which helps remind us what the natural world looks like, objectively and subjectively. But even this--this "permission" to escape which is built into our work contracts and salaries sufficient to travel--is a privilege not afforded to all. I mean, let's remember that our vacation juice depends (they say) upon someone else squeezed out of such opportunity. Put in terms of Literary Nomads last Journey, it's a privileged otium which is dishonest if not in service to something larger than merely returning to unreflective negotium. But never fear: Waywords has a quick summer reading list during your otium summer weeks, no matter your travel plans. Try one of these to help provide some summer perspective and immunize yourself again cavalier indifference: Waywords Summer Reading RecommendationsFiction:
Non-Fiction:
Alternatives:
Send me a quick review of any of these you take on!
Literary Nomads: "Nomadic Departures": Ending Journey 6We close out our long journey to Omelas with some letters and a quick foray into Pink Floyd and a step back into Dostoevsky. It's been a powerful learning and focusing journey for me, one that actually began in May of 2025! Beyond our examinations of utopia and fantasy, we also had the opportunity to explore the visceral horror of Poe, the conceptions of indigenous time, the literary eras of Nigeria, the struggles with collective authorship, the Stoic discourse, and the thinking of contemporary philosophers like Bataille, Cavarero, and Mbembe. And while our future podcast Journeys will not be so extended (either in episode or season duration), I valued the genuine engagement of so many to the struggles. Even so, I wonder sometimes if listeners expected this final episode to "wrap things up" and offer, at last, an answer to Le Guin's dilemma. Instead, I make two contradictory gestures: the first to broaden the Suffering Child to a suffering planet: we have trapped ourselves in a space where there is nowhere to walk. And the second, to challenge the very foundations of Le Guin's too-carefully crafted allegory, that we have built a culture where willing martyrdom to the summer festival is intrinsic to its survival. Where are we left? Aporia. And rather than allow this condition to paralyze, we must on this condition step out into the uncertainties of action. Our summer listening should be lighter, I think, based on the various incarnations of Literary Tourism that feed our reading fandom. We'll visit writers both familiar and marginal, of course, but spend time reflecting on our own motivations for demanding our fiction reading experiences find their way into the real world, and how they are met. Twelve planned episodes; and making new friends of fellow travelers! Episodes ahead:
Have a question or comment about what we're talking about? Use that mailbag and let me know!
Calendar: Summer Sets InCheck out your local library for Summer Reading Clubs and Groups!
Adoption and Adaptation in Both DirectionsRead-Along Guide Blackhawk's shift to the North American east coast and the colonial era demonstrates the mis-matching of two economic ideologies. On the one hand, the market demand for labor compels the Native peoples to trade their neighbors for European guns. On the other, the diplomatic and historical tradition of wampum forces colonial adoption if they wish to interact politically on this continent.
Book RecommendationThe Wax Child by Olga Ravn (2025) Rav's surreal and experimental historical fiction reflects upon the Danish witch trials of 1621, all delivered through the obtuse and sinister narrative eyes of a wax doll created by one of the suspected women. Blending poetic prose, historical documents, and biting critiques of both wealth and the masses, Ravn's Booker-nominated tale is brutal and magical, but also obscure and terrifyingly mundane. And, as we might imagine from such a description, rife with uncertainty. Were I not a wax child, I think I could have been a wound. But preferably I would be a root vegetable in warm soil, a wild carrot or an onion without eyes.
And they read: In this dusk of the world, when sin is flourishing on every side and in every place, when charity is growing cold, the evil of witches and their inequities superabound. And they read: Where there are many women, there are many witches.
This is a grim read, not recommended for those seeking popular conceptions of witches and magic. (Or, if they are mature, then this will be the cure for the popular view.)
International Booker Winner:Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King (And, um, I guessed wrong!) Somehow part-romance and part-postcolonial commentary, this historical fiction is a novel disguised as an old untranslated Japanese text, the kind of meta-textual experiment I so often appreciate. So, okay, on the TBR list it goes! If you read it before me, let me know what you think!
The summer patio is cleared; the drinks are poured. The book stack is high. What are you reading? What are you writing? Oh, and teachers? Congratulations for another year of vital work with kids! Steve What's Still Ahead?
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Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!