Lee's blogging about Action and Adventure this month, so I'm doing it, too. It seems like it's going to be fun.

My big Saturday adventure is more of a quiet sort. I'm catching up on some reading. And yes, I'm beginning the ADVENTURE challenge with kind of a whisper, but I think we can all agree that reading surely qualifies. I've already learned about CAR-T cells today and a movie called The Farewell. And, I read a short story that might make the reader re-think what she knows about love and marriage. That same story also made me think about craft and literary elements and what a writer can get by with, depending on his aims.

All of these adventurous thoughts sprang from my reading of The New Yorker. Many times, I've thought about how I both love and loathe The New Yorker. I like being the sort of person who gets a paper copy of this iconic publication in the mail every week. My dad re-ups my subscription annually, so it's not even something I choose; it's just part of me.

Even so, I almost never actually read The New Yorker.  I've been able to let go of the guilt about this at various moments and stages, like when I'm a full-time teacher and parenting some crazy busy kids 24/7.

But, now I'm supposed to be a full-time writer, and I'm supposed to be literary AF. So, reading a couple of New Yorker articles--we're not even aiming for cover-to-cover--shouldn't be that big of a problem. Soon, the kids will be back in school and maybe I can make a magazine ritual. An article with my matcha on Tuesday mornings, for example, and another one in the late-afternoon lull on Fridays.

Adventures can be momentous and also sort of regular. I guess I'm starting with the latter.

It's no shocker that I'm loving my summer reading. I generally love all of my reading in every season, but things are a little slower in the summer. I have more time to go to the library, to place holds, to flip through multiple volumes at the same time.

Right now, I'm reading some essays on writing by one of my faves, Richard Russo. Have you read Nobody's Fool? Empire Falls? Straight Man? I really admire this guy. In fact, there was a time when I was 100% caught up on Richard Russo novels. I've now missed several, but the possibilities of summer are endless. I could get right back up to speed.

Of course, there are other demands on my time. I'm also reading On the Come Up, Angie Thomas's second novel. It's a propulsive story, and I'll likely be finished in a day or so. Bri, the main character, lives in the same world, the same neighborhood, as Starr and Seven and Sekani from The Hate U Give. As I've been making my way through this new book, I've been thinking about how hard it is to write second novels. Angie Thomas tweeted about the difficulties while she was working on this one, and I'm quite familiar because I'm also currently writing a second novel. That process is only intermittently delightful. Still, Thomas's sophomore effort is solid, and it seems to have come out on time. #Winning.

Also on my nightstand, I've got two library holds I'd really like to finish by the time they're due, including The Travelers by Chris Pavone. If I complete it, I'll be 100% caught up on Chris Pavone novels. 100% delights me every time.  Also, I've got Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I didn't know that Kate Atkinson had detective novels, but then I found out. I love detective novels, and I was utterly wowed by her book, Life After Life.

There are more books, of course, but those are the ones I'm thinking about on this day.

Skiing:

I love the free feeling of whizzing down the mountain, stopping frequently for breaks and 100% controlling my speed. I'd say my ski level is stagnant compared to other years. Why try to get better at a dangerous sport at 40? Seems like not such a great idea, especially when I can just, like, have fun and look sort of like I know what I'm doing. Or at least look like I'm not a danger to others.

Altitude Sickness:

It appears that one person in our party might have some mild to moderate altitude sickness. It's better not to google this, but instead to consult a mountain medical professional. That's on the docket for today. Luckily, in the limited medical research I did do, professionals say that altitude sickness generally resolves in short order. We should be on the other side of this in no time.

Reading:

I've got two perfect vacation titles on the go. One is The Widow by Fiona Barton. I love a good psychological thriller, especially on vacay. In this one, there's this feeble woman named Jean who married a veritable asshole who may also be a criminal. The blurbs all tell me I'm in it with an unreliable narrator, so things could turn any second.

The second book is America's Next Reality Star by Laura Heffernan. It's about Jen. She's suddenly jobless, boyfriendless, and broke. Why not go on a reality television show about puzzles and problem-solving? As you can imagine, the pages are flying by here. Reality television has long been my kryptonite.

