Ah, summer. Time for some rest and relaxation! And also teaching three online summer session classes, taking care of a three-year-old, finishing up writing projects and starting new ones, attending family weddings, going on play dates, attending children’s birthday parties, and on and on. So, yeah, not must rest actually.
Since I last posted here, I have published a bunch of new Book Riot posts, all of which you can see here. Some of my favorites are my list of 100 must-read essay collections, a post about my reading anxieties, a reading list for mother’s day, and a round-up of books about writing.
As for recent reading, I just finished Pamela Erens’s novel Eleven Hours, which was really good, although really, really not the book one wants to read while pregnant. It takes places in a hospital where the main character is giving birth. Except for flashbacks, all the action is in the hospital, and it’s riveting. I love it that there’s a novel out there entirely about childbirth, and that it’s so good.
On the theme of motherhood, I also read Rivka Galchen’s Little Labors (and picked it as the best book I read in May for the Book Riot Round-up). It’s a short book, made up of short essays/vignettes/anecdotes/whatevers about the experience of being a new mother and about motherhood and children in literature. It’s funny in places, thoughtful, moving, interesting. One of the best parts is a list of famous authors, men and women, and whether they had children and at what point in their lives they did, and at what point in their lives their literary career began. It’s pretty enlightening.
So much reading in the last two months! Other recent highlights include Sallie Tisdale’s essay collection Violation (so, so good — Tisdale deserves a much broader audience), Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (for my mystery book group — excellent and a great reread), Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words (about her experiences learning Italian — written in Italian! The book includes both the original Italian and an English translation), Kaitlyn Greenidge’s We Love You, Charlie Freeman (a good read, but also a disturbing novel about the history of race and racism in America– but also a coming-of-age story and a bunch of other things), and Vera Caspary’s Laura (for my mystery book group — fun mid-century noir, satisfying).
I hope you have had a good reading weekend and an excellent week ahead!
Of Books and Bicycles 
I always think summer is so much busier than the cold winter months. I hope you manage to get some nice relaxation in there somewhere too!
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Thanks, Stefanie! Yes, there’s more to do the summer. But generally fewer papers to grade too, so it should be relaxing. But this summer is different. Ah, well.
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When did summers become so busy?!? It used to be that no one scheduled anything during the summer months. Now, all of the kids’ activities have summer events in which they are “strongly encouraged” to participate. In the case of a few, participation is mandatory. It makes me sad.
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Since my kid is three, there’s not much pressure to participate in activities, which is nice! We can do the things we choose to.
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Oh my – I do identify with your READING ANXIETIES (NUMBERED)!
I had no idea I was getting old, but now I know: (9. I don’t like novels as much as I used to. It seems like people say this a lot as they get older. They tend to turn to nonfiction more and more as they age. I am getting old).
&
I love these:
20. Will I regret all the hours I spent reading when I’m on my deathbed?
21. Will I regret all the hours I didn’t spend reading when I’m on my deathbed?
🙂
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