Summer Dreaming and Winter Reading

I call out to you from the depths of the longest week of the year of the longest month of the longest winter ever.  Can you hear me?  Is it only Thursday?  Is it still 30 degrees?  
Booking summer vacations only slows everything down.  Christmas is over, and there's next to nothing exciting on the immediate horizon.  Reading helps!  Here are my most recent five finished books:

The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes
Anne Bogel (Modern Mrs. Darcy) recommended this book several years ago and I’ve been sitting on it for almost as long.  What a pleasant surprise to learn that this brain candy is smart, funny, fashionable, relatable, and truly enjoyable from start to finish.  No romance to it whatsoever, this fun novel was about fashion, tech “dinosaurs”, Instagram, workplace drama, revenge, gossip, New York, and nightmare bosses.  While I admit it could’ve been tightened up here or there, I still loved every page.  It’s been a long winter – this might be just the bubble bath book you’re needing right now.

Dying of Politeness: A Memoir by Geena Davis
Geena Davis is an amazing actor and has an interesting life.  If you want to read a memoir that details how she got her start in the business, how she secured various roles, a smidge about what she’s done to advocate for women’s representation on screen, and various examples of all of the idiotic things the unwashed masses have said to her – go for it.  If you want any sort of raw and true insider scoop on her actual life, you won’t find it here. 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
This gem made my 2022 Five Star reads list.  I wholeheartedly recommend this incredible modern version of David Copperfield.  It’s just amazing.

A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella
I can’t help but love novels where the reader is following the stories of various characters and they all inevitably converge.  Reflecting on this sweet book, I’m sorry I didn’t add it to my five-star reads list as well.  It was so well done and ultimately uplifting.  It’s initially sad, though, as the three characters who converge are dealing with loss.   So it’s a little melancholy in parts but a lovely read.

The Office BFF’s by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey
If The Office is on your TV at almost all times like it is at our home, you’ll probably enjoy this fun book written by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.  I really loved all of the great pictures included and all of the background scoop.  A chapter or two might’ve gotten a little tedious with psychoanalysis on the evolving of their friendship (spoiler alert:  it was hard when only one of them was a mom but then when the other one became a mom, it was all better again.)  Otherwise, I’d suggest this as a palate cleanser between heavier material.  
(The best scoop on The Office is found in The Office:  The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s:  An Oral History by Andy Greene.)

What is helping you see your way through this long January?