Summer Cocktails for Moms

We moms have it hard in May and June.  The social calendar that we tend to throughout the year virtually explodes for the spring season, with graduation parties and birthday parties and class parties and final exams and proms and cookies to bake and brownies to bake and teachers to thank and yearbooks to distribute and camp trunks to pack and backpacks to unpack and trip forms to fill out and letters to send to camp and Father’s Day to plan and little league playoffs and final recitals and band concerts and about a million other obligations that keep our heads spinning.  Until now.  Because now, we have reached Nirvana.  We have reached the end of June.

         

Ah.  Say it with me.  The end of June.  Now exhale.

            

At the end of June, and well into July and August, Mommy needs – no, Mommy deserves - a cocktail.

            

Here are some of my personal summer faves.  Continue here.

Plastic is Fantastic!

When I was growing up, my parents did a lot of summer entertaining, before they divorced and ruined all the fun.  Our house in Edgemont had a pretty backyard with a pool.  Since my birthday is on July 3^rd, we often hosted outdoor birthday parties, end-of-the-year school class parties, and elaborate Independence weekend fetes back-to-back for the first part of the summer season. 

In fact, I recall the time between Memorial Day and July 4^th as one big party.

My now long-deceased Bichon Frise, Ellie, would agree, having spent much of that time sipping margaritas from the half-filled cups left next to people’s lounge chairs and then falling asleep in the shade.  

Of note, there was the bat mitzvah outdoor brunch with an omelet station, the Sweet Sixteen party to which I wore a rockin’ white, Oscar de la Renta bathing suit, and a Club Med party, during which my father burned his exposed stomach by grilling without a shirt. 

For my mother, these parties were all about setting the table. Continue reading here....

The Chocolate Wars

Let’s agree to agree: chocolate is delicious, and it’s also good for you.  But, like all great love stories, this one has a twist: in order to reap any health benefits, the chocolate you eat should be dark, dark, dark.  

            

Here are some Real Facts paired with some Julie Facts about dark chocolate.  Continue reading article on the Huffington Post.

The Sandal Revolution

The box arrived from Bloomingdale’s just as my husband, Brett, was walking out the door to attend a neighborhood meeting one evening.  That’s bad timing, when the UPS guy comes face-to-face with one’s husband.  The uniformed man stands at your doorstep, a guilty look on his face, as he hands over the goods.  He knows the rules.  He knows he’s supposed to drop the package when your husband is either a) at work, b) at the gym, or c) has left the house precisely eight minutes ago, but sometimes he screws up and gets caught.  The husband looks at the return address on the box, sees the name of a clothing store like Bloomies, or an e-tailer like Gilt, or a supermegavirtualworld like Amazon, and shakes his head sadly at the UPS man.  Dude, he thinks, You’re complicit in her schemes.  I’m so disappointed in you. Read the rest of the article on the Huffington Post Stylist here....

Loved the Hunger Games? Other Great YA Books that Adults Should Be Reading

Confession: I read children’s books. For fun. Like, all the time. Did you get hooked on Harry Potter? Torn apart by Twilight? Did you Hunger for more of The Hunger Games? Did you think, well, I’ll only do it this one time, because they’re making the series into movies and everybody’s reading them? Well, that’s nothing.

When I‘m on a YA bender – and, hello world, I’m on one now! -- I read at least one teen title a week.

For me, reading YA is like having a candy bar in the middle of my lifelong diet. Filled with nougaty goodness, it’s easy to digest and damned satisfying. And, when I’m done, I don’t have to discuss it with my book club.

Reading YA is like temporarily leaving your grown-up, responsible day job to cut class and hang out in the food court at the mall with your new BFF.

It’s, like, totally ahmayzing.

So, without further ado, here are some of my top picks for grown-ups who sometimes wish they could recapture their teen years or who just like reading about adolescence. Maybe you have an adolescent in your house and you can share titles. Maybe you don’t. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m a book pusher and this is just good stuff.

Read the rest on the Huffington Post...

The Same Me, Only Better

I want to live on Nantucket. Let me qualify that: part of me wants to live there. The artsy, romantic, writerly side of me is drawn to the moors, and the fog, and the endless views of blue water. This tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts inspires in me a sense of calm, of freedom, of anything-is-possibleness, like no other place in the world. On Nantucket, I would be a better writer, a better mother, a better wife, a better me.

