You’re Tired of the Heat

Want your next family read or are “Office” obsessed

Hi friends,

Thanks to everyone who joined last week’s summer reading discussion. The books most mentioned were The Postcard by Anne Berest, R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface and This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan (one of my faves of last year!).

The only downside of the discussion is that my TBR is even longer now. Alas.

And, now, what to read if…

You’re Melting

Ice by Amy Brady

As I write this, my phone informs me it’s 96 degrees, and so humid my Tate’s crispy cookies are no longer crunchy. A friend in Texas texted that’s 101, and in Phoenix it’s so hot people are baking cookies on the dashboards of their cars. Even my dog is hiding in the shade.

If you, too, need a break from the heat, grab a copy of Amy Brady’s Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks — A Cool History of a Hot Commodity. In it, Brady, a longtime science journalist, documents the countless ways the 19^th-century commercialization of ice shaped the world. The ice trade and the creation of man-made ice led to ice cream and hockey — as well as the now-ubiquitous 7-11 stores and even Holiday Inns.

A quick preview of facts I learned from Ice:

• The game of curling defies the laws of physics.

• The first modern cocktails were mixed in New Orleans following the city’s introduction to ice.

• Iced tea was first popularized at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, when people were so hot they were willing to try any cold beverage.

It’s fast, fun and fact-filled read — enjoy it with a bowl of ice cream.

Bonus recommendation: Doug Salati’s Hot Dog about a dachshund escaping the steamy city for the beach has become one of my favorite kid’s books.

You’re Looking for Your Next Family Read

Nic Blake and the Remarkables by Angie Thomas*

I realized I hadn’t recommended a family book club read in a while and decided to fix that by highlighting Angie Thomas’s Nic Blake and the Remarkables. It’s the perfect book for grown-up Harry Potter fans and their kids.

Twelve-year-old Nic Blake is a Remarkable — a person with magical powers — living in the human world. Her dad, another Remarkable, teaches her the history of magic, but hasn’t yet shown her how to use her abilities. When Nic sneaks out to see her favorite author at a book signing, she accidentally sets off a chain of events that leads to her dad’s arrest, the discovery of a twin brother she didn’t know existed and a quest to find a mysterious magical tool.

Thomas uses her magical world to bring to life aspects of American history and African-American folklore in a way that appealed to my inner history nerd. What I really loved about Nic Blake and the Remarkables, though, is that it’s clearly in conversation with Harry Potter, a series that defined my childhood. Thomas establishes tropes, such as The Chosen One, and then carefully subverts them. I told my boss (Hi John!) to buy this for his Harry-Potter-obsessed son as soon as I finished it.

You Can Quote Almost any Episode of “The Office”

Please Be Advised by Christine Sneed

Christine Sneed’s Please Be Advised had me laughing out loud — and is one of the books that helped me break out of my reading slump earlier this year.

Written in memos, Please Be Advised documents a year at Quest Industries, the self-declared “front-runner in collapsible office products,” as the already bizarre company grows even stranger. To boost morale, the execs require team members to share memos describing “Stories of Personal Triumph,” which include “All You Can Eat Buffet” and “Scientology Tale.” Disgraced former coroner Ken Crickshaw Jr. serves as the office manager — and company matchmaker. The first couple he sets up sends out a memo describing their date night. The antics of their CEO would make even Michael Scott blush.

As the description implies, this is a quirky book and one I really loved. It’s a hilarious sendup of office culture and business-jargon, and it’s clear Sneed, who writes the newsletter

Bookish

,had a lot of fun writing it. If you’re still adjusting to a post-Covid work world, this is the one for you.

Reminder rec: Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke is another funny office satire — this one written in Slack messages.

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Thanks for reading and stay cool!

*I received a free copy of the Nic Blake and the Remarkables audiobook from Libro.fm in exchange for an honest review.

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