How Does Your Member Manager Relax?
Member Manager Elliott batTzedek's Secret to a Happy Summer
So I've never been a big traveler, in part because what I need as a break is to be quiet and calm, not harried and crowded!
So here's how I get away every summer - one day each week I drive WAY out into the wilds of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, to a lake with a sand parking lot, no beach, no infrastructure, no life guards, and NO tourists, just locals. Once there I pull out the best floaty chairs ever, insert my water-proof earbuds, put my back-up cell phone in a water-proof bag, put on SO MUCH 70 SPF sunscreen, and paddle myself out to the middle of lake where I just happily float around for hours listening to audiobooks.
And I mean hours - a typical day:
- 1.5 to 2 hours driving over, including a stop at my favorite Wawa, store #951, for an Italian hoagie
- 3 hours floating around
- Back to shore for half my Wawa hoagie and maybe some chips plus the wild blueberries you can pick in the woods
- Back to the water for another 3-4 hours
- 1.5 to 2 hours in the car driving home
Sometimes friends come along and we have the kind of deep conversations you can only have when you step outside of the busy world, but I'm also completely satisfied to be out on the water with stories. I had completely disabling asthma as a kid, so stories have always been both my great comfort and my escape.
If you ever want a massive Pine Barrens information dump, just ask me! It's a unique-in-all-the-world ecosystem. I've been kayaking the rivers there since 2005, and going to Lake Oswego once a week for 4 summers now. The waters are all tea-colored as they are full of tannins from the cedar trees. And they are remarkably clean, as they bubble from the vast underground aquifer that defines the region. Because the water is slightly acidic from the pines there are NO MOSQUITOES. (yes, it really is a paradise). There are so many turtles, and a lot of bird life - the lake has a resident great blue heron, swallows, kingfishers, and this year a bald eagle flew over at about 12 feet above my head.
Scroll down past the book list for a few images!
Going into Lake Day Season this year I decided to ignore my huge TBR/TBLT piles and try to relax a bit. I chose books set in the water or on the water, or with water creatures or water cryptids, and just bounced from title to title, listening both ways on the drive and all the long, lovely hours on the lake. Here's my summer listening list, in order, with some short notes on each:
The Sirens by Emilia Hart - Selkies and sisters taking revenge on violent men across centuries. Luscious prose.
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk – you have read this or you haven’t, there is no in-between. Erin Kelly told me to read it, with a wild gleam in her eyes. She is always right. She is Erin Kelly.
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield – a woman’s wife goes missing under the sea, returns changed in a way the involves eyes popping out, a theme that will return later in my summer
Homebound by Portia Elan – I knew nothing about this going in, and it rattled me and make me cry several times and it changed me. I am not the person I was before.
You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom by Vincent Tirado – Locked-room family horror with a demon out of Dominican folklore
The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton by Jennifer N. Brown – historians, prophets, religious war, unexpected number of murders
The Fountain by Casey Scieszka - somehow my third read this year about characters who are immortal, tired of it, and trying to find a way to die.
Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw - for fans of Brigadoon and survival stories
At Sea by Y.M. Abdel-Magied – really wanted to love this for the unique voice of the main character, but it ended too suddenly and with too much unresolved
A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young, translated by Sophie Bowman - Tsunami awakens an ancient life-form in this second body-horror novel of the summer where humans transform into water-creatures by swelling and having their eyes pop out. Guess I'm a horror reader now.
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg – I read this when it first came out in 2000, and revisiting the characters was an unexpected delight.
Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan – didn’t I just read this same plot in a Horowitz novel?
The Salt King by Natasha Pulley - ancient magic resurfaces, a struggle to be seen and known, perfect blend of folk-lore and horror
She Made Herself a Monster by Anna Kovatcheva - not nearly enough rage or monsters for my taste
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt by Ben Reeves - I love this book, but then again I really loved "The Book Thief" and Death as a main character apparently speaks to my heart.
Jenny Will Eat You Now by Gillian Daniels - Grendel-like cryptid under Boston, took a turn into a much richer and more beautiful story than I expected up front. Body-horror, humor, and more mother/daughter trauma.
Is a River Alive by Robert Macfarlane - the only nonfiction book of my summer, so entrancing that I missed two exits and had to drive 20 extra miles but didn't even mind
Crocodilopolis by John Manuel Arias - crocodiles, Nazis, multi-generations, brother-trauma, perfect listening for the day I watched an entire solar eclipse while floating around
Unprecedented Times by Malavika Kannan - Covid-shutdown trauma, is life still this hard for young lesbians at top-tier colleges?
The Second Life of Snap by Erin Entrada Kelly – Is societal-breakdown dystopia less disturbing in a middle grade novel? Not really.
Siren Says by Jennifer Herrera - plant magic, mother/daughter trauma bonding, the word "ensorcelled" used frequently much to my delight, causing me repeatedly cackle aloud on the lake
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson - smart & snarky = the new sexy
Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf - dystopian fame, escape, humor-noir
Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult - closed out the summer as we were hosting her on 09/17
And, finally, saying goodbye for the season to this place that pulses in my heart