Yes, There Will Be Personal Pan Pizzas & All Your Other Summer Book Club FAQs
Yes, a personal pan pizza for the MOFITA book clubber who reads the most books. Will it be YOU??
As devoted listeners will know, we’re taking July and August (mostly) off from podcasting to do mom stuff like drive our kids to various camps, pack and unpack and re-pack swim bags, track down that one sunscreen that the kids might actually wear, and maybe, just maybe read. Oh summer reading. Is it more likely that our summer reading will happen not on a beach by twinkling waves but rather in the precious stolen moments after bedtime and before we pass out? Sure. And yet, we aspire to use this season to tackle our to-read piles. And as a favor to you, who possibly have even less time to read than we do because reading a lot is (fortunately) part of our jobs, we’re going to write you little book reports as we read! That way, you can get your brain full of fascinating ideas without having to actually read entire books yourself (unless you want to). Miranda and Sarah’s aspirational summer reading lists are below, so that you can get a sense of what our book reports might touch on, and so you can read along if you want to. But! We reserve the right to veer off course and ask that you’ll just trust us to read some juicy stuff. Moth follows flame. Here come the FAQs, and our reading lists, too.
Wait! So how do I participate in the Mother Of It All summer book club?
Just by being here, you’re in the club! But if you’re in it for prizes, you’ll need to track your reading in June, July and August somehow. And we hope everyone will engage in chit chat about what you’re reading, whether you’re trying to win prizes or not. You can share your own reading lists in the comments, or even join us and write little reflective reports about what you’ve read! We just might share one or two of them here or on the pod (with permission, of course). We love th “How to Make a Zine” one pager pictured below (originally created by Christie George, Rebekah Otto, and Julie Tinker for Clio’s Bookstore in Oakland, CA) that lets you turn a single sheet of paper into a fun little book report. We’ve linked to a downloadable PDF below, if you want to print it out or save it or something like that.
I’m in it to win it. What’s the prize? IS IT PIZZA?
If you’re looking for a little project, make a book report of any kind (one of these zines, a short review, a drawing you made in response to the book, a collage perhaps) and then send it to us! You can email it to us, DM or tag us on Instagram, or share it here on Substack and tag us so we can see it. If you do this, you will be rewarded! The reader with the most books read will win a paid subscription to Mother Of It All for you or a friend, and a 🚨PERSONAL PAN PIZZA🚨 . Tracking is based on the honor system, OK folks? We’re trusting you.
Miranda’s Summer Reading Dreams
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Enchantment by Katherine May
It’s Not Fair by
Eloise Rickman
Body Work by Melissa Febos
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya
All Fours by Miranda July
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Attachments by Lucas Mann
Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Real Americans by Rachel Khong
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Matricentric Feminism by Andrea O’Reilly
Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark
Finish Ducks, Newburyport (which I have been reading off and on for about a year now). Or, possibly, I will continue to not finish it.
Sarah’s Summer Reading List
The Liars Club by Mary Karr
Building the WNBA: From "Dunking Divas" to Political Leaders by Georgia Munro-Cook
Real Americans by Rachel Khong
Womb City Tlotlo Tsamaase
There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Book of Mothers by Carrie Mullins
Here After by Amy Lin
Wolfish by Erica Berry
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Another Word for Love by Carvell Wallace
Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley
What Can a Body Do? by Sarah Hendren
The Still Point of the Turning World, Emily Rapp
Touch the Future by John Lee Clark
Times Mouth by Edan Lepucki
We’ll also be hosting a little end-of-summer show-and-tell on Zoom where we can share about our summer reading in small groups, show off reports, and celebrate a summer of reading! More on that later.
Are you excited about any of these in particular??? Do you have more suggestions?
I think I need to call myself out and say that an extremely off-brand biography of Jimmy Buffet is also on my to-read pile. The weather has turned summery and it's calling to me. Brace yourselves!
Body Work. I read, I reread. And cycle repeats.