OMG- So many great books, so little time to read them! We are LOVING what we've been reading lately, many from fabulous debut authors that we have a feeling will steal your heart with their fabulous novels.
Today we have Laurie Frankel and her debut novel Atlas of Love. And even though she's totally wearing our Lit IT girl crown, she's sharing her bucket list with us today-we couldn't be happier about it! (And we hope she figures out that whole teleportation thing-that could come in handy!)
When Jill becomes both pregnant and single at the end of one spring semester, she and her two closest friends plunge into an experiment in tri-parenting, tri-schooling, and trihabitating as grad students in Seattle. Naturally, everything goes wrong, but in ways no one sees coming. Janey Duncan narrates the adventure of this modern family with hilarity and wisdom and shows how three lives are forever changed by (un)cooperative parenting, literature, and a tiny baby named Atlas who upends and uplifts their entire world. In this sparkling and wise debut novel, Frankel’s unforgettable heroines prove that home is simply where the love is.
We think that reading Atlas of Love would be a lovely way to spend your afternoon. Log off Facebook and log into Frankel's sparkling debut! And we have FIVE copies to give away! Just leave a comment and we'll choose the winners on Friday night after 6pm PST.
CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS: WHAT'S ON LAURIE FRANKEL'S BUCKET LIST?
This is the first “bucket list” I’ve ever made. The term strikes me as a funny one -- I guess it’s about “kicking the bucket” (itself kind of a strange phrase) but it reminds me more of a hope chest, a repository for important things you want to carry, hold near, and maybe tote to the beach with you. It’s also a funny thing for me to do right now. In my 70s, I imagine the list will be wild adventures and final physical feats: skydiving or going walkabout or biking through France or something. In contrast, I could go skydiving this weekend. I mean I’d need to get babysitting. But that’s really my only barrier. That and I don’t really want to go skydiving. I don’t especially like to fly. It’d probably be really cold too.
My mid-30s bucket list then -- things I sincerely hope I’ll do soon enough, possibilities I want to keep with me and tote along to the beach -- isn’t especially glamorous. It’s much more practical than all that. I’ll still need babysitting though.
1. My first plan is to get really rich. Actually, I don’t need to be really rich. Just a little rich. Rich enough to quit my day job. Not that I don’t like my day job. I do. I teach college, and I like it a lot. But it’s interfering with all the other things I need to do. I need to get rich enough for my husband to quit his day job too. You can rearrange your life and make new priorities and plan and organize all you want, but you still need to sleep and shop for groceries and make dinner and walk the dog and pick up the 424 cars all over the living room rug every day, and your two-year-old isn’t going to entertain himself OR prevent his otherwise certain death from climbing up the bookshelves or over the back deck or under the lawnmower or on top of the stove. Something has to go, and the day job seems like just the thing because what I really want to do is...
2. Write another novel. Hopefully several more novels. And a play or two. And see them all win awards and become bestsellers and receive lavish praise and brilliant stagings and get turned into gorgeous films so that I can go to the Oscars with my husband (must get babysitting) in one of those awesome dresses I always covet but never buy because where am I ever going to wear it? It’s not like I live in Paris circa 1925 and might don something like that for a simple evening out. Speaking of which, any minute now I’m going to...
3. Move abroad. I do love London. You could talk me into almost anywhere though. I hear wonderful things about the weather in South Africa, so maybe there. Or Sydney or San Sebastian or somewhere Scandinavian or Costa Rican or Turkey or Malaysia. I’m pretty flexible really. Someplace warm and sunny would be nice. And with a beach so I can bring my bucket. Europe would be especially convenient because they have those super affordable airlines so you can go to Ibiza for the weekend. I’d like to go to Ibiza for the weekend. But I’m going to need some babysitting. The best option for which is to...
4. Live nearer to more of the people I love. I live in Seattle, Washington. My parents live in Columbia, Maryland. My sister lives in Colorado. My cousins live in California. My best friend from high school lives in Virginia. My best friend from grad school lives in South Carolina. This sucks. If everyone I loved lived in the same place, I’d move there. But if I just picked one, I’d be missing only one fewer of those people than I am right now. Plus my friends in Seattle. Hopefully everyone will move abroad with me, but if not, I’d like someone to...
5. Figure out teleportation. What is the holdup on that anyway? Physicists are supercolliding atoms under France and recreating the birth of the universe and developing really strong nanotubes of carbon, and NONE of that is doing me any good at all. Teleportation, on the other hand, would be really useful. That way I could spend the day on the beach in Kauai, have dinner at that great pizza place in Trastavere, and then go see a play afterwards at the Donmar Warehouse in London. And the best part is...free, high-quality babysitting -- plus my mother’s french toast in the morning -- in Columbia, Maryland.
To read more about Laurie, check out her website or head on over to her Facebook page.