On Nantucket, I would cook, and bake, and goshdarnit, I might even sew. I would grow my own vegetables in a garden I tended to myself and then can those vegetables for the long winter months. I would collect berries and make pies, preserving the leftover fruit as jam, in jars with those cute little fabric tops. I’d give this jam to people as gifts.

I would not watch The Bachelorette on Nantucket.

My weak-ankled children would ice skate, since that’s pretty much all there is to do off-season on Nantucket. Andrew would grow tough and broad, learning to breathe with a huge mouth guard attached to his palette, playing ice hockey and skating backwards. Zoe would join the championship figure skating team in winter, spending her summers surf casting for stripers off Quidnet.

On Nantucket, I would eat striped bass caught by my daughter.

I would fillet it on the beach with my bare hands.

On Nantucket, I would dress more J Crew and less Pamela Robbins. I would choose Sperry Topsiders as footwear in an un-ironic way, because they are practical. Not because they now come in metallic silver and gold. I would wear a bright yellow rain slicker as my every day outerwear, so that someone would notice me in a nor’easter and therefore be able to rescue me if a gale-force wind swept me down Main Street. (The rain jacket I have now is really cute. It’s from Barney’s. It’s like this wheaty-tan color, and has three quarter sleeves and that you can roll up or down, depending on how wet you want your arms to be.)

We’d get a dog, or maybe two. Forget my idea of a toy-sized, hypo-allergenic suburban fluffy puppy with a little “poo” or “doodle” in it (think cockapoo, goldendoodle, schnoodle, cavapoo). What we’d need in the New England wild is a pair of Portuguese water dogs, animals that swim the Atlantic surf with gusto, taking pleasure in long runs on the beach with us.

Speaking of which, I wouldn’t have to seek out opportunities for exercise on Nantucket, because my daily existence would just be so active. I’d bike to the market. (Don’t laugh.) And, even though I’ve never in my life tried this, I’m sure I’d be an excellent paddleboarder. Just for fun, I’d cruise through the marshes and bogs, boarding in Polpis harbor to investigate the native flora and fauna. In fact, I’m sure that I’d get so good at paddleboarding that I’d start taking sunrise yoga classes on a paddleboard, even though I am not a particular fan of a) sunrises or b) yoga.

What would my husband, Brett, do on Nantucket? The question is, what would he not do? He’d paint en plein air, whenever the mood struck and the light was right. He’d just pull over his truck and hop out, grabbing his folding French easel and pastels from under the tarp and dragging them onto the beach grass. He’d surf. He’d create. He’d distil his own vodka. He would not shave. He’d be.

As a pair, we’d certainly be well received, and not just as That Funny Jewish Couple Out In Eel Point. No, we’d have much more to offer the year-rounders than New York shtick.

Immediately, people would notice our keen intellect and diverse talents (I can write my name upside down and backwards, in script; Brett speaks a little bit of Dutch) and we’d be asked to apply our savvy to their Nantucket-specific conundrums. We’d be invited to lecture on someone’s yacht, and neither one of us would vomit. And, in that way, we’d endear ourselves to this community of fisherman and fisherwomen, restaurant owners and shopkeeps, bartenders and raging alcoholics, becoming as intricately woven into the tapestry of the island as cashmere is woven into a $2,000 Nantucket Looms blanket.

“So, why don’t we do it?” Brett asked for the thousandth time. We were enjoying a few beers at Cisco Brewers, while a local musician played guitar, Zoe already his biggest groupie. Andrew was playing lawn games with my father-in-law. The rest of us were inhaling a brick oven pizza made on site. “Why don’t we just move here already?”

“Because,” I said for the thousandth time.

I realize this argument is lacking in strength.

“Now is the time,” Brett pressed. “I’m in between jobs. You can write from anywhere. The kids will adapt. You always say you want to live here.”

Tons of excuses flooded my brain. I’d miss my mom. We love our house. The kids have friends in Scarsdale; I have friends. There’s no Bloomingdale’s on Nantucket. They don’t get the good movies on island fast enough, like that lame, quaint town in Cinema Paradiso. We just paid our temple dues, so we can’t leave for at least another year.

