The Monday Media Diet with Catherine Shannon

On Hobonichi Techo, August Lamm, and Edith Stein

I’ve really enjoyed Catherine’s writing on Substack. Happy to have her with us this week. -CJN

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Catherine Shannon and I’m a writer. I’ve spent time in the worlds of academia, business, and comedy, but writing is the common thread that runs through all of them.

In doing stand-up in New York, I found I had so much I wanted to say that didn’t fit neatly on stage or in a pilot script. So that’s where my Substack came in. I was able to fire these essays off into the void, and after a few years of toiling in total obscurity, they started really resonating with people. Like many writers, I write to figure out what I think or feel about something. If it resonates with other people, that’s terrific. It makes me feel less lonely. Life is no good alone.

I am currently working on my debut novel. Fiction combines all of the things I love most: humor, cultural commentary, characters, people, a bit of personal catharsis. In fiction, you can create something out of nothing that hopefully makes people both laugh and think. Writing a work of fiction, like writing music, is an act of total freedom. I need to use all of myself to do it.

When I’m not writing, I try to spend as much time as I can with my husband and our 6-month-old baby.

Describe your media diet.

Now that I no longer use a smartphone, it has changed considerably. I’m trying to rely less on algorithmic media. A lot of the stuff I see exclusively online is absolute nonsense, to be honest with you.

I subscribe to lots of print magazines: The London Review of Books, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Criterion, New York Magazine, Bookforum, The New York Review of Books, to name a few. Leisurely flicking through a magazine is one of life’s great pleasures, and my dining room table is covered with them. When a magazine arrives in the mail, I skim through it and mark the articles I want to read with a sticky note. Over breakfast with my son, I will then attempt to read them in the spare moments between trips under the table to pick up what he has thrown on the floor.

I also subscribe to a few excellent Substacks, and read those on my computer throughout the day, usually while my son naps. While nursing, or before bed, I read fiction on my Kindle Paperwhite. Bezos has me in his crosshairs, I’m afraid. I used to be a pretentious “real book” person, but the Kindle’s weight, portability, and backlight is unbeatable. Motherhood will force you to reckon with your own delusions and pretensions and I’m grateful for that.

What’s the last great book you read?

Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman. Edith Stein was a German Jew who converted to Catholicism and was murdered at Auschwitz. She was later canonized as Saint Teresa of the Cross. She has written beautifully and honestly about what it means to be a woman, mother, and Catholic in this world. I feel I understand myself better having read her work.

What are you reading now?

Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose and Bringing up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman. One for me, one for the baby.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

In graduate school, I had to “read” thousands of pages and write a 15-page essay every week, for every week of term. Needless to say, this made me an excellent skimmer. I don’t think you need to read a book cover to cover to get something out of it.

Ultimately, I read for my own interest. I skim, annotate, dog-ear, attempt to summarize in my own words, re-read, and, crucially, skip pages and chapters where the author drags on a bit. I’m an unapologetic book quitter. If you don’t have me in the first 40 pages, I’m out.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

August Lamm, specifically her guide, “You don’t need a smartphone: a practical guide to downgrading and reclaiming your life.” Radicalized me.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

I no longer use a smartphone. I’m embracing Flip Phone February.

(Before that, I guess it was 1st Dibs. I’ve found some cool art on there. Now I just use it on desktop.)

Plane or train?

Train. I disdain everything about modern air travel except the free wine on transatlantic flights. To think it is even offered to us, the unwashed masses, in coach. The Europeans still get some things right.

What is one place everyone should visit?

The town they grew up in. If you want to get in touch with the part of yourself that yearns, you need to go home. You have to be on your hero’s journey. Odysseus Mode.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

I guess you could say I’m a Hobonichi-head. Hobonichi Techo is a cult-favorite Japanese planner, and I’ve used one, the Hobonichi Weeks Mega, as my planner for the past six years. If you want to talk obscure Japanese stationery, I’m your girl. (CS)