I was off work last week. Following three days of birthday-related bacchanalia, I poured myself off the couch and read the following.
1. Daughters-In-Law by Joanna Trollope. If there is one thing I love, it's a good British society melodrama. Trollope's books exist in this totally unrealistic, upper class version of the UK that I absolutely adore, where the biggest problem in a woman's life is that her new mother in law didn't react appropriately when she announced her pregnancy and where people make their living drawing pictures of birds. This is my idea of a perfect beach read.
2. Bossypants by Tina Fey. Oh god, I love her. I love her so much. I can't even go down the road of quoting my favourite bits of this book, because my favourite part, to borrow a phrase from the kids in the summer reading club, was ALL OF IT.
3. The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin. This was one of those "journalistic non-fiction"-y books where the author reimagines conversations between Timothy Leary and Huston Smith and Aldous Huxley, awkwardly. The best part of this book was the thread about how Andrew Weil basically sold Leary and his fellow Harvard researchers up the river because he was jealous of all the LSD they were doing. As a reward, the university and the government helped him procure a bunch of pot and he later got away with publishing a buttload of research about how marijuana wasn't that bad for you. This is a great book if you have a couple of hours to kill and would like to pretend to "learn about social history," or if you would like a reminder of why you should never do acid again.
I also listened to the Decemberists, a lot. They're the masters of the nursery-rhymey, folk-pop-hook-y music that I love so much.
I also just read Bossypants (in less than two days, it was so good!). There were, indeed, innumerable great things about that book but for some reason what sticks in my mind the most is Amy Poehler turning on Jimmy Fallon and saying, "I don't fucking care if you don't like it." It reminds me of a long ago rant of mine about how funny women are still considered to be unladylike, particularly if they do "physical comedy" (I'm sure that you recall the pure comedy gold that was my 'out of shape ballerina'). Thank god for women like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. In conclusion, FART.
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