And, while all of that is true, or true enough, it doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. For as much as I like to imagine that my heart belongs to Nantucket, it really beats right here. I grew up in Edgemont; there are still pictures of me in old theater production posters lining the high school hallway. I went to college upstate, moved to the city, and then settled in Scarsdale.

Did I…“settle” by picking a life that is so predictable, so similar to the way in which I grew up? Sometimes I wonder. But each time, I come to the same conclusion. Nope. I chose to live here above all other places, even Nantucket. Although I entered the main office at the Nantucket Middle School once in the late 1990’s and asked if they had any job openings for English teachers, I was relieved when they said no, and I never followed up by submitting an actual application for the following academic years. Instead, I applied to the Scarsdale school district.

Oh, I talk a good game, and I can fantasize with the best of them. But let’s be real here: what’s so great about living on an island with three lighthouses and no traffic lights? Sure, it’s got gorgeous vistas, but what a schlep. I mean, Nantucketers have an entirely different definition for away games at the high school than we do. Think Somers is far? Try Martha’s Vineyard. In January. I can barely make it to rec basketball at Fox Meadow; you think I’m putting Andrew on a plane to Chattam to compete?

And, by December, the gray weather really starts to wear on one’s psyche. As a diversion, there’s only so many sailor’s valentines one can make out of shells before developing a pirate’s accent and a permanent twitch.

“I have the perfect idea,” I said to Brett. “Let’s compromise. Summers on Nantucket, and the rest of the year in Scarsdale.”

“Great. So the solution is to have two houses?”

It makes perfect sense. After all, the same me, only better, already lives in two homes: the real and the imagined. And for a while, anyway, I guess that’s how it will stay.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

“I don’t know how this could have happened,” I sighed.

“Strange,” my husband, Brett, agreed.

“A mystery.”

We were holding between us my relatively new, not inexpensive Bottega Veneta pocketbook. A large, neat gash stared back at us. The leather across the handle had apparently ripped, or perhaps been cut. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had caused this. Had I been walking near scissors? Did I recall being yanked by my pocketbook down the streets of town?

I had only worn it a few times, and already, it would need to be repaired. The bag was bumming me out.

“This is why you shouldn’t buy ridiculous pocketbooks,” Brett said, blaming me for the damage while simultaneously reminding me that I spend too much money on frivolous items, thereby scoring two points for the Husbands of Scarsdale.

I may have given him the finger.

This move only gives us Wives a bonus point if we make it to overtime.

I brought the bag to Bottega and was told that repairs would cost $65 and take about 6 weeks to complete. I returned from my day in the city even deeper in bummage and with some interesting news for Brett. “The repair department at Bottega says that it looks like my pocketbook was burned.”

“Burned?” He asked.

“That’s what I just said.”

We eventually dropped it, moving on to other exciting topics like who was driving to Little League and whether or not the mozzarella had spoiled. (You smell it/I’m not smelling it/let’s have the kids smell it/just toss it.)

At some point during the evening viewing of CNN, Brett snapped his fingers at me. “I’ve got it!”

“What?”

“The pocketbook. You burned it.”

“I did, huh?”

“Yes!” He said, triumphant.

“Okay, Sherlock, let’s hear it.”

Brett explained his theory. “It happened during your high school reunion.”

I immediately rolled my eyes. Since the event, Brett liked to blame anything and everything on my high school reunion. I’m spending too much time on Facebook – because of the reunion. I talk hypothetically about wanting Botox and Restyalne (and a boob job and a tummy tuck and some lipo) – blame it on the reunion. So, naturally, my Italian woven leather premium designer handbag is burned, and who’s to blame? The Edgemont High School Class of 1988.

“Seriously!” He said.

“How?”

“From your cigarette.”

Well. He may have had a point there.

In fact, he may have scored two points for the Husbands by simultaneously solving the mystery while making me feel bad for smoking.

It was almost a case closed moment.

Almost.

But. Just as Brett was about to gloat big time, I stood up and grabbed another pocketbook from the front hall. Throwing it over my right arm, I reconstructed the moment.

“Okay, let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I was smoking a cigarette that night.”

“And by ‘a’ do you mean four?”

“And that, since I’m right-handed, my bag was perched over my right shoulder and my cigarette was in my right hand. Agreed?”

“Agreed, council.” Brett nodded.

