I’ve been swimming in the cultural zeitgeist lately, thanks to my wonderful local library which just received much-needed funding to reopen on Saturdays.

I was crazy excited to get my hands on Judy Blume’s newest book for adults, In the Unlikely Event, which is set in Elizabeth, NJ in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the actual triad of plane crashes that traumatized the community. Elizabeth is Blume’s hometown, and the book is based on her own emotional memories of living in the shadow of tragedy. Told from multiple points-of-view (which was a little challenging in the beginning), the book covers first love, heartbreak, betrayal, friendship, and family life with Blume’s signature honesty and perception.

On the flip side, Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin’s memoir of motherhood among the elite, was basically a written episode of The Real Housewives of New York City. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being obsessed with this show. You understand? You with me? And mostly I want them to pick her to be the next housewife because she’s clearly as stuff-obsessed as Sonja, as smart as Carol, and as neurotic as Aviva. Plus I feel like she’d be putty in the hands of the Countess. I know that Bravo executives follow my blog avidly, so you can thank me when it happens.

You can save yourself some mental clutter because the title of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up tells you everything.

I would like everyone to read Jon Krakauer’s tragic and necessary book Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, especially anyone who is a sports fan. It seems like sports culture necessitates human sacrifice in the form of these raped women who are silenced by their attackers, by their colleges, and by the so-called justice system. Is winning so important that we have to let violence slide? Let a crime be called a mistake? What will it take to see a change? USA USA women’s world cup USA

Because I wasn’t outraged enough, at the library I picked up a book called Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives. It’s a look at cases like that of Laci Peterson, where men try to get rid of their wives as if they are an old pair of shoes.

And lastly, I read the entirety of the much-touted Descent by Tim Johnston, a thriller about a kidnapped girl and the shattered family she leaves behind. It was so bad that I had to keep reading. At a certain point, the misery just got comical. I thought it was going to have more horror elements so I was also disappointed on that front.