It’s Oaks Day here in Louisville, which means the kids are off school, the streets are festive, and I …. am deep in Summer Reading Guide edits! I rather like how these two big things—Derby and our Guide—have comingled these past twelve years, but might I suggest you don’t have to be a Louisvillian to enjoy red roses, fresh-cut mint, or Derby Pie?
I hope you have something to look forward to this weekend, and that this collection of interesting reads and favorite things helps ease you into that weekend frame of mind.
The Summer Reading Guide is coming May 18!
The TWELFTH annual Modern Mrs Darcy Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing event will be here on May 18. I recorded this short video to talk about what to expect from this year’s MMD Minimalist Summer Reading Guide and how to get the MMD Summer Reading Guide if you’d like. I hope you’ll watch the video. Highlights are shared below!
• The MMD Minimalist Summer Reading Guide will appear on the blog as a blog post on May 18. It’s completely free and available to all.
• This year’s Minimalist SRG includes twelve titles! We announced six of those titles right here; the remaining six will be announced on May 18.
• There are three ways to get the full 2023 MMD Summer Reading Guide:
- Join our MMD Book Club community
- Support our What Should I Read Next Patreon
- Purchase the Guide and Unboxing access a la carte
• If you would like to hear more about what’s different for 2023 Guide pricing and why, please check out this post and video. I go into detail there.
• Ginger and I recorded a fun bonus episode discussing the difference between Book Club and Patreon. It’s called By popular request: Anne and Ginger talk Patreon vs Book Club. We’ve made this publicly available so anyone can listen (that means even if you’re not a patron, you can listen to this episode!).
We hope you’re excited! If you have questions we didn’t answer, please share them in comments.
My favorite finds from around the web:
Ahead of the strike, writers from The Bear, CSI: Vegas, and more tell us what it’s really like behind the scenes. (The AV Club) The Writers Guild of America are now on strike after negotiations failed. It’s not hard to understand why after reading this piece.
This simple Pasta With Bacon, Cheese, Lemon and Pine Nuts was a huge hit at my house this week. (New York Times Cooking gift link) Delicious and easy for a weeknight; we served in big bowls with rotisserie chicken and green beans.
Our 20 Favorite Music Memoirs. (Esquire) Lots of great backlist picks here.
7 steps to read “hard” books. (MMD) A reliable process for reading books with difficult subjects and themes. Such a great conversation on the blog this week!
Colorado Is Not a Rectangle—It Has 697 Sides. (Atlas Obscura) Nerd alert: I found this fascinating.
I love my Target wreath … but if you’re inclined to splurge, golly these botanical wreaths are pretty.
Please Eat in the Library. (Taste) “Libraries have long remained viable by shape-shifting to meet the needs of their communities far beyond lending books.”
Did you know you can purchase a LEGO typewriter?! Me either!
My Taste Is Basic. So What? (Harper’s Bazaar) Gosh, I love this. Samantha Irby shares how the simple phrase “I like it!” changes the conversation when the things we love are criticized.
Read Your Way Through Edinburgh. (The New York Times gift link) I’ll read anything Maggie O’Farrell recommends, including travel and book recs in the Times.
I’m a huge fan of Maeve’s Collette Cropped Wide-Leg Pants at Anthropologie, and I just discovered this darling denim version. (Your mileage may vary, but when I ordered my “backordered” pants last week they arrived three days later.)
The Most Walkable Cities in America. (The Thrillist) My kind of content.
15 favorite novels about sibling relationships. A favorite reading category: novels that make the sibling relationship—and not romantic love, marriage, or parent-child bonds—primary.
What the Longest Study on Human Happiness Found Is the Key to a Good Life. (The Atlantic) “Nearly all of us have people in our lives whom we’d like to see more. Are you spending time with the people you most care about?”
Libro.fm has a special pre-order campaign for The Postcard, one of our MMD Book Club summer selections. When you pre-order The Postcard through your local bookstore, you can receive a complimentary audiobook copy by submitting your receipt.
51 Things in Europe That Every Traveler Needs to Experience. (Condé Nast Traveler)
From our archives:
12 remarkable YA retellings for readers of all ages. See classics, fairytales, and myths in a brand-new light with these YA retellings!
10 beauty favorites I use (almost) every day. I look for reliable, dependable products that look good and go on easy so I can keep my morning makeup routine to three minutes or less.
16 page-turning mysteries that aren’t too dark and gloomy. A list of favorite mysteries that fall squarely within the confines of the genre, yet maintain a hopeful tone throughout.
Mark your calendars:
May 8: How to Get More Out of Book Club: We like to think of MMD Book Club as a buffet. We have a lot of options for our members but there’s no pressure for everyone to do everything. We want you to choose what looks good to you, and what will enhance your reading life. This class will help members think about how they want to experience the Book Club buffet.
May 18: 2023 MMD Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing events
May 23: Live discussion with Dolen Perkins-Valdez: It’s time for our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club discussion of Take My Hand with the author!
Have a great weekend!
27 comments
Wonderful story about our library that has been under construction for the past five years and a local chef opening a cafe in the Cossitt Library. They did a fantastic job with the renovation. https://wearememphis.com/news/chef-eli-says-cossitts-dos-hermanos-meant-to-be/
Oh my goodness, how soon can I get to Memphis? Stacy, your library looks incredible!
