Weekly Roundup 26: Beach Reads

Odds are slim that I will find myself on a beach this summer, but I still enjoy a beach read. Though everyone has their own preference, my informal survey/internet search indicates that beach reads are usually fiction, either contemporary or historical, and most often fall into the categories of love/romance and crime/mystery. Horror is a distant third, but there are still plenty of readers, me included, who prefer their chills in the summer.

Non-fiction choices span a wide range, from food/lifestyle to history/politics. Memoir makes the list, but some of the most popular non-fiction choices include collections of personal essays, many of them humorous. I can see that. They're short, engaging, cover a variety of topics, and are easy to put down and pick up again without having to remember plot points such as whose great aunt once-removed lived in the groundskeeper's cottage a generation ago. 

Lists notwithstanding, the perfect beach read is one that will keep the reader engaged and invested without making them work too hard. Even grownups who have been out of school forever still don't want their summer books to feel like assignments.

Author Curtis Sittenfeld, who has written seven novels and one short-story collection, has cooked up a fun experiment. Using five reader prompts submitted through The New York Times, she's going to write a 1,000 word "beach read" story. She's also going to feed those prompts into ChatGPT, with the instruction to write a story in her style. 

Fun, yes, but also a little scary because what if AI manages to pull it off? Curtis is rooting for herself--what she calls Team Human--and I am, too. I can't wait to read the finished products later this summer.

Grab a good book, and I'll see you next week!

Weekly Roundup 24: Summer Good Things

We're zooming up on July, which means bona fide summer. Here are a few seasonal things I'm into right now:

Outdoor Concerts: It was a big thrill to see the Rolling Stones live. Yes, the surviving original members are in their early 80s and the tour was sponsored by AARP (which sounds like a joke), but they still rock! That was a bucket list experience, but I'm also enjoying smaller, and often free, shows around town.

Spice-d Tea: Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Sunset teabags make the best iced tea! I found them at Target. For cinnamon lovers only.

Weed Killer: My husband is a fearless puller and poisoner of weeds. I'm trying to convert him to a home-made weed killer that is effective and non-toxic. Mix 2 cups white vinegar, 2 tablespoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap in a spray bottle. As with all weed killers, it works best when used on a hot, dry day.

Chiller Fiction: Summer is the only time I read horror, and it's usually Stephen King. Perhaps I will choose If It Bleeds, a collection of four novellas that came out in 2020. The title story features the character Holly Gibney, who appears in other King books, including the eponymous Holly, which I read last summer.

June Pride: The end of June marks the end of Pride Month, but there's still time to show off my rainbow-themed tiny garden:

Enjoy the last days of June! See you in July!

The Magic of Alice Hoffman

 

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending a virtual book event for Alice Hoffman's latest, The World That We Knew. I love how Ms. Hoffman works magical realism--if not outright magic--into her stories, and this one is no exception. And she seems like a very nice person :-)

Here are a few short takeaways:

Themes of the book include affirmation of life, but also how the tolerance of aberrant behavior often leads to terrible things. It is a fable of feminism and fantasy, a novel ultimately about mothering, especially in times of crisis. She also referred to the book as a "deadline" novel in which the characters must move fast and cannot take time for granted.

She attributes her success at so masterfully intertwining storylines in part to the fact that she is an admittedly bad knitter. Like knitting, writing can be complicated, but you still have to get the threads right.

Storytelling is sometimes seen as a lesser achievement, but Alice sees it as the female way, passing down stories the way her grandmother and mother did for her. 

Fiction tells the truth on an emotional level. It's about feeling, whereas non-fiction is often about thought.

She starts a book with a question, i.e. how did people survive a terrible time? Then she creates the world so the characters can walk in. Eventually, as all characters do, they will let her know where the story should go.

Simple enough, right? I thought the book was wonderful and wholeheartedly recommend it.

Take care, and I'll see you next time!

Return of the Bookworm

After last week's Fox News overload, my brain needed a bit of a vacation. And for me, few things say "relaxing brain time" more than curling up with a good book. But I'm sorry to admit that I've gotten out of the habit of prioritizing reading time. Because it feels like a guilty pleasure, I'll leave it until after the chores and obligations are done. And often then, I don't even get to it, because I am perhaps only slightly more immune to Netflix than the average person. And, of course, I like to leave time for my own writing, too, since that is one of my raisons d'etre.

This week, I tapped my inner child on the shoulder and said, "Hey, remind me how we always used to have our nose in a book." She ignored me--she was reading, after all--but just knowing she is alive and well was enough to inspire me. And I'm so glad it did, because I really, really enjoyed my reading time. I pulled out my purely-for-fun library book in the evenings, and on Saturday and Sunday morning--in bed, naturally, because that is the best place ever to read. (During the day. At night, it makes me too sleepy.)

But now that I am an allegedly grown-up woman, it's much harder for me to put my guilt feelings about not being "productive" aside and just read. I had to keep reminding myself that reading has as many, if not more, benefits as, say, doing laundry. Take, for example, this Emory University study from a few years back (as reported in Psychology Today):

In the study, titled “Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain," researchers found that "becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. Interestingly, reading fiction was found to improve the reader's ability to put themselves in another person’s shoes and flex the imagination in a way that is similar to the visualization of a muscle memory in sports."

Add in some of the other benefits of reading--including mental stimulation, improved vocabulary, lower stress, improved mood, increased empathy and emotional intelligence--and laundry doesn't really stand a chance. (Except that clean underwear thing is pretty important.)

This week is a Take It, and I hope I've inspired you to put down your phone and pick up a book just for the fun of it.