“So, in that case, it is virtually impossible for me to burn my own pocketbook with my own cigarette because I’d have to be going like this –“ I demonstrated the way one would have to stand with elbow bent up over her own shoulder – “and I would never stand like that! It’s unnatural, I tell you, unnatural!”

Brett’s silence proved me right.

He scratched his head and reconsidered. “It was someone smoking near you then, gesturing with a cigarette in hand.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “We can blame Todd Ross, if you’d like.”

“Your first kiss?”

“Yes.”

“The guy who crashed his dad’s Porsche into a stone pillar outside the high school?”

“Yes.”

“Good. He did it.”

Case closed.

Almost.

Months went by and my pocketbook was returned to me. The saleswoman at Bottega apologized; the leather repair guru, who has been in the business for 40 plus years, had never seen anything like this and had only been able to do So Much to help.

Damn you, Todd Ross, I chanted.

Now my authentic bag, with a huge patch of stiff leather on the handle, looked like a fake. I went home and hung it on a doorknob in my kitchen, studying it in the light, wondering if I’d ever feel the same way about it again.

A few weeks later, my kids and I came home from school and smelled something funny in the kitchen and office. Like gas, like oil, like fire.

It was a familiar odor, one that had plagued me about a year before, on another warm day like this one. Back then, I had immediately evacuated the house and called the fire department.

Two trucks had showed up while my kids jumped up and down in a combination of fear and excitement that can only come about when you are 8 and 5 and your house probably won’t blow up, although maybe it will.

The firemen had been very patient and thorough, listening to me describe the smells and symptoms that they could not detect at all with either their noses or their gadgets.

“Right here,” I kept saying, “between the kitchen and the office door. There is an oily smell trapped right here.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” they kept saying, “your house is just fine.”

Not that they were sorry that my house was fine. You know what I mean.

So, this time, with the same stench filling my nostrils, I wasn’t going to panic. I took the kids to their afternoon activities and decided that, should the smell still be there when we returned, I’d call the fire department immediately.

When we returned, the smell was gone.

That night, I debriefed with Brett over dinner in the kitchen.

“The smell was right here?” He asked, moving towards the door to the office.

“Yes.” I nodded. “And it’s the same smell that had me calling the fire department last summer.”

“Right here, where your pocketbook is hanging, you mean?” He asked. “In the heat of the day?”

“Yes, right where my pocketbook ---“ I said.

Dear reader, do I need to finish this sentence? Do I need to tell you that, in order to be fashionable, we had installed clear glass doorknobs throughout the house, and that, when light hits those doorknobs it will create a burning lens that will concentrate the sun’s rays onto any flammable object in it’s path – let’s just say a fine, Italian leather pocketbook strap – thus resulting in the conflagration of that object, like a leaf under a magnifying glass?

In other words, my Bottega was on fire.

Again.

Well, it wasn’t anymore.

Brett lifted the pocketbook and we inspected it together. Sure enough, there was a new tear, in the same exact spot as the old one, just like a burn mark one might get from a cigarette, only much bigger.

“I’m not sure how long this will take to fix, or how much repairs will cost,” the young saleswoman at the counter of the Bottega store said.

“That’s okay, I do.” I said. “You want to hear a funny story? Twice?”

I hope this tale brings some sort of meaning to your life, as it did mine. Should you be on the verge of buying an expensive accessory, you may stop and reconsider. Should your husband be on the verge of blaming you for something you did at your high school reunion, he may stop and reconsider. And last, but certainly not least, please stop and reconsider my lovely Bottega the next time you see me in town. It is a damaged old bag, carrying stories of pain and redemption, but really, aren’t we all?

Once Bitten

Do you know what makes me feel old? Vampire books.

Betcha didn’t see that coming. Truth is, neither did I.

A few weeks ago, I walked into Borders and started browsing. I made my way through the “New and Noteworthy” paperbacks, beyond The New York Times bestsellers, and past the 3-for-2 sale table. But nothing was calling my name.

I ended up wandering into the back where the YA/Teen section lives, realizing I hadn’t done that for a while. You see, my love for teen fiction runs almost as deep as my love for my own offspring. And it’s been around a lot longer.

But it’s hard to be completely faithful, you know. I’m a very busy person, and I can’t make room in my life for everyone all the time.

