A LOT with Audra

Ep21
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Hey, thanks for being here today. This is a lot with Audra, and today we are going to talk all about summer reading. If you are listening to this on the day it comes out, it is Memorial Day, and I don't know about you, but my reading really picks up in the summer. Reading is something I've always loved to do and I find that on my social media channels.

Reading is the thing that many women want to talk about. What books are you reading? What have you read that you love? [00:01:00] Recommendations. And so that's what we're gonna do today on this short and fun episode. In real time i'm recording this one week before my kids are outta school, so it is just mayhem over here and I am really looking forward to relaxing into summer as much as possible and reading.

Okay, so every year I've always tried to read about 24 books and historically I just do not hit this number and I've made it a goal before and it just year after year has never happened. Like I said, I love reading. I've always loved reading. I took a break from reading in college because I was reading so much textbook stuff, that reading.

Became not fun anymore, but as I've been a working professional and a mom, I mean, gosh, reading is just the best. My two little guys now can both read and they love to read, and in [00:02:00] fact, we're reading Harry Potter together, the three of us. And so that's just a sweet little thing that we do. But this year I decided to not make a reading goal of 24 books a year.

And it was one of the best things I could have ever done because you know how sometimes when you love something but you then tie it to metrics or make some hard and fast structure around it. Maybe it's just me, but that just does not work for me. So this year I decided to adopt Gretchen Rubin's 25 minutes of reading a day in 2025 Challenge.

And while I will say I have held this very loosely, I have no clue how much time I read every day, but I've just made it my lifestyle habit. Rhythm, I guess is the best word to pick up a book and always be reading, and I will tell you it has worked best when I have chosen [00:03:00] to stick with one like development or business or parenting book a month and allowed myself to read two or more fiction books.

Fiction books, I think are just such a gift for us as adults because we can just get lost in stories and another worlds, and it's not about productivity. Right. Even though I love the feeling of like finishing up a book. Ugh. No. I love the feeling of the last a hundred pages of a book because I just feel like you're ravenously reading it.

At that point and you're like a little sad when it's over, but you also feel like, oh, you just wanna like sit in it, I guess. So anyways, this year I've already read 14 books just by adopting the idea of being an everyday reader and like always carrying a book with me and not setting a goal around my reading.

And so I am, well on track of reading more than 24 books [00:04:00] this year. I will say in the winter. It was a lot easier for me to fit in reading. It's been less easy in the spring, so I've read less this spring that I did over the winter. I expect that to pick back up in the summer. I'm curious what will happen in the fall, but one thing I've noticed about myself is I do get off track if I have too many books going at one time.

And for a person with a DHD, this is so challenging. Like I am currently at the place where I need to put some boundaries around myself because I probably have 10 like development books all on different topics going on at the same time. One about time management, one about values, one about a DHD, one about career, one about motherhood, and.

That just doesn't tend to work for me. So I'm really trying to like before the summer kicks off, narrow that in and get back on track with [00:05:00] which development book. Am I actually committing to right now? Because I don't really have that same problem when it comes to fiction. Like if I'm in a story, I'm in it.

I don't crave jumping to another story. I am just so into the story that I am reading. I have talked to many people over the years where some people are like, oh my gosh, no one book at a time. And others are like, oh, I've got 10 open. And I'm just learning that I am a person who tends to have 10 open, but that doesn't

satisfy me as much as slowly working through a development book or like I read Mel Robbins Let them, and I did not slowly work through that. I probably read that in two weeks. I'm looking at my Good Reads log right now, but it works best for me. I am finding to only have one development book.

On my lap at a time, taking that as fast or as slow as I need to, and then really diving into my fiction books. Okay, so I wanna tell you some of the favorites I have read this year. I'm gonna tell you [00:06:00] then some of my favorites I've read in the past couple of years, and then what I have on my list for this summer.

I just mentioned the app, Goodreads. I have been on and off the app for many years, but this year I'm committing to keeping my books fresh and clean on the app. That just is another thing that helps me kind of keep track of where I am. Again, it's not about a goal, but it's like something I love and want to be a part of my life.

So I do like that little gamified system that I've made for myself in Good Reads, where it's not a goal, but Good Reads, just reminds me, oh my gosh, I have read 14 books or helps me look forward to like checking off when I've read a book or putting a new book on my currently reading list. So just a little plug for the free Good Reads app.

Okay, so here. Are the books that I have read this year? I have read the The first, I believe Taylor Jenkins read book Now. I've read all [00:07:00] of her other books to date. I think she's got a book coming out like right now, right around this timeframe. So obviously I haven't read that one yet. But Forever Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reed.

She's an author that I love. I recommend to all of my friends. Her stories are so captivating, they just suck you in. My favorite is the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. And I resisted reading that one for a while because I was like, eh, that kind of sounds like drama. I don't. I don't know that I wanna read that.

But when I started it, oh my gosh, I finished it in a weekend. It was just, she is such a good storyteller. I also like some Leanne Morty books. I read one of hers this year that I really did like, and I'm sure many of you have read it. It turned into a Hulu series. It was called Nine Perfect Strangers.

