Tag: beach reads

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MY SUMMER READING LIST

Remember when you were in high school and they’d assign summer reading? And you’d dread it and wait until August to even pick up the first book? Well this is like that… but way better. I usually just pick my next book based on my mood (or something I’ve selected for my Steele Maiden book club posts), but as I was looking for ways to put a fun twist on what will likely be a somewhat quiet summer – I thought why not make a big list filled with books I can’t wait to read?!

Below – the 15 books I’ve got stacked up for the summer. Many are new release fiction, but there a couple of older titles in there I’ve been meaning to get around to plus a couple of memoirs. I can’t wait to dive in!

And lastly – these pictures are from a recent Talbots feature in which I shared some of their most comfortable styles alongside some of the books I’ve read and loved lately. See their full feature here! The photos also serve as a peek into our apartment and all of the little corners I tend to curl up in to read – including my favorite perch, our fire escape.

  1. The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner – a group unites over their love of Austen in post-war English countryside.
  2. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes – sweet romantic fiction set in small town Maine.
  3. Stray by Stephanie Danler – a memoir from the author of Sweetbitter
  4. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain – Hemingway, 1920s, Paris – need I say more?
  5. All Adults Here by Emma Straub – already on everyone’s summer hits list.
  6. From Scratch by Tembi Locke – a memoir set in Sicily, for those dreaming of an Italian getaway.
  7. Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion – one of the last few works by Didion I still haven’t read.
  8. Euphoria by Lily King – after loving her new book Writers & Lovers I wanted to go back and read her debut novel.
  9. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin – I’m always fascinated by reading about what makes some of the most brilliant minds in entertainment tick.
  10. Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt – the story of a young girl who loses her uncle to AIDS and becomes unlikely friends with his partner in the wake of that loss.
  11. The Last Book Party by Karen Dukess – set in Cape Cod against the backdrop of the glittering publishing world, this feels like it will be a good beach read.
  12. More Miracle Than Bird by Alice Miller – historical fiction based on the mesmerizing woman who played muse to W.B. Yeats.
  13. Supper Club by Lara Williams – the story of a secret society where women come to feast at night.
  14. Murder at Kingscote – a thriller set in Victorian-era Newport, RI.
  15. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – this has long been on my reading wishlist and I loved Daisy Jones & the Six last summer.

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THE STEELE MAIDEN BOOK CLUB: CHAPTER THREE

The Steele Maiden Book Club: Chapter Three

Back in the Spring I kicked off #SteeleMaidenBookClub and not only has it encouraged me to devote way more time to reading this year (the way I used to before endlessly scrolling Instagram became a thing), but it’s also become on of my favorite posts to write here on the blog. So without further ado – my third installment (you can see the last post’s here and here) and if you want to see/hear me talk about this month’s book club picks I’m going to be posting a short video to IGTV here.

Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt: This was the story of a young girl in the 1970’s who runs away with her high school teacher. It flips between her story (which takes some twists and turns) and the story of the sister she left behind and the woman who raised them. I think I ended up liking the flashback stories more than the ones that followed the main character.. but in general it was a good, easy read. This could make it into your beach bag this summer for sure.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney: I love, love, loveddd this book – but I think that’s largely because I really related to it. The story follows Lillian’s life – flipping between when she was a copywriter/ad executive in New York in the 30s/40s and now, in the 1980s when she’s a much older woman, still living in the city. So much of her feelings towards her career and this city felt so much like my own which I rarely find in characters. But even if you’re not a Manhattan or nothing diehard, this book was very well-written and fun look at one woman’s life at two very different time periods.

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride: Ahh… where do I start? I guess on the first 5 pages because honestly that’s all I could bear to read of this book. It is very rare for me to start a book and not give it at least 100 pages, but honestly the dialect is so difficult that I just couldn’t muster through it. Maybe in the winter when I’m cooped up with nothing but time I’ll come back to this, but in Summer I wanted a book that sparked my imagination or sucked me in page by page. Not something I had to read slowly in a silent room. Let’s put this one on the shelf, shall we?

SHOP THIS MONTH’S BOOK CLUB:

After feeling like I picked only ‘new fiction’ this past month, I wanted to really switch it up for the month ahead – and I’m particularly excited about these three picks (full disclosure: I snuck ahead and have already started/finished some of these and they’re gooood). The Woman in the Window is an edge-of-your-seat thriller (perfect for the beach or tearing through on a rainy day), Motherhood is writer Sheila Heti’s honest account of her inner struggle to decide if being a mother is for her or not and Kitchen Confidential was Anthony Bourdain’s first book and after being such a fan of his, I wanted to go back and hear more about where he started. This book is a tell-all memoir about his early days in the kitchen’s of New York City… the good, the bad and the ugly. So far I know I’ll never be eating fish at a restaurant on a Monday night again.

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