What are you up to this weekend? I’m listening to a great audiobook so I plan to do ALL THE LAUNDRY, plus exercise serious restraint at a reliably fabulous used book sale. I hope you have something fun to look forward to these next few days, and that this collection of interesting reads and favorite things helps ease you into that weekend frame of mind.
The countdown is on!
It’s that time of year: join us for our Fall Book Preview, where I’ll share 42 books I’ve read and loved, books I can’t wait to read, and books the industry is buzzing about releasing between August 30 and year’s end.
It’s all happening September 8 for our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club members and What Should I Read Next Patreon supporters. We’d love to see you there!
My favorite finds from around the web:
- New American Girl Is Full-Circle Moment for Author Brit Bennett. This is so cool!
- Jennette McCurdy on Finding Her Way Towards Healing. I really appreciated I’m Glad My Mom Died, in which the iCarly child star frankly discusses the decades-long eating disorder her mother actively encouraged. (I talked more about her memoir here.)
- Why friendship is different than any other relationship we have. “From the moment I met her, she’s helped me celebrate the things that were wonderful and get through the things that weren’t.”
- Limited time deal: Get a 1 year premium Artists’ Academy membership for only $0.99. In addition to more advanced portrait and still life tutorials (for drawing and painting) the video lessons catching my eye are Using Inspiration Photos To Sketch Floral Arrangements, Colored Pencil Color Basics, and How To Paint Different Types Of Clouds
- Bring that beat back: why are people in their 30s giving up on music? So interesting. I’m curious to hear if this resonates with you.
- This week’s wildly successful culinary experiment: we adapted this grit cake recipe to mimic the dish my family loves from The Red Bar in Grayton Beach, Florida. (Who’s been?) We served with air fried shrimp and tilapia with a side of sautéed spinach and it was a huge hit!
- Clare Pooley on Writerly Perseverance and Knowing When To Give Up. “It would mean admitting, to myself and my publishers, that the last twelve months had been entirely wasted. It would mean feeling, and looking, like a failure.”
- My whole family swears by this Aquaphor Itch Relief Ointment and it’s made us far less miserable when we get eaten up by mosquitoes. My only complaint is that we didn’t discover it earlier!
- This week I’ve found myself in numerous conversations about “extroverted introverts” and explaining how “introvert” and “extrovert” are verbs as well as nouns. My book Reading People: How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything explores this concept in more detail—give it a read if you haven’t, I’d be surprised if you didn’t learn something about yourself! (You can request a signed copy from Carmichael’s Bookstore.)
- Meryl Streep’s One Weird Trick. I’ve never noticed this before, have you? (Gift link.)
- 21 Bookish Podcasts You Should Definitely Listen To. Love seeing What Should I Read Next in such great company! (This week’s new episode features our team talking about their favorite summer reads! Give it a listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.)
- The Best Pasta Shape Is Fusilli Corti Bucati. I’m intrigued.
Don’t miss these posts:
- 22 atmospheric gothic novels for a darker reading mood. If you’re looking for a spooky-but-not-scary read, try a gothic novel!
- My 6 favorite summer-to-fall transition pieces. I’m dreaming about crisp fall sweater weather and these pieces will carry me through this in-between season.
- Restart your life with these 12 nonfiction titles. This is a great time of year to give yourself a fresh start or adopt a new habit or routine.
Upcoming Events:
- August 27: Sense & Sensibility Watch Party: Stream, buy, borrow, or rent the film, then join us as we all press play on the 1995 version of the film Sense & Sensibility, all together at the same time. We’ll use the Zoom chat feature to share our thoughts as we watch! This is a Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club event.
- September 8: Fall Book Preview: An exclusive live event for Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club members and Patreon supporters where I share a curated list of this fall’s exciting new releases. I’ll feature a mix of titles I’ve read and loved, titles I can’t wait to read, and titles the book industry is abuzz about for the season to come so you can decide which ones belong on your To Be Read list.
You can find more upcoming events here.
Have a great weekend!
