What are you up to this weekend? It’s not overstating things to say I am giddy about the coming string of sub-90, lower humidity days, plus my 16-year-old is coming home tomorrow after five weeks away, woohoo! Plus I’m in the middle of an interesting nonfiction audiobook, and started an essay collection last night I think I’m going to love. It’s shaping up to be a great weekend!
I hope you have something to look forward to these next few days, and that this collection of interesting reads and favorite things helps ease you into that weekend frame of mind.
Readers’ Weekend:
Our virtual Readers’ Weekend is already underway in MMD Book Club! We kicked things off yesterday with a fantastic discussion of Olga Dies Dreaming with author Xochitl Gonzalez, discussing ghosts, humor, turning forty, and more. (The replay is available for all our Book Clubbers who couldn’t join us live.) The nerdy fun continues this weekend with a virtual paperback swap, poll party, readalong time, and more. Get in on the action here.
My favorite finds from around the web:
What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained. (The Cut) From author Mary HK Choi: “In time, I developed systems to make it through any scenario. Mental folders filled with scripts, permutations of outcomes, things I’d observed friends and colleagues and strangers do. These were for absolutely every occasion and person in my life.”
Your Guide to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. (SELF) It’s right around the corner!
Two exciting literary updates from Kirkus: Unpublished Zora Neale Hurston Book Coming in 2025 and Lost Novel by Margaret Walker Coming in 2025.
What I’ve been reading lately: the new and the notable. (MMD) July Quick Lit: this has been a satisfying and thoroughly “summer” reading month!
The Second Coming of the Sports Novel. (Esquire) “Two approaches to the sports novel: the local and the global. But, in fact, Bullwinkel and O’Neill are responding to the same question: How do you make what was traditionally a genre for preteen boys into something that speaks to contemporary adult lives?” This piece prominently features one of my recent reads in July Quick Lit, above.
My son made this Creamy Macaroni and Cheese over the weekend and to say it was a big hit is a massive understatement. (NYT Cooking gift link) He followed the recipe as written but subbed in cavatappi for elbow macaroni and it turned out great.
Boring Girl Summer. (You’ve Got Lauren) “This year I have an endless reading list, a wonderful husband, and I’m only a few blocks from the ocean. This year the backyard is bursting with peonies and figs—nectarines are right around the corner. Don’t let my empty calendar fool you, my days will be full and rich with pleasures.”
The Kidnapping I Can’t Escape. (NYT Magazine gift link) Incredible longform piece from Taffy Brodesser-Akner. “Happy, well-adjusted people are all different. The traumatized are exactly alike. I’m about to tell you a story that is nothing like a violent kidnapping — almost laughably so — but what I’ve learned over the years is that trauma is trauma.”
The Hottest New Place to Shop Secondhand? Substack. (ELLE) “There is something about shopping in Substack that feels like being at a New York City sample sale.”
I realized this month that my long-loved purple oxalis plant was MISSING … which I think must mean I inadvertently threw it away during a period of dormancy. (Cue tears.) I replaced it immediately with two oxalis plants from Etsy and am very happy with my new little plant babies. Even if I can’t believe I seemingly pitched the old ones.
20 favorite books for Disability Pride Month and all year long. (MMD) Pick up these favorite novels and nonfiction that center and celebrate disability this month—or any time at all.
Stop setting your thermostat at 72. (Vox) “It’s a time-honored American tradition to fight over the thermostat. Winter, summer, spring, and fall, any given home will be too hot or too cold for someone in the family.”
I love a nubby sweater tank for late summer, and the colors on these V-neck beach sweater-tanks are superb. J.Crew Factory also has many tees, tanks, and shorts 60% off right now, including my faves the Girlfriend Tank Top (those stripes!) and the 5″ classic chino short.
Hollywood’s Newest Money-Making Scheme Is… Books. (Inverse) “Increasingly, blockbuster movies aren’t just making an impact at the box office or on streaming. They’re resonating at bookstores, too, many of which prominently displayed the Barbie and Oppenheimer screenplays last year as though they were buzzy new novels.”
Don’t miss these posts:
15 MORE celebrity memoirs read by their authors. It’s hard to go wrong with a celebrity memoir.
An ode to an unattractive $9 piece of plastic that brings me oodles of quotidian joy. I love it when someone reveals themselves to be a raving fan of something I haven’t ever given much thought to myself. (Though I have to say the hummingbird sightings this summer have been sparse. What’s up with that?)
20 travel memoirs to take you around the world (from the comfort of your couch). Are you in need of some armchair travel? This list will tide you over while you dream about your next vacation.
Have a great weekend!