Five Things to Tell You Vol. 33
a perfect book pairing, Madeline Island, Brad Pitt, and more!
Well, hello there! So happy to see you today!
It’s been a full and satisfying week at home, and it has been nice to settle into a bit of routine again. I have been catching up on all the workish stuff that needed doing, while still making sure life felt overall summerish ~ longer morning walks, bringing my work outside, and fitting tasks in around the youngest’s social outings.
Oh, and I’M SO PROUD OF ME!! I finally kept an appointment for a fasting blood test yesterday (first time in over a decade), AND got my annual mammogram. Yay for taking care of myself! I detest fasting blood tests because I feel horrible when I don’t eat right away in the morning, and since the earliest lab appointments are at 7 a.m., that means either getting up and walking at my normal time and feeling horrendous, or having to skip the walk and wake up right before the 30 minute drive to the clinic. I opted for the latter this time, and then treated myself to a breakfast out before the mammogram. This was a really big deal for me - YAY.
And now, please just settle in with your favorite snack and let’s dive in …
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My first book recommendations today are two that I read a little bit ago, but I had to save them to share together. These two books are an absolute perfect pairing of stories about older men unexpectedly tasked with caring for children, with delightfully and sometimes shockingly satisfying results.
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett is quirky and heartwarming and funny and the audio was so wonderful. My heart grew two sizes listening to PJ try to become the person he needed to be to parent the children who landed on his doorstep, and while Hartnett doesn’t shy away from tough stuff, there is so much love here that the tough stuff is more than bearable. Don’t miss the Book Gang podcast episode featuring Annie Hartnett discussing this book!
So Far Gone by Jess Walters sucked me right in and kept me enthralled, so much so that I inhaled it in half a day. This story won’t be for everyone (there is … a LOT of violence), but it IS for anyone who is filled with rage and despondence over the state of politics today and the encroachment of Christian nationalism in our culture, and who needs a hearty dose of humanity mixed in with a bit of vengeance.
I don’t feel like I described So Far Gone well enough, but please know that I threw my library copy at my husband right away and told him to READ IT NOW, and also recommended it to a publisher representative at ALA when we were both gushing over Money Lies and God by Katherine Stewart. Maybe this is the lighter, fictional companion to that depressing, but required nonfiction read??
I recommended both of these to my sister with the caution that the former is much lighter than the latter, although I did laugh at the second one as well.
When I was up North at the beginning of the month, a group of us headed even MORE north to one of my favorite places on earth: Madeline Island, a tiny island out in Lake Superior off the shore of Bayfield, WI.
Please appreciate this map I annotated for you with arrows showing where I live(ish), where my hometown is (ish) and where Madeline Island is, to demonstrate how NORTH we were.
If you weren’t reading this newsletter back in 2023, you missed my camping trip there and my accompanying love letters to the place, but don’t worry: you can read about it in my newly-condensed account of the trip.
This time around on our day trip, we …
hit the Bayfield branch of my favorite Wisconsin coffee shop / brand
visited my favorite northern Wisconsin bookstore + another new-to-me delightful bookstore
thoroughly enjoyed the ferry ride to and from the island as usual, and even go to STEER THE FERRY on the way back home! Five of the family members in the group (including me) got the opportunity ~ so cool.
spent an entire wonderful afternoon on the beach at Big Bay State Park on the island. The majority of us got intensely sunburned and didn’t realize it until we got home that evening. Whoops, but worth it.
And finally, found a new favorite dinner place at Hoop’s Dockside in Bayfield, where there are exactly two things on the menu: 1) fish and 2) fries. Both are stellar. I also scored some superb patriotic Hoop’s Fish tees for me and my girls to wear for the parade on the 4th. That’s us up above, wearing our new shirts immediately after purchasing them and artfully pondering the state of the nation as we gaze at the flag.
In between the last two trips, I prioritized going to the theater to see F1 and DAMN, did we love it. When I first saw the promotional materials for this movie, I literally thought it was just titled Brad Pitt: The Movie due to the stylized F1, and was like, “yup, that works and yes, I’ll watch it”.
Please do read this New York Times piece (gift link) about the movie that makes this point:
… the surprise of “F1” is that it’s a rare contemporary movie that knows how to use a movie star, and Mr. Pitt is one of the rare contemporary movie stars who know how to be used. He’s content to bathe in the camera’s rapturous gaze, understanding just how much to give and never overdoing it, exuding confidence as both character and performer. He smiles but rarely grins, mostly keeping his lovely teeth to himself, always just a little bit wary.
Thank you for your many years of service to my generation of moviegoers, Mr. Pitt.
My sister-in-law is the latest to get to hear my in-person ranty ponderings about how the online world has JUST discovered perimenopause in the past year despite it being a THING for all of time, and that I’m frustrated with the marketing / commercialism and novelty around something not. new. I also made her read All Fours just so she could say she had, and so that she’d know some of last year’s online discourse.
In perfect timing, Anna Maltby just reminded us that we don’t need to buy a weighted vest for walking, despite the incessant (incorrect) messaging around them being connected to increased bone density in perimenopause. Thank you, Anna! Please read Anna’s piece for the research and details.
And finally for today, an absolute TRIP of a book that I devoured via audio on my drive across the state last Saturday night.
Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza is the rare thriller that I just loved ~ it’s relatable, smart, juicy and fantastic on audio due to the full cast voicing the multiple viewpoints. I read part of an early draft of this novel when Jo was publishing it as a serial story on her Substack, and am so glad it made it to the wider world via traditional publishing.
We know the commentary about the world of mommy influencers is deeply researched, given Jo’s journalism work in this area, and Jo’s experiences in motherhood shone through in Lizzie’s perspective. And ... ahem. We all know which momfluencer Bex is modeled after, right??? This is one of my favorite books of the season so far!
That’s all for this week ~ thanks for reading! Please feel free to reply to this email or use the link below to leave a comment to chime in about any of these things, or to share one of your own things ♡
Thanks for stopping by!
