summer reads

My friend Alex Beth gave me this book on my 29th birthday in 2014. I started it but couldn't get into it. Then, Ferrante blew up. Then I didn't want to read her during all the hype. But this summer, when my family went to Italy to celebrate my parents 60th birthdays, it seemed like the perfect time to try again. When I busted this out on the plane, Adam looked at me and said, "wearing the t-shirt to the concert I see". Again, I found My Brilliant Friend slow to start, but this time I didn't mind because I was reading it in a beach chair in Camogli, Italy. When I finished in Tuscany a few days later, I immediately started The Story of a New Name on my nook. This was flew by. I was hooked.

Our final weekend in Italy, Adam and I spent in a tiny AirBnB in Milan. I was exhausted from being six months pregnant and hoofing around the city so was more than happy to come home in the afternoons, crawl into our loft bed and finish this gem.

Knowing I would need Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay for the plane home, but not wanting to download it onto my nook as by this point, I knew I would need this set on my shelf, I googled "English language bookstores" on our last day in Milan and found this there. Yes, I was a cliche as an American tourist looking for the Ferrante books in Italy. But at this point, I really didn't care.

I spent the first couple days of being home doing nothing except reading this on my couch to try and prolong the Italy high. (And also because by this point, I was addicted and firmly in the hype camp).

I bought this edition of Bodily Harm last year in Portland, Maine on my and Adam's summer road trip. It's been on my to read shelf since then so I read it while I waited to stumble across The Days of Abandonment in a bookstore.

Found at the Strand. Loved.

I went to go visit Kara and her new baby Leo and looked at all the books on motherhood she read while gestating. She loved Operating Instructions so much that she was thinking of re-reading for a third time. I immediately came home and downloaded on my nook and didn't do anything else until I was finished.

Troubling Love was the first of the Ferrante books that didn't really hold me. For being such a slim volume it took me a bit to complete it and I read Operating Instructions between starting and finishing. I stuck with it and got to the end in my AirBnB in Culver City while in LA for the To All The Boys I've Loved Before premiere.

My friend Molly reviewed Early Work for the Times and her review hooked me. I looked for it at the Strand and Greenlight many times but eventually just ordered it on Amazon. Read it at the lake after my LA trip. Usually the lake is one of my favorite places in the world, but this time I think I was little too pregnant for cabin living.

Always and Forever, Lara Jean hadn't come out yet when I was adapting To All the Boys...so it's the only one of the trilogy I hadn't read. But based on the wild success of our movie I felt like I had to see where the final chapter ended.

After Operating Instructions, I've been on a bit of a Lamott kick. This is probably the best book on writing I've ever read. Also reminded me that a former creative writing instructor had us read the essay on shitty first drafts my senior year of high school.