This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something—Anything—Like Your Life Depends On It

This was a quirky and surprisingly contemplative delight, which combines memoir, feminist treatise, and pop culture examination to great effect. If A Ghost in the Throat is about female creativity, then Cumberbatch is about female joy, play, and leisure. As the title promises, the actor isn't the subject of this book (though I learned a lot about him along the way) but a springboard to discuss the necessity of embracing the things that give us pleasure, weird as they may be. I read this slowly over the course of weeks, a chapter every few nights, and found that worked well.