Off-the-list summer reading

Best book to stretch out over each morning's coffee while on vacation: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

I've read this book every summer at my parent's house since I discovered it in 2008, and I've written about it almost every year and it has landed on my Top Ten books of the year a few times.  I've always found it to be a book about safety: not the bike helmet or seatbelt kind of safety, but the kind where everything in life feels like it is in the perfect place: that all things good are protected for a few moments.  This time around, I started the book on our porch in Louisville while my mom was making breakfast, my dad was reading the paper and my brother was on his way down.  We kept door open to let the air in, everything was in the right place and I wanted to freeze it.




Best book to read when your hour and a half direct flight becomes a 9 hour traveling day:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

My cousin has been raving about this book every time I've seen her the past few months, saying that it was funnier than Tina Fey's Bossypants and Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. I was doubtful, but since those two books were so great, I was pretty excited to read it.  Luckily, the last person she lent it to gave it back just in time for her to hop a plane to visit my family in Louisville.  I've been reading a book that is much more dense than I anticipated, so I didn't think I'd be able to get to this one for about a week.

Then, on the way to the airport to head back to New York, we got emails and at least 3 automated phone calls that our flight had been cancelled.  So, because air travel is frustrating and we were now looking at a layover in Atlanta (which we barely made), I decided I needed something to keep me entertained and laughing.  It worked.  I had 40 pages to go the next morning, so I took it to the back garden at Park Slope's Starbucks.  Interestingly, it wasn't quite the same vibe as the outdoor space at my parents' house.