Summer reading + an announcement!

Books Books Books

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

Hello friends! Summer is just around the corner, so this month I am sharing with you ten books for your summer reading pleasure.

But before the big list reveal, I have an exciting announcement about a project near and dear to my heart!

✨ Book News ✨

Today I am excited to share that I will be publishing two new books: The Life Audit and The Life Audit Journal, each complete with illustrations and exercises and self-reflection prompts. These books stem from a piece I published several years ago on Medium, How and Why to Do a Life Audit, which you may have heard me talk about in the past. The Life Audit is a practice designed to help you uncover latent needs, values, and dreams and organize your life in service of them. I initially created it when I was feeling overwhelmed with ideas and unsure about which paths to pursue, and it has since helped me and many other readers find clarity. The Life Audit has in more ways than one led me to the creative work I do today as an author and illustrator. As readers of this newsletter know, I return to the practice every January. The book version will include an updated version of the Life Audit you know and love, plus loads of new, never-before-seen material. I can't wait to share it with you.

If you've conducted a Life Audit in the past, I’d love to hear how it went in this brief questionnaire. Your stories and feedback will make the Life Audit even better. You can also sign up to test new exercises and prompts for The Life Audit and give feedback on what’s working and what’s not. And of course, watch this space for more updates as this project gets underway.

📚Summer reading recs 📚

Here are five books I loved this year that are worth taking with you on whatever beach, lake, staycation, or urban adventure you have planned this summer. Even if you don’t have big vacation plans, you’ll be in for a treat.

1. Big Swiss, Jen Beagin (fiction): When your main character is a transcriptionist for a sex coach named Om, you know you’re going to get something juicy.

2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin (fiction): A story of friendship and creativity and growing up that is perfectly precise in its sense of time and place and world. I fell in love with the characters and the premise right away. 

3. The Invisible Kingdom, Meghan O’Rourke (nonfiction): An exploration of chronic illness from a poet and journalist on a personal quest to find a diagnosis to what ails her. The perfect blend of personal narrative, research, and big picture analysis.

4. How it Feels to Find Yourself, Meera Lee Patel (nonfiction, illustrated): A thoughtful meditation on getting to know oneself, filled with Patel’s signature illustrations and self-reflection prompts.

5. A Woman is no Man, Etaf Rum (fiction): A multigenerational story of immigrant families and first generation Americans and coming of age amidst family secrets and trauma.

And here are five books I’m excited to read this summer:

1. Allergic, Theresa MacPhail (nonfiction): When the author’s father is fatally stung by a bee, she sets off to understand the weird world of allergies, and why so many of us are more allergic than before.

2. Saving Time, Jenny Odell (nonfiction): A sort of sequel to Odell’s conversation-starting, genre-bending bestseller, How to do Nothing, about our relationship to time.

3. Age of Vice, Deepti Kapoor (fiction): Set in India and part thriller, part family saga, with a plot propelled by greed, pleasure, and revenge, this novel has gotten rave reviews since it debuted in January.

4. Yellowface, R.F. Kuang (fiction): A stolen manuscript, a pen name, a budding writer, and an exploration of one of the most pressing questions in the publishing industry today: who gets to tell which stories?

5. Invisible Things, Andy J. Pizza and Sophie Miller (children’s): This husband and wife duo wrote and illustrated a quirky, colorful children’s book about feelings, emotions, and other “invisible” things.

What books are you excited for this summer? Drop your recs in the comments!

• 🎤 I am gearing up for more public speaking this fall in support of my book launch and would love to connect with subscribers! If you’d like me to book me for a speaking event, panel discussion, or book signing, reach out.

• 📗 It’s pre-order season for my forthcoming book, Rest Easy! If you already know you’d like a copy of the book, please do pre-order. Your pre-order will help get the word out that a restful life is worth prioritizing. If books are not in your budget this year but you’d still like to support the launch, you can request that your local library purchase a copy. Thank you for your support.

💜 Thanks as always for reading along and supporting my work. If you like what you see, hit the heart button, drop a comment, or share this with someone you think will love it, too. 💜