book by book: summer 2011 reading list

Thanks to all of you who hooked me up via Facebook and the comments section and Gchats with ideas for this year’s McPolish Summer Reading List. There’s definitely a good mix of light, fluffy reading and some serious thinky books in here, which I totally appreciate. (And yes, of COURSE there are romance novels on the list!) Anyone want to take a guess on how many of these I will finish? Someone want to put out an over/under?

I’ll keep you posted on my progress, and in the meantime, if you’re looking for something to dive into this summer (rather than your local watering hole), maybe you’ll want to check out a few of these tomes yourself.

 The McPolish Summer 2011 Reading List: 

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay—Michael Chabon

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth—Alexandra Robbins

A Thousand Acres—Jane Smiley

The Known World—Edward P. Jones

The Bridge of San Luis Rey—Thornton Wilder

The Duke & I—Julia Quinn

Pride and Prejudice—Jane Austen

Left Neglected—Lisa Genova

The Weight of Silence—Heather Gudenkauf

Hunger Games Series

Into the Woods—Tana French

Paradise–Judith McNaught

Perfect–Judith McNaught

JD Robb Series

Bossypants—Tina Fey

All the Pretty Horses—Cormac McCarthy

Freedom—Jonathan Franzen

the calm before the storm

There’s something very peaceful about all these empty slips, before the boats are put in the water, bringing with them the hustle and bustle of summer. It’s a peace that is not easily interrupted.

Unless you let the constant honking of the geese that have returned to the area get to you. And you shouldn’t let it get to you, because there are bigger things to worry about, like avoiding putting a shoe in the goose poop that spots the sidewalks seemingly everywhere.

*shakes fist*

photo friday: the night

Technical skill and exposure-wise, this is probably precisely what constitutes a Very Bad Photograph.

But yet I kind of love it.

I think it’s kind of cool, actually, like a sudden explosion lit up the night sky something fierce, and I was lucky enough to catch it as it happened.
But really it was just an explosion of a multitude of fireworks going off simultaneously.

I love fireworks.

It’s entirely possible that they are my raison d’etre of summertime.

Well, that and corn-on-the-cob and grilled meats.

A girl’s got to have her priorities, you know.

*In case you were wondering, this week’s Photo Friday theme, courtesy of Calliope, is “The Night.” Stop by her blog to check out what other bloggers had to say (post) this week! And for the record, I think this has been my favorite PF theme so far. Then again, I think that every week. But no! Really! This one’s my favorite! I swear! So many options, it was hard to choose where to take this. But there I went. Good times.

the president’s own

Free things abound in the DC metro area.

Thank God.

Because without free things, This Girl would be bored out of her gourd.* Don’t get me wrong, paid things are very nice, too. But free is always a bonus.

So even though it was still a roasting day at 6 pm, we waited patiently in line for the gates to open at Wolftrap. The U.S. Marine Corps band (The President’s Own, it was noted in our program) would be starting at 8 o’clock, filling the air with the strains of Sousa and…other…people who wrote marching-like, patriotic tunes.

We walked through the gates finally a little after 6:30, beelining for the shade in the corner of the venue, spreading out a couple blankets, a cooler of beer, cheese, bread, hummus and pita chips. We ate and drank as the sun went down, watching the lawn section of Wolftrap fill in with person upon person, families out celebrating the weekend, celebrating that they wouldn’t have to go to work the next day.

And believe me, there were many people who were thankful they didn’t have to go to work the next day. Many.

It was dusky and lovely when the USMC band began to play, and we clapped along, swinging our arms like we were leading a marching parade (and, okay, so maybe I continued doing that as we walked to the car later with a leftover baguette in hand) and in general reveling in the red, white, and blueness of it all. And maybe the Leinenkugel Summer Shandies. And pinot grigio. And brie.

Though for some attendees, an iced mocha did the trick

The band played beautifully, is what I’m trying to tell you. And maybe it’s the former band nerd-o in me, but I just love things like this. I don’t love the ants and bugs and flying things and overall itchy feeling that I get sometimes from sitting in the grass, but you know? It’s worth it.

Especially when there are tubas involved.

Or percussion instruments.

More cowbell!

Oh, who am I kidding? I just love marching bands.

Question: How do they keep their pants so white?

And Interwebers, seriously, the best part was yet to come. And no, I’m not talking about when they played the 1812 Overture, which is one of my favorite pieces of music. And NOT just because it’s played at every Notre Dame home game. Because if that were true, I’d hate the 1812 Overture. You would, too, if you your sisters used your head as landing pad for their crashing cymbal hands.

What?

Fireworks!

And not just piddly, rinky-dink fireworks, my friends. These fireworks? These were the good kind.

The kind that boom and flare and fire their way up into the sky and light it up brilliantly so that you have no other choice than to be all, “Ooooohhhh!” and “Ahhhhhh!”

Hey! Guess what?

It’s really hard to photograph fireworks.

I’m just putting that out there.

So instead of trying to show you more, I’ll just let your imagination go its own route. Don’t worry, 4^th of July is just around the corner—there will be plenty more free fireworks for you to partake.

Though I can’t guarantee that you’ll also be able to see The President’s Own.

But if you’re out at Wolftrap, I’ll save you a seat on the blanket. I might even save you a Leiney.