I swear, I only turned my back on it for a moment. A few months, at the very most.

And now I’m feeling guilty. Because, based on what I witnessed in Borders, it appears that I have been paying too much attention to my young children and not enough time to my first love. In the short time that I have been away from her, my teenager fiction has grown angry and dark.

In bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble, the brightly-covered “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” series and tartan-plaid and striped “Clique” titles have been shelved, along with anything else that might be considered “too cute” to teens. Instead, Goth-like paper candelabras hang theatrically over a huge new section of tables and displays promoting all things…vampire.

Almost every book in the section has a black cover (or blackish purple, or purplish black, give or take a touch of midnight blue) and uses what I can only describe as vampire font (something Vlad the Impaler and Dracula might choose were they to email each other). The craze started by Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” has picked up speed at an alarming rate. The proliferation of teenage vampire serials is bloody frightening.

To begin, there’s the Christopher Pike “Thirst” series, promoting “Human urges. Fatal consequences.” There’s Richelle Mead’s “Vampire Academy” (five books in all, so far), “The House of Night” novels by Kristin and PC Cast, and Smith’s “The Vampire Diaries.” In Alyson Noel’s “Immortals” series, it appears that the main characters are not vampires themselves, but I have a feeling they run into some, since they have “traveled through countless past lives – and fought off the world’s darkest enemies – so they could be together forever.”

Isn’t that sweet?

My personal favorite is “Intertwined” by Gena Showalter. The cover art is cool, and just check out this blurb: “Most sixteen-year-olds have friends. Aden Stone has four human souls living inside him. One can time-travel. One can raise the dead. One can tell the future. And one can possess another human.” I mean, talk about over-scheduling your teenager! Really. Someone has to tell this guy that he doesn’t have to be all things to all people. These days, I hear The Ivy League is looking for kids who excel at one thing.

Like just being a vampire.

Moving on.

As far as I can tell, there are at least six “Vampire Kisses” novels by Ellen Schreiber, who used to write fun, peppy things like “Teenage Mermaid” and “Comedy Girl” before realizing that what teens want these days are not fishy teens or funny teens but dead and/or possessed and/or ghost teens. So she wisely jumped on the bandwagon and is probably making a lot more money by doing so, if you don’t mind me saying.

In short, vampires are to teens what Chick Lit was to housewives a few years ago: an overnight publishing sensation.

I’m totally and completely out of the loop on this phenomenon. It’s not like I didn’t know about the “Twilight” series, it’s just that I sooooo didn’t care. I read the first 250 pages of “Twilight” and put it down, much to the (vocal and somewhat hostile) displeasure of my 6th grade students (and even some of my grown-up friends). Team Jacob or Team Edward? Whatever. And that’s the part that makes me feel disconnected, because I just don’t care about these vampire books, nor about the vampire blockbuster movies that spin off them, nor about the teens that become famous for playing vampires and werewolves in these movies.

Which brings me to “People” magazine.

Who are these supposedly-famous people in “People?”

I even asked my husband, Brett, if he could identify anyone in the latest issue. We had flipped through half of it without recognizing a single face.

“I recognize him,” Brett pointed with satisfaction.

“Yeah, but…” I began.

“What? He counts.”

“That’s the president.” I said. “Of the United States.”

“He’s in the magazine and I recognize him.” He smiled. “I passed your little test.”

“Ugh!” I groaned, turning the page and seeing fangs.

“What?”

“There are even werewolves in “People” magazine!”

“What do people see in such creatures?” Brett wondered, adding, “I wonder if the Obamas let their daughters read those types of books and see the “Twilight” movies.”

Good questions, actually.

Ones that I was now on the verge of calling them to ask. Right there from the teen section of Borders. With all these vampires staring at me, canines exposed.

Until I saw it. On the display shelf.

VC Andrews’ “Flowers in the Attic.”

Amidst the new millennium’s immortals and other, dark netherwordly creatures, there was a repackaged, black-covered homage to my youth. Hands trembling, I picked it up to find that it was actually the complete, 5-book Dollanganger series, including “Petals on the Wind” and “If There Be Thorns.”

The first of these books, published in 1979, was so popular that it shot to the top of the bestseller’s list in only 2 weeks and remained there for almost 4 months. So much pressure was put on the author to meet demands for a sequel that the publication date for the second was pushed up by several months. These books caused a stir. They were a teen sensation.

