Four books! Four whole books! Can you tell that I was on vacation? I enjoyed reading so much this month. I sat in parks and read, read on planes and trains, and I just had a great time.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I loved this book, and despite everyone whose book recommendations I trust raving about this book, I was skeptical about a book that was based around video games. But this was fantastic. This book is so smart, so academic. It really reflects that fact that we meet the main characters at Harvard and MIT. They are so, so intelligent, and the book is in their brains, so of course it is too.

This book is also so topical and so heartbreaking. It’s perfect.

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci. This book was so enjoyable, I love Stanley Tucci, so it was easy for me to love this book. I had no clue that Stanley had had a previous wife who died from cancer, or that he had cancer. It made his relationship with food so much more compelling than just this Italian-American boy who grew up eating Italian-American food with this Nonna and his mom making great food all the time. There is something about having to teach yourself how to eat again that it is so much more powerful than “I just love food.” because we all love food.

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner. This is one of the books I bought at McNally Jackson in New York. I was a little bit nervous to re-board the Jennifer Weiner train after That Summer, but I loved Big Summer so much that I was willing to chance it. And I really like this book. There are so many secrets, so many storylines, but at the end of the day it is about a family, and how the decisions we make can split us apart or bring us together.

Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler. To be honest, I bought this book because it was written by the sister of an internet friend and I was prepared to be bored stiff (and it is the other book that I bought at McNally Jackson). This is SO GOOD. It is expertly researched, the way the author weaves the story of her conducting the research and the actual question about if William Shakespeare was capable of writing what he is credited with writing and if not him, who? I did not expect to like this at all, but I loved it.

I hope to keep this up, it was really nice to read this much.

Laura