What to Read While Poolside
The end of summer is nigh. Here are eleven(!) books I read recently that kept my brain from succumbing to the heat, both in and out of the pool.
Good morning. This newsletter is brought to you by the misugaru latte (nutty! toasty! not too sweet!) from recently-opened cool girl HQ DAE New York, and the peach slushie (a true taste of summer nectar!) from North Fork standby Briermere Farms. A good missive is made great with the right beverage.
I blinked lazily a few too many times between collecting seashells and snuggling in the shade, because August is already drawing to a close and I’ve hardly had enough ice cream. I’ve dealt with the city’s perpetual mugginess by gazing wistfully at bodies of water, hoping to be subsumed, and complaining about my Con Ed bill over lingering lunches. I was able to sneak out of town and get into some water as well, but you know I bring a book wherever I go.
Standout Summer Reading
I like to perch myself in the shallow end of the pool, half-submerged in water but with a towel nearby to keep my hands dry for page-turning and snacking. This is the posture in which I read most of Body Work by Melissa Febos, an essay collection that blends memoir with writing advice in service of illustrating the power of a personal narrative when "writing intimately" about relationships, sex, and the self. My favorite essay, “In Praise of Navel Gazing,” argues for writers to embrace the importance of personal narrative “rather than believing the narrative that stories of trauma are dull or overdone or whiney or gauche,” as so many sexist and classist biases tend to make us believe. The whole collection is similarly affirming in its mission to equip writers with the tools to write with unsparing honesty about their lives and relationships. Reading it in the pool, where I could sink underwater for brief moments of silence save my own thoughts, added to its poignance.
The Guest by Emma Cline, meanwhile, is especially fun to read in a pool that is not your own. When Alex gets unceremoniously dumped by her rich and much older boyfriend while visiting his Hamptons vacation home, she drifts between house parties, beach clubs, and pools to avoid going back to the city before his end-of-summer soiree. She is confident she can win him back at the party, and does whatever it takes to stay nearby in order to restore her foothold in his well-heeled world. This is one of those books that just about everyone seems to be reading this summer—particularly while in the Hamptons—and I jumped on the bandwagon over a particularly sunny beach weekend out East with Mel. I tore through Alex’s increasingly unhinged escapades and watched her push the envelope of every social interaction with horror and fascination. (Grifting is fundamentally stressful, and I am weak of heart.) Cline’s depiction of power dynamics between the ultra-rich and everyone else are what make this book fascinating, though the plot is quite thin otherwise. I read The Guest while floating in the water and reapplying coconut-scented sunscreen, which is to say I probably enjoyed the act of reading it more than the book itself.
Once firmly back among the glass and concrete of the city, I read Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield and raced through my second five-star book of the year. The premise is simple: a woman embarks on a routine underwater research trip and comes back from the trip ~different~ while her wife tries to clean up the mess. What makes it worth reading is the glorious prose, the specificty of its body horror that made my teeth hurt, and the unexpected tenderness undergirding the core relationship. It is lovely and horrifying and weird, if a little predictable. It asks a lot of questions and does not tie up loose ends, which is fine by me because the sea is dark and full of terrors. It is best to read firmly planted on land, because it will not make you want to look too closely at the watery depths. (Though if you do find yourself curious,
put together a fascinating deep dive.)Other Reading Thoughts
Below are some abbreviated thoughts on other recent reads. Because I am a benevolent ruler, I have kindly separated my thoughts into fantasy and non-fantasy camps despite my ambivalence toward genre distinctions. Many of them share the common thread of being audiobooks, which I have found is a supremely simple solution for redirecting my thoughts from the abysmal heat while out in this brutal world.
The Fantasy
The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner (audiobooks 1-7 via Libby). If you’re looking for adventure books with intricate court politics, well-developed and lovable characters, heists within heists, a unique pantheon and corresponding myths, twists that feel earned, and a good sense of humor, then feel free to join The Queen’s Thief fandom with me. The series is set in a reimagined ancient world following a young trickster’s bildungsroman; while the first book was written in 1996 as a middle-grade standalone, Turner (thankfully) realized she could unspool several more books and the last one came out in 2022. Each has a full plot and conclusion rather than a lot of cliffhanging riffraff, which I would imagine made this 25-year journey bearable for those reading in real-time (for me, it meant an unusually manageable time waiting for each installment from the library). My Turner love is strong—she has an extremely active Tumblr and a list of favorite old books that makes me very happy—and the audiobook reader, Steve West, is wonderful as well. 👑
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (audiobook via Libby). This was goofy as hell, but to expect anything else from a BookTok sensation would be just as goofy. Fourth Wing is a fun combination of early-aughts franchise successes without the weird purity politics, and for that it deserves some recognition. But the tonal shift of the late-game romance threw off a lot of the pacing, and the stakes felt artificially high at just about every turn. Did I still stay up until 3:30am on a school night reading it? Yes. Like a box of sticky candies, this book is bad for me and still stuck between my teeth. 🐉
Book of Night by Holly Black (audiobook via Libby). Though I will always consider Black’s Folk of the Air series the top dog, I solidly enjoyed Book Of Night’s shadow magic system, main mystery, and the pining romance. Its contemporary voice bothered me a bit—particularly the sheer amount of specific brands mentioned throughout— and I didn’t love the flashback sequences, though I’m glad they threaded together by the end. 🌙
The Non-Fantasy
Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby (audiobook via Libby). While I've enjoyed all of Irby's comedic essay collections, this most recent batch fell a little flatter than usual for me. My favorite essays are perhaps the most serious ones: one about Irby's experience going into anaphylactic shock in response to probiotic supplements, and one about the immediate aftermath of her mother's death. 🦨
Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford (audiobook via Libby). This is a heartbreaking and brutally honest memoir chronicling Ford's abusive childhood and journey to adulthood, which remarkably "embrace[s] the intertwining of grace and pain, even and especially when we can’t understand it." ❤️
Happy Place by Emily Henry (ebook). While I am not typically a fan of second chance romances, I did grudgingly enjoy reading how the anxious, people-pleasing protagonist made her way back to her gentle college sweetheart against a backdrop of beautiful, beachy Maine. By no means did I enjoy this as much as Henry’s Book Lovers, which had a better development of peripheral characters and sexual tension, but I was compelled to finish it and significantly preferred it over People We Meet on Vacation. 🏖️
Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans (paperback). Buy this for the ornery old man in your life, who will best appreciate Bemelmans' witticisms about the kooky characters and escapades of working in one of New York's finest hotels during its prime (a fictionalized Ritz Carlton in the 1920s and 30s, reflecting Bemelmans' time working there) and its corresponding racial politics. Then make your way to the Upper East Side for a martini at Bemelman's Bar, which is the only place to see the Madeleine author's murals on public display, and enjoy a slice of old New York on your own terms. Read this yourself if you'd get a kick out of a dirtier Downton Abbey season set in New York, or would like to embrace your inner oldster. 🍸
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (audiobook via Libby). I have almost no recollection of this book just a month after reading it, which is not exactly the sign of impactful literature. Heti's sentences are sumptuous and lovely, but I didn't connect as much with the book's structure of digressions and its religious explorations. If any Heti-heads want to explain the deranged ending of this one, my dms are open. 🌳
Stay hydrated until I see you next time!
Thank you for your benevolence. 🙇🏻♂️
1. superior pool-reading position !!! 2. I am crying tears of joy/relief that you liked our wives under the sea