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Your Badass Summer Reading List

Your Badass Summer Reading List

Summer feels like it’s here, or is that just wishful thinking?   Either way, it’s time to break out the beach blanket and sit in the park, with a thermos full of Sangria, travel scrabble, and a stack of delicious books to zip through.   And we have the first of your must-reads right here:

FOR THE FAN OF GRIT

Fans of teen angst lit will feel the nostalgia seeping through your converse kicks as you stumble through the pages of Jolene Siana’s teen diaries.   Well, more like letters.   She wrote one (including some really gorgeous drawings) every day of her teen years to “Skinny Puppy’s” Ogre Nivek, and he saved the letters and gave them back to Jolene years later.     “Go Ask Ogre: Letters from a Deathrock Cutter” will leave you happy you are grown up, but kinda jonesing for a clove cigarette and a door to slam.

Get your paws all up in John Joseph’s revealing, page turning memoir “The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon” STAT.   Fans of the Hardcore scene will remember his band the Cro-Mags, but those who have no idea who they were will still go bonkers for this mind-blowing story that takes you through John’s disturbing and often hilarious childhood, and all the way up to his years terrorizing NYC’s (then mean) Lower East Side streets.   This book will leave you clutching your sides in suspense, wondering what will happen to this genius hoodlum with heart.

FOR THE FAB FEMINIST

Can you get yourself going sans vibrator?   Want to get to the root of your orgasm? “Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman’s Quest for an Orgasm” will take you on Mara Altman’s journey to her pleasure dome, and teach you some tricks n tips about your own va-jay-jay on the way.

Rebecca Walker has long been one of our favorite authors.   Her “Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self” has long been on our favorite book list.   As if we needed more reasons to girl crush her, she just released “One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry,Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love” which perfectly illustrates the changing realities of modern domestic life in 18 fascinating essays.

FOR THE ECO-TRAMP

Love DIY style, but have no sewing skills?   “Sewing Green” by Betz White will give you every lil’ nugget of info you need to make 25 adorable projects from organic and repurposed materials.   Plus tips and resources for earth-friendly crafting!

We regularly recommend “Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World
by Diane MacEachern to anyone from newbies to old hat environmental activists.   Ladies, think of this as your living green bible.   You’ll learn absolutely everything from how to start wielding your purchasing power for the good of the planet, to the true ramifications of our bad habits.   And we promise, it’s actually a fun read you will want to devour from cover to cover.   As Laurie David (founder of StopGlobalWarming.org and a producer of An Inconvenient Truth) says; “If you take just a few suggestions from Big Green Purse, you will be on your way to being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.”

FOR THE GIRL WITH NO ATTENTION SPAN

My Little Red Book” by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff provides brief anecdotes (90 in all) about first-time periods   written by a vast array of fine folks. Rachel, a freshman at Yale, has a global mission (women’s health and reproductive rights), and she perfectly pulls together a fun, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes hilarious compilation of “What the heck is that red spot in my drawers?!” stories.

See Also

Always wanted to know how to get past the VIP ropes of the hottest club, or the best gear at the Stella McCartney sample sale?   Peg Samuel’s “How To Be A Social Diva” will give you the insider deets you need to live like a jet-setting social climber, if that’s your bag.   Lest we judge, you will also learn some fun and helpful tips like how to fit your life into a clutch bag, which glass to use for which cocktail, and how to shmooze yourself into a fully booked restaurant during prime time hours.

FOR THE PERVY NOVEL LOVER

The hype about Charlotte Roche’s “Wetlands” is all true.   It’s mind-bogglingly disgusting.   Like, you’ll want to barf reading about the Protaganists fluids, odors, and discharges… and, worse, what she likes to do with them.   But it does leave you with questions about our obsessive hygene histeria, and remind you that (for the most part) it’s okay to let yourself just be once in a while.

Brass” by Helen Walsh is perhaps the hottest, filthiest book we have ever read.   As Publisher’s Weekly says; “Millie’s {the main character} caustic commentary on the electro-charged sexual and intellectual power of postadolescent women heralds the arrival of a promising new voice from the darker fringes of antigirlhood.”   Helen Walsh’s sexy, dark, chick-noir voice will make you want to drink a martini and get spanked by someone wrong for you.

That should get you started!   Expect more reading lists as the warmer months envelope us with long days to read by the lake and dream your little dreams.   Have a recomendation for us?   We love hearing your faves! Share it below.