More from Sloane (+ Sarah)

Attention!  I have two more books to add to your summer reading list…

Sloane Crosley (pictured below) is one of my favorite young authors/ girl crush.  I just adore her.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Sloane wrote a book I’m obsessed with: I Was Told There’d Be Cake.  If you haven’t read this book, you absolutely must!  She’s hysterical – in a very David Sedaris-manner.  It’s a excellent poolside book, too, because the essays are incredibly engaging and easy to get through so you can read-dip in the water-read-talk on the phone-read-dip again-read-check out lifeguards-read-drink a cocktail-read-FINISH w/o feeling like you are having trouble keeping track of what you’re reading.

If you’ve already read I Was Told and you are looking for some more of Sloane’s brilliance, you are IN LUCK b/c she’s recently released her new book, How Did You Get This Number.  I can’t wait to read it!  (Thanks for the heads up, Mindy, and many, many congrats on graduating from law school last week!  xx)

Here’s the Q+DD on How Did You Get This Number:

Nine thoughtful, unfussy essays by the author of the collection I Was Told There’d Be Cake navigate around illusions of youth in the hope that by young adulthood they’ll all add up to happiness.  The account of Crosley’s footloose adventure to Lisbon on the eve of her 30th birthday starts things off in rollicking fashion in Show Me on the Doll: without proficient language skills, getting hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of Bairro Alto, and panicking in front of the myriad QVC channels offered by her hotel, Crosley recognizes that Lisbon was a place with a painfully disproportionate self-reflection-to-experience ratio.  There is the requisite essay about moving to New York and replacing her anorexic-kleptomaniac roommate with a more acceptable living arrangement: in Crosley’s case, delineated in Take a Stab at It, she is interviewed by the creepily disembodied current occupier of a famous former brothel on the Bowery, McGurk’s Suicide Hall.  As well, Crosley delivers witty, syncopated takes on visiting Alaska and Paris, and finding much consolation from a two-timing heartbreak in New York by buying stolen items from her upholstery guy, Daryl, who found them fallen Off the Back of a Truck, as the delightful last selection is titled.  These essays are fresh, funny, and eager to be loved.  (Publisher’s Weekly)

If Sloane isn’t quite your cup of tea - I have something else for you from another one of my favorite Jewish funny ladies…Ms. Sarah Silverman, herself.

Caveat: I haven’t read it yet, but Amy told me that she absolutely cannot put it down.  Amy is brilliant.  She knows everything.  Trust Amy.

Here’s the Q+DD on The Bedwetter:

Demonstrating that her penchant for swearing began at an early age, comedian Silverman begins her hilarious memoir by describing how, at age three, she gleefully responded to her grandmother’s offer of brownies with shove ‘em up your tush.  Growing up in New Hampshire (where cows are well done and Jews are rare), Silverman naturally gravitated toward performing and moved to New York, where she attended and eventually dropped out of New York University to pursue a standup comedy career.  Mixing show business moments (she wrote for Saturday Night Live for one season, but none of her sketches made it past dress rehearsal) with stories of her childhood and adolescence (punctuated by a persistent bedwetting problem), Silverman never shies away from poking fun at her own expense.  Though she’s best known for sexually explicit jokes, Silverman is able to address more serious subjects in the book without losing her edge, particularly her teenage struggle with depression and that her often abrasive public persona allowed her to say what she didn’t mean, even preach the opposite of what she believed…. It was a funny way of being sincere.  (Publisher’s Weekly)

I can safely say that neither of these books will likely be nominated for a Pulitzer anytime soon, but they will certainly make you think, giggle + they are perfect for the beach/ pool. 

Enjoy! 

xx, L