So, I cannot get the 2023 reading guide unless I pay for it?
The Minimalist Guide is free to all on the blog; the full Summer Reading Guide is not free this year. I talk about my thought process briefly in previous weeks and at length in my blog post dated April 12, linked above. If you would like to hear more about how the guide has evolved over the years and why we came to this decision, I talk about that in detail in that post.
I find this uncomfortable as well. I hate to see everything monetized and walled off on sites I have enjoyed, but there are a lot of reading resources on the web that you don’t have to pay for.
Well, I went back and watched her video from April 12. You should as well, Heather. Anne has very compelling reasons to need to charge. I don’t care about the better quality layouts, larger numbers of titles, etc. I think that sometimes the “best” can be the enemy of the “good.” Maybe a reading guide shouldn’t be the cornerstone of a small business. I don’t tend to like all the books on the guide anyway! However, when she mentioned that people have been copying her work and using her words and layouts and categories….that really upset me! No WAY can she continue to let that happen! I will happily pay for the SRG so that pirates can’t hijack her work and call it their own.
The “Please Eat in the Library” is a timely article. Just last week, I found myself wanting to spend a considerable chunk of time at the library to get out of my environment and away from all the distractions that normally surround me. I hesitated though, because my question to myself was “Can you bring drinks into the library?” I’m going to need some water if I spend that much time there. Do you just leave your bottle in your car, and go out there and drink every time you want to? Or not drink at all, and add to your chronically dehydrated state? It’s a small town library, and I really don’t know. I guess I should just call and ask.
I’d love to hear what you find out! I read a fascinating book years ago that discussed questions of libraries being third places, and the implications that could have for things like their hours and food options—but alas, I have no idea what the book was! That was in my pre-journaling days.
Anne was the book Palaces for the People by Eric Klinenberg?
Here to ask the same thing Janice! I’m pretty sure that would have been the book (though if anyone is aware of another book referencing libraries as third places I would be interested!)
No, it wasn’t that one—I only know for sure because I read this book in our first house, and we moved in 2014! But I am adding that Klinenberg book to my TBR immediately. Thank you for the recommendation!
I just finished working on a large digital project at my local library and after seeing that the librarians had water bottles (even in the tech area!), I brought mine in. There is also a place with vending machines and seats, so I figured I could at least drink there. But, I drank as I was working and no one said a thing. Also, a shout out about my ongoing love of libraries in general – I had planned to purchase a photo scanner and found out my library had the same one available for public use – for free!!
Our small-town library allows drinks if they have a lid! Your may also!
So interesting you mention this today. We are in Salt Lake City and their library is a must see stop. It includes cafes and a coffee shop. Food is allowed on certain floors. So fun!
Love that you put the Edinburgh reading list here! Just finished Maggie O’Farrells Instructions for a Heat Wave, loved it. So seeing her article was such fun, especially since I’m in Edinburgh currently! Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson are big favorites, I just bought Kates new one yesterday at Typewronger books (they give you origami animals with purchase I chose a dragon) I’ll need to revisit The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, last read when here in 2017, I really didn’t care for it, which means I’ll reread if it’s considered a classic, maybe it was just the timing? Great thanks Sue
Kismet! Oh, how I loved my visit to Typewronger—have a wonderful time while you’re in Edinburgh!
Hi Anne!
Will the reading guide always be $15 even if I were to get it, say, next summer? Or will it eventually be accessible for free? I love your reading guide every year and just need to budget out when I will be able to afford it this year. Thank you!
Sarah, thanks for a good question. We don’t have any plans at this time to make it available for free down the road. That doesn’t mean that we never will, but it’s not something we intend to do at this point in time. I do want to make sure you know that you can get the guide for as little as $5 through our patreon community. People have all kinds of reasons for wanting to go a la carte, and I respect that! But the most inexpensive route is through patreon. I hope that helps!
Re the music memoirs, I listened on audio Gold Dust Woman by Stephen Davis, which is a biography of Steve Nicks. Highly recommend it. Thought it was fantastic!!!
I enjoy your Friday articles pointing our articles for the weekend. I’d love to read the article by Maggie O’Farrell, one of my favorite authors thanks to you!!!!! But the NYT quickly inserts an ad forbidding that unless I join them. It infuriates me! I know they are desperate for readers, but they do not win any fans with this approach. I’ll try to find the article somewhere else, though that may not be possible.
Carol, we share gift links whenever we can to paywalled sites! I’m a paying subscriber, which means I get ten NYT articles (and now recipes!) a month to share. I think you should be able to read today’s linked piece?
I have a small collection of old typewriters in my 7th-grade English classroom and I feel like I now NEED this Lego typewriter to be one of my summer projects. That price though!
I know! It’s so adorable and seems so fun to put together but ouch!
Not technically a musician’s memoir but as a huge Beatles fan from the 1960s I enjoyed Patti Boyd’s Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and me.
I loved the article about bringing restaurants to libraries. What a brilliant idea. I hope it catches on in the US.
So many good links in this edition.
I want to do every single last one of those European travel suggestions.
Anne,
I saw The Postcard already out at a bookstore so is the Libro.fm not good anymore or can we show a receipt for paid book?
Debra, I can’t speak for Libro.fm but I would imagine you’ll be just fine, because you’re purchasing the book before release date.