The longer summer days make pop culture consumption a no-brainer for me. Sit outside with delicious beverage, read, throw ball for Norm, repeat. July has been busy with friend and family visiting, along with my BIRTHDAY and a trip to the coast for some cooler weather for a few days. A lot of pop culture has been consumed, here’s a few of my favorites…

Listening

I love The Roots, so when I saw they were coming to the zoo the night before my birthday you’re darn right I was not going to miss out! I had a great birthday -eve listening to great music with a fantastic live band and ELEPHANTS walking around behind us. Zoo concerts are my new favorite. If you want to go, my answer will always be YES please.

This means I’ve been listening to a lot of The Roots lately and I’m also enjoying the new Chance the Rapper singles that came out a few days ago. And I’m going through a big The Beatles phase again.

As for podcasts, the usuals still stand (that Roe v. Wade 2 parter on The Daily was awesome!) For a mental break I’m really enjoying The Good Place Podcast still. And The Wilderness from Jon Favreau is really great and I’m learning a lot.

Reading

I’m still making my way through Dan Pfeiffer’s book Yes We (Still) Can. While I love the foot notes in the book they’re kind of distracting!

I love Marisha Pessl, she’s a fantastic and kind of weird author. Her first book Special Topics in Calamity Physics is one I think about when recommending books to avid readers. Her second novel Night Film was also fantastic and weird and had me up till 3 am reading it on vacation a few years ago. So I was THRILLED to learn she had a new book that came out just in time for my birthday! I started Neverworld Wake on vacation this past weekend and hoping to get some good patio time to finish it in the next week or two!

In comics, I have the new Nancy Drew series from one of my favorite comic writers, Kelly Thompson. And FINALLY the return of Captain Marvel! I can’t wait to dig in to these two series…

Watching

I finally finished the second season of The Handmaids Tale and it was crazy dark. I saw a lot of reviews that didn’t like it and didn’t think it was redemptive, which is true, but they have a 7 year plan here, not 2…

I enjoyed this season of Colony as a good summer sci-fi series. I always love a show that takes place in Seattle and the ONLY reason you know that is because the streets are wet because it “just rained” on a backlot in Vancouver…

I’m halfway through the new season of Orange is the New Black and it’s OK. I didn’t totally remember what happened last season so trying to remember what I should know and what’s still unknown is always fun. The abuse and darkness are getting a little tiring. I’m hoping somehow it redeems itself this season – I am excited to see how things come together with Frida.

What else are you reading, watching and listening to this summer?

I love this time of year – it’s lighter longer and it’s warmer so I spend more time outside reading than sitting inside watching TV (but don’t worry, I found time to binge the new season of Queer Eye!) Here’s a few things I’ve been loving this past month…

Reading

I finished The Hate U Give this last weekend and it was AWESOME. I’ll be recommending this book to people for a long time to come.

I finished it just in time to see Dan Pfeiffer at a Powells Books event this week and he was great! Dan’s new book Yes We (Still) Can is next up and I am already in love with/easily distracted by the footnotes.

I also had some time to catch up on comics this weekend. I plowed through the latest The Walking Dead storyline – I always like when new communities show up, this one seems to be especially sketchy. I also caught up on Ms. Marvel this weekend which continues to be a great series.

My local comic store will put suggestions in my box at times which is GENIUS. Because I end up spending more money with them. The latest recommendation was Brian K. Vaughn’s short series Barriers. It’s a  beautiful series and very eye opening concept (spoiler: half the comic is in spanish, half in english, and there’s also aliens). It wasn’t my favorite story ever BUT the concept was great!

Listening

Besides The Daily (crap, I still have one episode of Charm City to go!) and Rachel Maddow and Pod Save America… I am loving The Good Place podcast! It’s a recap show but with actors and behind the scenes folks on the show which is some fun insights. It’s just the escapism I need most days. I’m also loving the new season of Majority 54 from future Mayor of Kansas City, Jason Kander! Oh and the Axe Files episode with Rachel Maddow is fantastic if you’re as in love with her as I am.

Along with everyone else I watched the Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke and I’m now listening to a LOT more of The Beatles which is never a bad thing. Also, the new Janelle Monáe album is INCREDIBLE.