There was even a movie version, back when I knew who the people in “People” magazine were.

I loved theses gothic horror novels.

They made my heart beat fast.

As I sat there on the floor of the YA section in Borders, clutching one of my favorite teen series of all time, the world became whole again. Because, it turns out that I’m not out of touch with what’s hip and cool with teens. I just experienced it already, three decades ago, with a different sort of hero and heroine and a different sort of forbidden love.

Remember getting swept up like that?

Let’s hope that every teen experiences that sensation, of reading something so exciting, so fundamentally nourishing in its content that she cannot tear herself away. For a few stolen moments, the real world becomes less important than the world inside those pages.

Teenaged vampires. Huh.

It’s a trend I can really sink my teeth into after all.

Purple Haze

I’m on the verge of putting a bumper sticker on my car that says “slap me: I’m obsessed with purple.” Purple shoes, purple sweaters, purple leather gloves with cashmere lining. I’ve got it all. I love it all! I recently had to call a friend while I was standing in Lord & Taylor and demand an intervention on a purple pocketbook that was dangling on my arm. It was begging me to take it home.

“No more purple!!!” Kate demanded.

“But...but...” I stammered, turning this way and that in front of the mirror, cell phone pressed to my ear.

“If you are thinking that this bag will look great with your new purple flats, you are seriously misguided. That would be a fashion disaster.”

I sort of heard her through the purple haze in my brain. Then my mom beeped in. “Hold on, Kate.” I switched over and immediately started talking. “Mom, I know I just called you before and didn’t leave a message. I’m having a purple problem, but Kate’s on it.”

“Just say no!” I heard her say as I hung up and switched back to an awaiting Kate, thinking that everyone sounded a bit too drug-era Nancy Reagan for me. Because I was thinking just say yes.

What is it with trends? How do I fall into every trap every season? My friend Andie thinks it’s because of the trend reports we receive from magazines and department stores, telling us what’s on this year’s “hot list” and “must haves.” It’s sad but true. I read those things and, suddenly, I find myself looking for accessories with studded hardware, or tops with cutouts at the shoulders (which, by the way look incredibly ridiculous on me). It’s hot! It’s a must-have, so I must have it…right?
Grey nail polish? Awesome. Just walk me to the counter and give them my credit card. I’m like a fashion lemming.

When I go shopping, I try really hard to drown out the sound of the little voice telling me what’s hot, cool and new. And I know that, as I get older, most of these trends are not meant for me, at least not in their purest and hippest form. I’m fine with a watered-down, suburban mom version of leggings, for example. I have them, but I wear them with ballet flats and a long sweater instead of with heels, a micro-mini skirt, and a tank top that looks like it has been mauled by a rabid cat.

Just, you know, for example.

By telling you about my recent color addiction, I like to think that I’m in the first steps of recovery. The picture accompanying this proves that I’m not exaggerating. Unfortunately.

What’s next? I’m thinking rose gold jewelry. It’s so pretty. And it looks great with purple.

Bookstalking 201: Summer Reading for Adults

Last week, in Part I of this summer reading guide (written for pre-teens and teens), I confessed that I am a bookstalker. This is a person who follows people around bookstores and tells them what to read. Since writing this, several other bookstalkers have come out of the woodwork to tell me that I am not alone and that they, too, bookstalk strangers.

Why would someone do this? I can’t speak for the others; after all, they just might be crazy. However, I bookstalk because I am a little bit bossy and also pretty passionate about reading. I like to think that I can make the world a slightly better place, one book recommendation at a time.

I tend to use my superhuman book sense on kids, since they are less likely to harm me for butting into their reading life than adults are. Also, they are cuter than grown-ups and get excited about reading in a jump-up-and-down kind of way. However, with summer just around the corner, I sense some grown-ups are jumping up and down too. I figured you might as well do it with a good book in hand.

Ladies, I just read Kelly Corrigan’s memoir “The Middle Place” and I cried like a baby. Now that may not sound like a glowing recommendation, but it is. Oh, what a nice little read. Moving, real, and deeply personal, this one has it all. Do yourself a favor and read the essay about the power of female friendship included at the back of the book in the privacy of your own home. Unless you want to blubber in public, that is. My sister-in-law heard Corrigan read the essay in her own voice through an online version that I can’t wait to listen to myself.