That's about it. I'm hoping the second of these three items resolves today. Don't you?

• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, narrated by Scott Brick. An excellent choice for a family road trip.

• A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan, narrated by Julia Whelan. This was on my list of favorite fiction this year, and Julia Whelan has narrated several books I've enjoyed.

• I Found You by Lisa Jewell, narrated by Helen Duff. I loved this mystery, but there was something off about the recording. Read it on paper.

• Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz, narrated by Colleen Werthmann. I like the premise, but it's just too long.

• Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall. I had to listen on 1.5 speed to get through it. There's just too much going on.

• The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty, narrated by Heather Wilds. I love listening to Moriarty's books. This one centers on a quirky family, their secrets, and finding personal peace.

• Small Admissions by Amy Poeppel, narrated by Carly Robins. A delightful story about a young woman's accidental foray into private school admissions. Funny, poignant, filled with (sadly) realistic portrayals of top-tier parents.

• Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Julia Whelan. I loved this Sliding Doors-style dual love story in which we're left to ponder whether life is "meant to be" or "what we make it."

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, narrated by Bahni Turpin. On my favorite YA list. A really impressive novel of activism and coming-of-age.

• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, narrated by Imogen Church. A total trip. The audio kept me sublimely entertained while I painted my son's bedroom.

• Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin, narrated by Karen White. The narration enhances the humor, especially of Rachel, one of four protagonists.

And that's it for book lists of 2017! I'm planning another post about my reading goals for 2018. I've got them, that's for sure!

Thing One: I'm reading another book of poetry. It's my third of the year. This one is by Layli Long Soldier, and its called Whereas. There was a rave in the NYT Book Review, and now I'm reading it. I'm not worrying about not getting every meaning and metaphor, but rather enjoying the words and their sounds in my head.

Thing Two: I got an email notification from Heinemann that my very own copy of Back and Forth is on its way right this very second. By the time I get home tonight, it should be here. You know the deal with this, right? It's Lee Heffernan's book? My friend and mentor and erstwhile Twin Tuesday collaborator? I can't wait to read this. I'll probably live-tweet the reading.

Thing Three: We're starting our first all-class read today in the 6th grade. It's called It Ain't So Awful, Falafel. I love it because it's funny, and it's about empathy and global competence. Perfect. Thank you, Firoozeh Dumas! And thank you, sixth graders, for reading it and practicing making inferences.

Part One:
You know, there are really important things going on in the world. I'm thinking and reading about the things nonstop, and yet, I watched Bachelor in Paradise for 2 hours last night.

And, to make things even worse, it's only because my DVR was not properly programmed that I won't be watching two more hours tonight. And darn it, I'm kind of disappointed to miss Carly and Evan's wedding! They met on Paradise another time, made out a lot on national television, and have now wed in front of this year's Paradise contestants, who've undoubtedly wished them well.

I might actually watch the episode when it pops up on-demand at some point. It's a terrible decision and a horrible waste of time.

And yet.

Part Two:
I'm thinking about lowering my book reading quota for next year. My problem is that if I say I'm going to do something, I have to do it. For each of the last four years, I've said I would read 52 books, and now there's no way around it. It's fine because I'm currently six books ahead of schedule, a situation I engineered to account for the coming storm of back-to-school.

So, things are good in the book department, but what about the New Yorkers that I keep recycling before reading them? What about the many, many news articles I have to read to keep up with the doings of our completely insane and Nazi-apologist president? What about the New York Times Book Review?

What about Bachelor in Paradise?

• It's easier to concentrate on craft - careful research, dynamite word choice, and creative plotting, in the case of the three titles I listed above - when you're not swept up by the story.  All of these writers are seriously skilled, and I could see what they were doing, even on the first pass.
• I can connect with more readers, readers who might not like literary thrillers, contemporary fiction, and memoir.  Some of these readers are also my students, and obviously, it's super important to connect with them.  
• I like to know things and be smart. Even if a book isn't for me, I find that after I read it, I generally have learned something, either from the reading itself or from obsessively googling the subject, the author, the reviews, and/or the creative process employed in writing it.  Then (and, ok, I'm not so proud of  this next part) I flaunt this new knowledge.  It's one of the joys and pitfalls of being a life-long learner.