Watching

I am really liking The Break with Michelle Wolf on Netflix. It’s weekly and very clever. She plays some ridiculous games and I appreciate her humor. I also finished the Howard Stern episode of My Next Guest and it was great. Letterman and Stern have been friends for so long that it was really fun to watch them talk, specially about Trump…

The new season of Queer Eye is exactly the escapism my mental health needed this last week. The film buff proposal may have made me cry…

I have the entire last season of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on my DVR and I don’t want to start them because then it’ll be over…

I have been catching up on Westworld and based on what grumblings I’m hearing about the season finale I’m considering just dropping it…thoughts?

I’m mostly caught up on Colony which I’m still enjoying. I just re-upped my Hulu subscription which means coming up soon is S2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, not sure if I can handle it but I promised my cousin I’d catch up so we can discuss.

I seem to be wanting to watch a lot more light and easy TV these days when the rest of the world is so crazy. What about you?

Traveling is always a lot of fun but I forget a few things…

1. I don’t read much on long flights, I watch movies
2. My DVR will taunt me for the next month with ALL the shows I’m now behind on
3. Jet lag is the WORST

So, a trip to London this month was a blast and for my pop culture consumption it changed it up a bit. Here’s what I’ve been reading, watching and listening to this month…

Reading

I give up. I tried The Boy on the Bridge twice and can NOT for the life of me get into it. Maybe I’m zombied out, but maybe this book just isn’t happening for me. I cleaned up my bookshelves the other day and took a few to Powell’s and ended up finally buying The Hate You Give which I’m almost half way through and it’s wonderful. A full review next month, I promise.

I also caught up on comics in the glorious sunshine recently! Ms. Marvel continues to be a favorite series, and the latest installment with Kamala disappearing was pretty great. I was thrilled to learn she’s coming to the MCU!

I did read The Runaways by Rainbow Rowell on the flight. I loved the series on HULU so thought I’d try the comic and start with this popular YA author’s turn at the helm. It’s really fun but evidently you need to read the previous installments to know who some of these folks are. I’ll probably read more, but may go back and catch up on some of Brian K. Vaughns series first.

Listening

I picked up the new Leon Bridges album and it’s been on heavy rotation in my office lately. I also can’t stop listening to This is America by Childish Gambino.

In Podcast land I REALLY loved the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness (of the new Queer Eye series) episode on my favorite topic – CULTS! It was great!

I also really enjoyed Bookish with Sonya Walger – her interview with Damon Lindelof was fantastic. The premiss of her podcast is to talk about the 5 books that most inspire you. I LOVE the concept and it’s a great way to learn more about people through their reading habits. I may finally read The Watchmen…

I finished up Trump Inc. this month and really enjoyed the series and the way it looked at Trump’s business interested here and abroad. I hope the series continues.

Watching

My post is late today because I stayed up late last night to watch the series finale of The Americans. It. Was. Perfect. I cried twice and I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode. I don’t want to spoil it but if you need to talk about the finale once you watch it feel free to reach out!

I watched a LOT of movies on the plane. On the flight there I finally watched Pitch Perfect 3 which was easily the least-best of the 3 but still fun and I’ll probably watch 50 more times but may not be able to recite every song like I can still do with the original.

I also finally watched Ant-Man which was incredibly enjoyable and now I can’t wait for Ant-Man and the Wasp this summer! On the flight back I caught Thor: Ragnarok which was great and super funny. Perfect timing to FINALLY go see Avengers: Infinity Wars which was fun but I didn’t love it EXCEPT I absolutely cheered VERY loudly (and alone) at the final post credit scene. I am SO EXCITED.

I also caught I, Tonya on the plane which I really liked – and an interesting story telling device. I FINALLY watched The Post as well. I loved it. With a newspaper background I was enthralled, and thanks to my age I didn’t know the Pentagon Papers story very well so it was fascinating! My husband and I just started The Fourth Estate on Showtime about the New York Times covering the current administration and it’s a nice newspaper follow up to The Post.

I saw Solo on opening night and it was very fun. I think I need to see it again – the theater was FREEZING and the family in front of us elected one family member to get up every 10 minutes, so I feel like a less distracted viewing may be a good thing. But a great origin story and some good twists!

Now that some series are wrapping up I can finally get caught up with Legion, Westworld, Billions and Homeland. I think I’ll skip Arrested Development for the rest of time. But the new (and final) season of Kimmy Schmidt should be a good weekend distraction! I’ve also been (mostly) keeping up on Colony which I continue to enjoy and like where it’s heading.

What have you been enjoying this month? What are you looking forward to this summer?