Now, here’s the rest. “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” is set on a small English island occupied by the Germans during World War II. In this poignant and witty tale, readers get to meet a wide variety of quirky and charming characters who pass the time of their occupation by forming a book group. This is not a traditional holocaust tale, but rather an interesting look at what life must have been like on the periphery of war.

For more historical fiction, try Geraldine Brook’s “Year of Wonders,” and Lisa See’s new novel, “Shanghai Girls” (to be released May 26th). For lighter, contemporary reading, grab Elin Hildebrand’s “A Summer Affair” (comes out in paperback June 1) and Jane Green’s “The Beach House,” both set in Nantucket. Can’t get there this summer, thanks to the economy? Sit at the town pool with a big straw hat and pretend you are out in ‘Sconset with these characters. And if you’d like to read about (and hopefully also be in) the Hamptons this summer, try Jane Green’s newest, “Dune Road,” to be released on June 16th. Read anything by Jodi Picoult and then give her books to your high school or college-aged daughter.

If you want to read along with me, I’m reading “The Help” by Katherine Stockett because, if for no other reason, a book that gets 5 stars based on 275 reviewers on Amazon deserves my attention. I’m also going to try and get my adult book club out of our leper-and-plague-infested-reading-rut (otherwise known as our “Great Books About Awful Things” phase) by suggesting that we read “Secrets to Happiness” by Sarah Dunn. This novel, about a New York City writer and divorcee, got a nice review in The New York Times Book Review last weekend. Also, according to Amazon, it contains “witty prose” and, although, bordering the chick-lit genre, “it's smarter than the usual single-in-the-city fare, and funnier, too.”

If you want to read along with my husband Brett this summer, try the new Elmore Leonard book, “Road Dogs,” which came out earlier this month. “And, because we live in the suburbs, I’m interested in reading John Cheever’s new biography,” Brett adds.
“You know it’s 800 pages long.” I interject.

“Revise that: I’m interested in reading some of “Cheever: A Life.””

Also on his list is “The Watchmen”, the graphic novel that inspired the movie and Micahel Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” which Brett calls “the sleeper hit of the summer.” It has also been turned into a movie, “though the book is much better than the movie is going to be, trust me,” Brett adds with uncharacteristic swagger. It’s about a recent college grad who does something to cross his gangster father. Hey – you can give it to your recent college grad!

Our friend Dave is reading “The Best Nonrequired Reading 2008,” put together by Dave Eggers, which he calls “a compilation of random nothing, actually,” and has just finished Adiga’s “The White Tiger,” a sarcastic critique of the inequity in Indian society, about a taxi driver and the corruption surrounding him. “All fiction. I used to read a lot of nonfiction but have lost the vibe recently,” he added. I can’t imagine why – reality these days being such fun! Escape, much?

There is also “City of Thieves,” about a man’s survival in Russia during World War II, based on stories told to the author by his grandfather, and “The Book Thief,” also set during World War II, which is already considered a modern classic. Anyone and everyone over the age of 14 should read it. No pressure. You just have to.

I’d like to take a moment to thank all the people who give me advice when I’m looking for my next great read, from my book groups to local librarians and booksellers to my mom and my friends. To be a good bookstalker, you have to know when to give advice and when to take it. You have to keep lists. You have to be open to the possibility of trying different genres and new authors. You have to have what I call a “balanced reading diet.” Sometimes you have a full meal and sometimes you just have a snack. Sometimes, you skip the protein altogether and just go straight to dessert. And that’s what summer reading is all about, if you ask me: sugary beach reads. Yum.
So please, read something delicious, something you just want to devour. I think we all deserve a little indulgence this summer, don’t you?

If you want a more personalized list of titles, either for you or your children, just ask. After all, I’m always happy to bookstalk you.

Bookstalking 101: Summer Reading for Kids

Are you ready for summer reading, boys and girls? Moms and dads? Children of all ages? I am. And I’m going to tell you what to read this summer, because I’m pushy like that. And also because I care.