That was another book that really kind of kept me sucked in. Emily Henry is a favorite of mine. As is Carly Fourtune and those are more of [00:08:00] like the romance genre, which over the past couple of years I've gotten into a little bit. They're fun to do, especially in the summer. They're light. You kind of always know how the story is gonna end, but all the details are different and so I will probably read some Emily Henry and Carly for has a new one this summer.

I'll probably catch up on two Emily Henry's that I haven't read, and the latest Carly Fortu and, gosh, I'm Hope, hope I'm saying that name right, but, okay. Anyways, that's not what I've read this year, so that's just a little side note. One book that I read this year that I love, love, loved, was Black Cake by Charming Wilkerson.

Wow. Love the storytelling and the writing and the development of characters in that book. So I would recommend. Black cake. Another fun one that I read was such a bad influence by Olivia Munter, M-U-E-N-T-E-R. Okay, so this is about an influencer, [00:09:00] and when I read the about, I thought, Ooh, that's gonna be a good book.

And then I got into the first chapter and I thought, oh my gosh. It was from the influencer's perspective. And I was like, I don't think I can stick with this. But I'm glad I did because chapter two was written from the perspective that you'll read for most of the book. And this was just twisty and turny and surprising.

And the ending I still think about, I also read a book called The Tell. It's a memoir by Amy Griffin, and I read that in five days. It was just beautiful and heavy and just really wonderful. So I would recommend that one. Another I read this year is called, this is a Love Story, it's by Jessica Schaffer, and it was written really interestingly, it didn't flow the way normally.

Books flow. It was a little bit [00:10:00] more choppy in the writing intentionally, and at first I thought, gosh, this is gonna be really hard. But after a while, it just kinda let my imagination run wild. And it's not obvious the way the book is written. You kind of have to learn as you go along. But it was a really cool book about

a couple and a family really in New York City and, and many, many other things. Okay. The last book I read this year that I wanna tell you about is No Two Lives. I'm really into books that are kind of like Time travely. So this one was a little bit like that. It was basically about a story and how that story affected many different people.

Over the course of their lives, but it had one common theme that was weaved throughout the book, told by different characters. When I say I'm really into time, travely type books, like Midnight Library by Matt Hague [00:11:00] was a favorite of mine and this time tomorrow. So it's like featuring a character both of these books or featuring a character, that

basically time travels and other people don't know they're time traveling and they're like choosing versions of their lives. And it's just really always interesting to me to think about choosing versions of our lives. If we could time travel in which we would choose. Okay, so it's a little scattered but Midnight Library by Matt Hague.

And this time tomorrow, oh gosh, I'm forgetting the author of that one. Those are two I would recommend. To circle back, I did not say much about black cake. It is a beautiful, complicated family story about the parents' origins and you know, the children finding out after their mother dies.

So I'm trying to like tell you a little about, bit about these books in case you're adding to your reading [00:12:00] list, but not tell you too much, not gimme any spoilers. Okay. So that's what I've read so far this year that I really loved and wanted to tell you about past books that I have loved. In addition to the few I've mentioned are Tom Lake.

I read that last year actually. I listened to it and I listened to it in Meryl Streep's voice and it was amazing. It's about a girl who becomes an actress kind of accidentally, and the story of her life and her family. And it's just beautiful. And then The Alchemist, that's another one that I like to read every single year.

I don't think I read it last year, but it's just a really cool way to look at things. And a dear friend gave that book to me when I was moving from honolulu to the Midwest and she said, you have to read The Alchemist. And I did as I was moving, like it was what got me through packing up and I [00:13:00] flew through that book probably in three days.

And it's short and it's easy and it's really just, I think about intuition and destiny and agency. So it's what I, I recommend. Okay, so here is what is next up on my summer list. I read Claire Lombardo's first book last year. It was called The Most Fun We've Ever Had, and this year I've already cracked into, same as it ever was by her.

Now this book is like 500 pages. That's not usually my jam. But I'm going for it. She does a really beautiful job of developing complex characters, and I'm really seeing a theme in the books that I like to read now that I'm sharing this with y'all. There are books about families. There are books about complicated, messy, real life.

They're books about love. Another book that I'm gonna read this summer is Tilt. I have checked both of these books out from the library, [00:14:00] so that's what I've got planned so far for my summer reading. And I'm just gonna kind of let the rest lead me where it may. Just a plug,

if you are a reader, check out your local library, check out your local bookstores. Don't order our books off of Amazon, even though it's easy. There's so many other ways to read and support your local community. In the midst of that, I hope you have a super fun summer reading if you are. Looking at this post on social media, I would love to hear what's on your list.

When people share what's on their reading list or what they've read and loved, I tend to like screenshot those and save those in a file. I have a really big good reads want to read list, and that's where I'm trying to keep all of my books that I want to read and just keep that list going because I've had

other times this big list in my notes, or a big list in an Amazon cart, right, where I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna pop this in my cart real [00:15:00] quick and then I'll know where to look for it. Some of the authors that I mentioned today, they have follow-up books, so all of those books are listed in here.

Anyways, I hope you have a great summer reading. And thank you for listening. If you are a book lover like me, please share this podcast on social media with another book Lover in your life. I would love again to hear what you're reading this summer, and I hope it is amazing. I will see y'all next week.

Thanks for being here.