Summer Lovin' - Part 4

via greenlikebathwater

Though I would love to be whoever this woman is, summer usually finds me reading by my pool or on the beach somewhere on Long Island or Jersey. For me, summer reading is supposed to be fun and it's my goal to have the books I read during these warm months be the kind you can't put down.

Here is my personal summer reading list:
1) Cleaning Nabokov's House (Leslie Daniels)
2) The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
3) The Farming of Bones (Edwidge Danticat)
4) Let's Pretend this Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir (Jenny Lawson)  


If you haven't read these books, I recommend them for your summer reading: 
1) The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins) 
                   ....I'm serious. They're better written than I originally thought and they are infectious. 

2) Zeitoun (David Eggers)
                   ....This book is amazing. Eggers' journalistic tale tells the inside story of a family in New  Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. I found myself reading this book every chance I got until it was done.


3) Bossypants (Tina Fey)
                   .....She had me laughing out loud as I pictured a young, awkward Tina trying to find her way in the world. Also, her accounts of NBC brought back some memories of my own time there and the sheer ridiculousness of it all made me laugh even more. 


4) The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)
                 ....I didn't really believe this was a memoir, that's how crazy and dysfunctional this girl's childhood was. Plus, there are talks of them adapting this into a movie with Jennifer Lawrence (love her!).
 
 

Hunting and fishing

As I was curled up on the couch reading my new purchase, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, I was vaguely aware that at one point, John was reading over my shoulder. He muttered variations of, "How can she be so stupid?" and got frustrated with Jane's lack of ambition to be the protagonist in her own life. This got me thinking about the female voice. Though Hunting and Fishing is a work of fiction, author Melissa Bank captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in today's society. But what does that mean exactly? Bank's voice is undeniably real and honest, yet I'm not sure I like what it says. Maybe it's because it hits too close to home? Her character Jane finds herself in a job with a boss who undermines her intelligence and Jane finds herself regressing, instead of evolving. She finds herself in romantic relationships where she has become a caregiver instead of a partner. Jane falls victim to certain idioms that society dictates, despite how uncomfortable it makes her feel. It's hard to find a strong female protagonist, it is. But that's because in order for her voice to remain real, it must be plagued with the doubt we all feel, the second guessing we all do, the lack of confidence we all feel. In order to experience the empowerment of a female character in modern literature, we must first feel it in ourselves.

It's definitely worth the read. Bank writes with precision and truth, something that is harder to come by than it should be.

Insightful

 via hemingwaycool 

Some might say that I'm introspective to a fault, so it's no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed reading Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father. My boyfriend recommended that I read it and I honestly couldn't put it down. To dispel all contrived notions, this book is not about pushing political jargon down your throat or about a secret liberal agenda. This is a book about accepting where you come from and how that influences where you find your place in this world. I found so much to relate to in this book and I still find myself going back to passages that I marked, reading over his well-crafted words and thinking that they could be my own. I in no way want to belittle or discredit Mr. Obama's struggle - I can certainly not imagine how hard it was to grow up with your feet in two separate worlds, each of them seeming to try to tear you apart at the middle. But I do believe that when he speaks about the "fluid state of identity - the leaps through time, the collision of cultures" we can all relate. His vulnerability and perception is something that any writer can admire and any reader can find enticing. On a side note -- Imagine reading this book when it was first published in 1995? Thinking to yourself, "This guy is an amazing writer, I hope he writes another book." And then he runs for president?

Happy reading.

True

via bookshelfporn

Mia, I saw the picture you posted of Nick's handy-work, you're a lucky girl ;)

Books, books, books

My lovely friend Mia, blogged about this site: http://bookshelfporn.com/ and I am officially obsessed. I want to get lost in one of these bookstores with her and race to see who can find the best book (of course we will both win because we will both think that the book we've chosen is the best). There's just something so nostalgic about books. The way they feel, the way they sound, the way they smell...all of your senses are engaged when you read a book. For me, all of those senses are also awakened when I enter a bookstore or a library. One of my friends recently asked me: So what's with you and bookstores lately? And honestly, I've always had an obsession with books, shops, libraries, but I feel like I lost touch with a lot of the simple pleasures in life during my old job. I was frankly too busy and too "in the zone" to even stop and enjoy a book I was reading or the smell of a library. With books, you can always remember the places you bought them, who gave them to you, where you read them, what part of your life you were at when you read them, mark them up, write notes in them, lend them to a friend...you can display books as a badge of honor, "yes I was there, yes I conquered that, I took something from that book and made it my own." What's better than that? When I enter a book store I feel like I've been transported to another time. My voice gets quiet, my steps are light, I become a person with hopes and dreams that are contained within the books on the shelves. Yes...I am a nerd. But this is one part of me that I am glad I reconnected with.

These pictures are just some of my favorites from the site that literally made me giddy inside.