*Thanks to The Swede, who was also bored out of his gourd, and was the one who found this event in the first place. Is resourceful, that one.

summer reading list

We tried to get a book club started via TNDs, and it totally took off like wildfire.

If, by taking off like wildfire you mean it took us seemingly forever to actually finish reading Forever, and the “discussion” portion of the book club consisted of us A) comparing stories of where we were when reading this book the second time around (Julie was on the metro, HO was on a plane, Scalzo was wearing off a mild hangover on her couch) and 2) being incredulous that Michael named his penis Ralph.

I mean, come on.

Ralph?

Why must dudes name their penises anyway?

It’s a valid question.

ANYWAY, let me reiterate: wildfire.

By the way, “wildfire” and “penis” are not really two words you want in the same sentence, or even very close to each other.

Just FYI.

So our attempt at book club got the wheels in my head spinning, and as those wheels mingled and conjoined with the sticky, humid air that’s been invading DC as of late, I realized it was time for a list.

A just-in-time-for-the-pool list.

A now-I’ll-know-what-to-tell-people-when-they-ask list.

An oh-my-God-it-is-too-fricocking-hot-to-do-anything-other-than-stay-inside-the-air-conditioning list.

A see-you-later-suckers-I’m-headed-on-vacay list.

The 2010 McPolish Summer Reading List!

(Applaud like wildfire now.)

(Thank you.)

I put out a call on the Facebook and on Twitter for suggestions, and thankfully, people actually responded. While I’m going to attempt to make my way through this entire list (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH), feel free to pick and choose any book that looks good as you please. And if you do read/have read any of these books, and enjoyed it (or hated it, for that matter), leave a comment and tell us why. Same thing goes if you have a suggestion.

And if none of these appeal to you? Then you’re dead to me. But lucky for you my friend JenPem passed along a nifty little tool, The Book Seer, which might be of better use to you. Just put in what you read last (that you liked) and it’ll pop up some more suggestions for you. (Thanks JenPem!)

And if you still can’t seem to find anything you like, my friend Ang has given me permission to print her Extremely Mondo Book List. (Seriously, I thought I was a voracious reader. I’ve got nothing on Ang. NOTHING.) Before you freak out and partially faint like I did when I read this list, be aware that this is her ongoing list for the year, not just the summer. SO WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T FREAK OUT. DON’T FREAK OUT! OKAY!(Though seriously. The girl reads, like, eleventy million books a year. I’ve seen her past completed book lists and they are ah-stoun-ding and fill me simply with admiration and not a pinch of jealousy at her mad reading skillz.) So thank you to Ang for letting me share her list. (And also, a thank you to her Sam for scanning the list and emailing it to me.)

Read on, Interwebers. Happy summer.

*Big THANK YOU!s also to my sister Nancy, and my friends Panda, Sarah, Steph H., Karen, Julia, Renee, and Ang for the book suggestions!

 

McPolish Summer Reading List 2010

The Class – Francois Begaudeau (also a movie, it should be noted)

The Help – Kathryn Stockett

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

Total Waste of Makeup – Kim Gruenenfelder

Misery Loves Cabernet – Kim Gruenenfelder

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society – Mary Ann Shaffer

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stein Larsson

Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

The Brightest Star in the Sky ­– Marian Keyes

Ang’s List (not to be confused with Angie’s List), in multiple parts:

Loaf, Loaf, Loaf

Now that the weather is consistently nicer outside, even, dare I say it, hot (but then again, what I think is hot, or too-warm weather, is not so much to other people. This is what happens when you are part polar bear), I have a very strong desire to loll about reading books. Summer, to me, is book reading season, plain and simple. Well, all year long is book reading season for This Girl, it’s just enhanced and intensified in the summer. Growing up, summer – particularly those summers before I could drive and didn’t have a job and didn’t have much to do other than play softball a couple nights a week – reading was pretty much all I did during the summer. I’d go to the library with my mom, check out a teetering tower of books, go home, loll about in an air conditioned room, and get lost in a book for the entire day, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning, which was totally fine because I didn’t have anywhere to be so sleeping until 11 am was normal.

You can understand, then, that these days this desire to loll about is seriously harangued by things like work, and its collaborative arm of paying my rent. As my industry does not offer me the same working schedule as, for example, the teaching profession, my summers are mostly spent cooped up in my office staring at a Word document rather than staring at the pages of a book. Total bummer. I think more industries should have a work schedule like that of teachers – work really intensely for 9 months out of the year, and then get a 3 month break. Instead, we’re stuck with work really intensely for 12 months out of the year and get two weeks vacation. It totally sucks. Alas.

But in an effort to stay positive, I’ve decided that as much as I possibly can I’m going to make this summer very summer vacation-esque. Make it as footloose and fancy free as I can manage in my off-work hours, which could be tricky, but after this extended winter during which I feel like I ended up hibernating a good portion of, I’m itching to Do Things. Including, of course, lolling about reading books. Obviously, as it’s my favorite thing to do, it’s #1. But I’m not opposed to activities, lest I start getting Book Bum, that soreness you feel from sitting or laying about in one position for too long because you forgot to move, so engrossed were you in your reading.

So what else? What other activities can I add to the list? What’s on your Summer Fun List?