What are you up to this weekend? I’m making preparations for a family birthday celebration, and hopefully finishing my book in progress! It’s going to be hot, but I’m hoping to get in some porch reading in the cooler morning hours.
I hope you have something great to look forward to this weekend, and that this collection of interesting reads and favorite things helps ease you into that weekend state of mind.
My favorite finds from around the web:
- An Ode to the Card Catalog. This makes me so nostalgic!
- Why Is Every Cookbook a Memoir Now? I love food memoirs so I’m here for this trend.
- Many of you asked about the butterflies in the photo from our recent post about middle grade books set during summer break. My daughter loves them, and they’re available here.
- David Sedaris Is Bullish on Thank-You Notes. This is impressive. (Gift link.)
- Best books for bedtime: is reading non-fiction or fiction best before bed? The answer: it depends.
- Love Song to Costco. “Over the years and our continuous fights about my increasing Americanness, food has become the only safe subject between my parents and me. It is also the only language through which they can tell me that they love me.”
- Here in Louisville it’s been too stinking hot for anything other than tank tops, breezy dresses, and anything linen. I’ve been living in this dress from American Giant and their easy linen pant. (They sponsor What Should I Read Next and gave me a code for you all to use: take 20% off your first order with the code DARCY. If you want to try my favorite tees while you’re at it, the premium slub v-neck tee in bone is what you’re looking for.)
- Now for a great Target dress! This maxi is a summer staple, also available in an array of cheerful colors.
- 5 Ways to Upgrade a Regular Green Salad. Solid tips.
- Is It Time To Reconsider Boarding School’s Place in Pop Culture? “It was the closest I would get to seeing myself represented in a class where we all existed physically, yet not on the page.”
- How to rescue the world’s biggest cargo ships. I never could have guessed how invested I’d wind up feeling about the ups and downs of shipping cargo.
- For One Writer, Creativity and Domesticity Have Always Been At Odds. “I sometimes ask myself if I would be as great a writer as my father if I’d stayed single, childless, cloistered. To be a great writer or artist, how ruthless do you need to be? How single-minded? Do you have to be the kind of ruthless where in front of your only child and your wife of 47 years you tell your doctor that you only care about writing?” I ADORED Ada Calhoun’s brand-new memoir Also a Poet; this essay is a loose excerpt.
Don’t miss these posts:
- 17 sparkling and suspenseful novels set on the stage or the screen. Looking for the perfect drama to sweep you away?
- Sweet treats for the summer heat. Let’s talk about ice cream!
- 20 short novels you can read in one day. For when you need a quick win in your reading life.
Upcoming Events:
- June 29: Live discussion with Mary Laura Philpott: Time for our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club discussion of Bomb Shelter with author Mary Laura Philpott!
- July 26: Live discussion with Bonnie Garmus: Time for our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club discussion of Lessons in Chemistry with author Bonnie Garmus!
- August 25: Live discussion with Peng Shepherd: Time for our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club discussion of The Cartographers with author Peng Shepherd!
You can find more upcoming events here.
Have a great weekend!
18 comments
I’ll be staying indoors to soak up the A/C while doing a jigsaw puzzle and catching up on posts from this jigsaw puzzle blog I follow:
https://hurrayforpuzzlesblog.wordpress.com/
I’m working on finishing up some writing, as well. Living in Florida and being pregnant right now, I am all about the tank tops and the ice cream!
Thanks for sharing the cookbook memoir post. I am a huge fan of those, too. My favorite so far has been Shauna Niequist’s book Bread and Wine.
Have a good weekend!
Always enjoy these post and sometimes I even learn a thing or two. But the article on “How to rescue the world’s biggest cargo ships” I went down the rabbit hole with that one. It was interesting to learn how dangerous shipping can be and how they rescue such a large ship holding tons of cargo. Thank you!
Carol, this is so funny: Will and I were just talking about shipping, and how Leo in The Glass Hotel makes it sound completely fascinating and beautiful. Although I don’t recall any of his ships needing rescuing in that book …
Not negating the suffering folks are doing with the heat.
On Cape Cod (in MA), we;ve had the coldest spring in a long time. I’m in a t with a v-neck sweater today. 68 degrees and heading up to…..70. yes. we’re chilly. Hoping we get a beach day soon. We suffer throught the cold and grey winter dreams of warm beach days. 🙂
Susan, if only you and I could swap places for a few days—you could get a few hot sunny days, and I could enjoy wearing a sweater!
Susan, we’ve been sharing your weather but finally got our sunshine! We’ll hit 75 degrees today! And sunshine for the foreseeable future. Breaking out the short sleeves.
It’s so much fun to read whatever you write and post-thank you! I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels nostalgic about card catalogs. And I’m in no way a cook but I enjoy food memoirs. Finally, I quickly requested Also A Poet from my library-it sounds great!
Thank you for the article on card catalogs. I love my card catalog. A library was getting rid of them and I bought one about 25 years ago. It’s one of my favorite things. I use it to store wine.
These links are gold this week–many thanks Anne!
I will be getting on a plane for some much delayed travel! As an anxious flyer—who is determined to not let it stop me—I would love phrases to repeat to myself for moments of stress! MMD readers, any recommendations?
(I already have noise canceling headphones, soothing music, and a crossword puzzle to keep my hands occupied.)
Catherine, try the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, which you can learn about here:
http://www.fearofflying.com/free-video/5-4-3-2-1-exercise.shtml
I have a life-changing way I’ve upgraded my salads: a salad chopper. https://amzn.to/3nfQmdD
I’m usually staunchly anti one-use kitchen products, but this little baby makes me eat sooo many more greens so it earns its place in my tiny kitchen. I love a good chopped salad at a restaurant and this lets me recreate the fancy pile of veggies with that right dressing to bite ratio beautifully.
Can’t access the American Giant link – so which dress? I’m intrigued.
Same here. Thought it was just my phone, again. Please repost the link 🙂
Sorry about that! I linked to the blue color I have, and it appears it is now sold out. Here’s the same dress in black.
Regarding the card catalog article, the author confused some things at the beginning of the article:
“Depending on your age, you might remember the tiny envelope with the stamp card in the back of your library book. That, friends, is a remnant of the Dewey Decimal System, a relic of the card catalog used in libraries for 200 years.”
The date due card in the book has nothing to do with the Dewey Decimal System, and so is not a “remnant” of it. The Dewey Decimal System has nothing to do with card catalogs, and so is not a “relic” of it.
The Dewey Decimal System, devised by Melville Dewey, was a method to sort books by topic. Dewey assigned numbers to topics, and books had a Dewey number engaved or printed or labeled on its spine. The broad Dewey numbers are 000 for generalities; 100 for philosophy and psychology; 200 for religion; 300 for social sciences; 400 for languages; 500 for natural sciences; 600 for technology; 700 for the arts; 800 for literature; and 900 for history and travel. The books are then organized in libraries according to the Dewey number on the spine of the book. So a library user can find all of the cookbooks together, all of the Spanish language instruction books together; all of the ancient Egypt books together, etc. etc.
The date card in the book was for the convenience of the person checking out the book. It told them when to bring the book back to the library. It may have had the author, title, and Dewey number typed or printed on it.
The card catalog was an inventory of the books in the library and where they were located. The catalog card described the book, and included the author, title, and Dewey number, plus other information. So the user could look in the catalog, find the book they wanted, and write down the Dewey number so they could find the book on the relevant shelf.
Incidentally, I forgot to add, that although most public libraries (at least the larger ones) no longer use date cards in the books, and rely on a computer catalog rather than a card catalog; most (although not all) still use the Dewey Decimal System to organize their non-fiction collection of books.