Tonight I had a meeting of my mother-daughter book club. It's an excellent group with some great high school friends and their mom. (The friends are sisters, so I didn't just have an agreement problem in that last sentence, fyi.)

This time around we read Room by Emma Donoghue. It was a book I could not stop reading, and subsequently could not stop thinking about. It's narrated by a five year-old boy who is the son of a woman who was kidnapped years ago and is being held in a shed. The two of them live there trying to be as normal as possible. That's just the beginning.

As Lee would say, if you want to read this book, you should.

During Mac's nap, I made this podcast. It's one of my best podcasts ever, I think, partly because I did not use Apple loops. Some listeners thought the Apple loops I used last time sounded like a porn soundtrack. That wasn't the effect I was going for, obviously.

You'll probably want to CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast.

When I first read The Great Gatsby in eleventh grade, my teacher did not point out that at the end of Chapter 2, Nick sleeps with Mr. McKee from NYC.

I didn't catch this as a teenager, but I certainly see it now. Apparently lots of people think that Nick is gay and that Gatsby might be gay, too.

In the paragraphs before Nick goes to the elevator and then to Mr. McKee's apartment, Tom dramatically breaks Myrtle's nose. It's easy to be distracted by all the blood.

Tonight, I finished The Road. I sobbed uncontrollably at the end of the book because it is so ridiculously sad. Dan laughed at me, but he hugged me.

"I must console you as a husband," he said.

For some crazy reason, he's decided to read the book. I wept openly for the last ten pages, and he kept saying, "Don't tell me what happens! Don't tell me!"

I had already told him about the terrible cannibals and the dead baby on a spit and the death of the father, so I'm not sure what else there is to tell.

"This is the most terrible book I've ever read in my life," I sobbed.

Dan asked if I wanted a picture of myself with tears streaming down my face holding the goddamn Road. The answer to that question was a big fat NO.

I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book, Unaccustomed Earth. I enjoyed it heartily. To tell the truth, I didn’t think I would finish the book before the baby came, but in the end, that’s the way it worked out.

This has been a hard wait at times, but I am trying to be patient. I am reminding myself I have been here before. Some people just cook their babies a little longer, and apparently, I am one of those people.

After I defended my master’s thesis, I started keeping track of the books I was reading in my right sidebar over there. It turns out, since May 18th, I’ve read twentyish books. Ish because despite my best intentions, I didn’t finish some of those. Like Death Comes for the Archbishop, obviously since I don’t like Willa Cather, and Purple Hibiscus. Everyone told me I would love that latter book, but for some reason, as it turned out, I didn’t really want to read it. The same was true for Watchmen. I lied to my brother-in-law the other day and told him I’d read it cover-to-cover. I wanted to have read it, that’s for sure. Besides the other books, I did read US Weekly just about every Friday or Saturday. It makes me feel a little dirty, I admit, but the truth is, I do generally love it.

I will say one thing: I have enjoyed these months of reading stuff like Eat, Pray, Love and Run. I have enjoyed them more than I enjoyed the previous seven months, which I spent thinking about, worrying about, and finally writing that damn thesis.

I may finish the Ira Glass nonfiction book before the new year, and then I’ll read the new Richard Russo. I have read everything by Richard Russo except that new book. I liked Straight Man and Empire Falls the best.

My friend and dissertation-finisher, Lee, told me that Kitchen Confidential by sometime-Top Chef judge and vegetarian-hater Anthony Bourdain would be a good choice for reading.

She's right. It's wicked fun. And I'm learning valuable lessons, like don't order mussels ever and also no fish on Mondays. Furthermore, Tuesdays are really the best night to eat out.

And speaking of reality television, only 30-some days until Project Runway Season 4. There will be a challenge for sure.

Death Comes For the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

Yeah. I know.

It's just that I couldn't see any way out of the Book Club meeting at Dan's law firm retreat next weekend, seeing as I'm an English teacher and all.

I'll let you know how it is. I'm sure I'll like it at least as much as I liked My Antonia.

Which was not at all.