17 comments
Such an interesting article about music! For me, I think it’s partly time – it takes time to discover new music, and I’m short on it! It was also I way to show belonging or to to communicate who I was, which is less important to me now. But largely I think it’s that it was easy to find music that captured the stages of life I was in when I was 17 or 21 or 25. I loved The Chicks’ latest album – I call it Grown Ass Woman music. It’s not about crushes and falling in love (not that you can’t have those at 40 or 80!), it’s about being a little more “well worn” and divorce and raising kids – the things I’m talking about with my friends. I thought the same of Adele’s latest album. Music is just often marketed as a young person’s game, and it takes work to cut through that!
I honestly think this is a huge piece of it! So many lyrics and messages in music no longer resonate once you hit a certain life stage. I’m a longtime Chicks fan and they are one of the few groups making music for grownups, imho.
I think the music thing happens with every generation. Remember hating your parents music? Now it’s what I crave, along with the music of “my generation” from high school and the decade following. I think most people find as they age the “new” becomes garbage. To them. I looooove country music but todays country? Ugh. No thanks. So I have to go back to my parents era and then mine to find what I enjoy. I guess it’s like comfort food. Or nostalgia. Btw, I’m a few years past my 30s. 😂
I love the Red Bar! We live a few hours away but love to visit Grayton when we can. My husband’s band played there for a bruch set over Memorial Day and it was so fun (and they’ll be back for Labor Day, woo hoo!). I’ll have to try that Grit Cake recipe, thanks!
That sounds sooo fun!
Love the national parks article! Thanks. I’ve been to 17.
Loved the ‘Glasses’ article and pics. Will never NOT notice glasses again!
Always look forward to your Friday goodies. Thank you!
Oh yes about music. I thought I was alone! I’m 35 and stopped listening to new music years ago. If I listen to anything it’s books and podcasts. If I’m in a music mood, it’s always stuff from my teenage years.
The Meryl Streep article is FIRE! So so good, and as proud wearer of glasses, I have a new arsenal of moves LOL!!! Absoultely adore the Friday blog, this one is no exception!
I love the American girl article. A fan of these dolls since the beginning of the line when they were made in Germany with Pleasant Rowland as the founder of the company. I like Brit Bennett’s enthusiasm for the Claudie doll and am looking forward to reading the Claudie books.
Marion
What an interesting article on The new American Girl, Claudie Wells. I am a collector of the American Girl dolls. I am looking forward to the Claudie books. The doll is lovely as are all of the Pleasant Company/American Girl Dolls.
Marilyn
The Red Bar is magical.
I no longer ‘do’ music because I don’t want *one*more*sound* even if it’s something of my own choosing! I homeschool our 8 children, and if it’s quiet enough for me to hear music, I want to treasure the silence.
It’s refreshing to see that someone else is writing about the waning interest in music as we grow older. I thought it was just me! I have listened to music less and less in the last decade (I’m in my late 30s). At first I thought it was just stage of life (having small children), but even now as they are older, I’d usually rather be listening to podcasts or audiobooks. I am unfamiliar with 99% of the music released in the last 10-15 years.
I guess I’m an exception on listening to new music. I’m 47 and still discovering new music, but not as often as before. I also love some quiet time in this very noisy world – and a lot of my listening time goes to audiobooks 😁. I still go to concerts and festivals like bi-monthly. Live music was the thing I missed most during the pandemic. Most of my friends love music, play in bands or own small record labels, that probably helps. And I mostly listen to niche music: Indie pop/DIY. Don’t ask me anything on the latest music sensation, I don’t know what Billy Eilish or Dua Lipa sounds like…
I do notice the music I like now is the same genre as the music I listened to as a teen. It’s mostly punk, new wave and 60ies pop influenced, with a little bit of electronic music…
There is one thing I was very passionate about when I was younger and that was cinema. I haven’t been in a cinema in years and I used to go every week. I just don’t care anymore…
Bless you for posting about the Aquaphor Itch Relief Ointment. It has really really helped my wife who is a mosquito magnet. 🙏
From our family of mosquito magnets: I’m delighted to hear it’s providing some relief!