First of all, let’s start with the kids. The school summer reading lists are coming out, marking my favorite time of year. There’s nothing I like better than a slightly clueless 12 year old roaming a bookstore with his or her mom or dad in tow. Why is this? Because I love books. And I love giving advice. Combine the two, and you’ve got my favorite pastime: giving people advice about what to read.

I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I actually stalk families at Borders.

“Don’t say that you stalk them,” Brett told me while reading a draft of this article. “That’s kinda creepy.”

“But that’s what I do! Like, in a friendly, helpful kind of way. I’m a bookstalker.”

“Yeah. See, that’s creepy. Call it something else. Like Booktalker.”

“I don’t like that. It sounds too much like horse whisperer.”

So, what I mean is that, occasionally, I “follow” families around the aisles in the back of the store and listen in just to get a sense of whether or not my services are needed. And if so, I pounce.

Imagine me hiding behind a copy of the latest Secrets of My Hollywood Life by Jen Calonita (a must read if you are a 10-14 year old girl, btw. So good!). I am pretending to be absorbed with the text, like Clark Kent with his newspaper, on the verge of fighting crime as Superman. Only I’m a female, and I don’t wear glasses. Plus, I would look weird in all that spandex. But you get the idea.

“I think this one seems good,” a mom might say to her son, clearly exasperated after ten minutes of failed attempts with different titles. “Get this one.”

The child crinkles his nose at it, as if the book smells like moldy cheese. He’s not convinced that this is what he wants to read during rest hour at camp.
Besides which, “this one” is a 400 page monster of a classic with words printed so closely together that even I might fall asleep by page 7. This boy must be saved! It’s time for the Bookstalker.

“Hi, there,” I’ll begin, putting on my most friendly, wide-eyed facial expression. “I know a lot about these books. Maybe I can help. Tell me what you like to read.” It’s usually as easy as that.

The mom smiles and relaxes as she hands me the school’s summer reading list. The child is so stunned that he drops the tome that he was holding onto my toes. But that’s the price you pay as a bookstalker. Sometimes, matching kids with appropriate texts can hurt just a little bit.

Now, I must admit that I am pretty well-read in the YA genre (young adult, natch), having spent over a decade as a middle school English teacher. And although I am no longer teaching middle school, I do meet regularly with a bunch of enthusiastic (and by that, I mean loud) 13-year old girls for a monthly book group. We eat home-baked goods while throwing jellybeans at each other, and I try to get them to talk about the book. It’s fun. Really.

And when I’m not reading YA lit with them, I’m reading it with my grad students. As professor to these 25 teachers and teachers-to-be, I lead discussions each week about new, noteworthy and classic titles in the genre. The adults don’t throw jellybeans like the kids do, surprising as that may be. But they do have just as strong opinions about the Twilight series.

If you are a middle schooler, or a parent of such a creature, listen up, because I’m only gonna say it once.

Obviously, read the entire Lightning Thief series. The fifth and final installment just came out on May 5th, and the movie version of the first book will be released next year. The author, Rick Riordan, spoke at the Scarsdale Middle School in March, so he’s become a bit of an institution already around here. It’s what we in the business of bookstalking call a “no-brainer.” If you like those, read Kiki Strike or The Mysterious Benedict Society. Read Susan Beth Pheffer’s Life as We Knew It because my teen book group loved it. If you are interested in questions about life and death, read Elsewhere and Heaven Looks a lot Like the Mall (both of which I would call Lovely Bones lite). Read Diary of a Wimpy Kid for laughs and The Graveyard Book if you want to get spooked.

If you are a girl going into 8th grade, read Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdoch, and when you finish it, read the sequel. Read anything and everything by Sonya Sones. Read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. (Not my book group girls – please, read it with me in September! Wait! Don’t cheat! I’m serious! And don’t throw that at me!) Read Wintergirls or Thirteen Reasons Why if you like to get depressed, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. And if you are an older boy (8th -9th grade and up), read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because Sherman Alexie rocks, or Cory Doctorow’s Litle Brother (a sort of play-on-words of Orwell’s Big one).

And, yes, I know I sound ridiculous saying “rocks” about an author.

If you want to read along with me this summer, I am going to read The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. It’s destined to be the next runaway hit for teens. I can’t wait to put on the sunscreen, lie on a beach chair, and dig in to this futuristic, dystopian tale.

Don’t worry, grown-ups. It’s your turn next week.