It's funny because summer used to mean very specific things to me. It used to mean going to the cottage, at the very least it meant "getting away" for a significant period of time.
For the last three or four years of my life it's been kind of impossible to get away for any significant chunk of time. And so, instead, summer has become a smaller series of adventures, which are, while smaller, still pretty satisfying.
This summer I took a quick trip to New York City with Lindy Zucker (a frequent cohort in crime). You can read about our culinary adventures on the food blog Tales from the Bib. Basically the trip served as kind of a cultural work extravaganza. We crisscrossed the city in a way I never thought possible. We saw Coney Island, a great exhibit at the MOMA, the Chelsea High Line, and probably one of the most incredible theatrical experiences of my life, an installation theatre work called Sleep No More.
In addition I managed to get a lot of writing done. Lots of editing and "almost there" type stuff, including lots of work on Awago Beach Babies, which is the comic I'm working on with Jillian.
My second "work" trip of the summer involved traveling to a cottage on 12 Mile Bay as "research" for said comic. If only all work trips looks like this.
In other news I'm managed to finish two books this summer (so far).
The first is Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize (2011) winning a Visit from the Goon squad.
I cannot recommend this book enough. It is so well crafted, such a feat of narrative and voice and construction all the while being just a really enjoyable read. There is a chapter in this book that so neatly channels Chuck Klosterman and David Foster Wallace it made me giggle. Maybe that's a strange reaction but that's what I did (no judgement). I think the thing I liked best about this book was how it wrapped itself around bigger themes all the while embracing all these amazing little personal details. Hopping from character to character (each chapter examines/is told from the perspective of a different person), it was amazing to feel kind of lost and then kind of found again, like the revolving sensation of going to a party of a very good friend in order to be surrounded by many of that person's very good friends (who you would know remotely but not well). Reading this book really inspired me to try to write in third person for my next book. That could be a very good or a bit of a hair pulling decision. We'll see.
The other book I read was The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which I have to say I may or may not have picked up because the cover was kind of hypnotizing to me.
This is kind of another book that takes a bit of a twisting and turning approach as opposed to a straight line. Ronson is ultimately investigating the notion of the psychopath, the study of, the personality of, the incarceration of, and so on. But the book is also about the abouts, about the people who study as much as what they are studying, about the study of as much as the results. It's about everything that surrounds the conclusions we draw in the world of this kind of social science. It's about Ronson and why he's fascinated by this particular personality.
I really liked this one to.
My new goal, along the lines of my "MUST READ" goal of 2011, is to read all the books I have on my shelf that I have owned for over a year and not yet read.
If I read (at least 1/2 of) them ALL, I'm getting myself a Kindle.
That is not a promo for Kindle btw.
I'm getting myself a Kindle or...something equally exciting.
And I'm open to suggestions.
That's it for me for now!
xo
mariko