Whether it be nature-oriented or brimming with LGBTQ characters, I look back at some of my favorite summer books

Wild: From Lost To Found on the Pacific Crest Trail By Cheryl Strayed

This book has been my bible for the past few years. I’ve read it no less than half a dozen times.Strayed dealing with the grief of the loss of her marriage, the loss of her mother and her broken family and decides to drop her life and hike 1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild covers the events that lead to that journey, her person journey along the trail and the people she met along the way. Please do not watch the movie, they are not the same thing.

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked”

— Cheryl Strayed

I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff By Abbi Jacobson

This book is equal parts reflections, drawings and a tapping into Abbi’s brain as she talks about what lead her to drive across the country alone and takes your through her journey by reflecting on each city she lands in along the way. She touches on her hit comedy, Broad City, queer relationships and whether or not Bed and Breakfasts are good for solo travels.

“The stars out there, out west, are different, they’re brighter and bolder, and they make you feel that the world is so much more than you ever could have thought, that maybe you’d only been focusing on a tiny little corner. I know all those stars are there too, in my New York sky, but I don’t see them. There’s too much in the way. ”

— Abbi Jacobson

Woodswoman: A young ecologists’ life in the log cabin she build herself in the Adirondack Wilderness By Anne LaBastille

I accidentally stumbled upon this book on the shelves in my first stay in OWL Library and then couldn’t put this down. Written in 1991, LaBastille covers her own life from when she found a plot of land to build her own isolated cabin on a lake in the Adirondack wilderness. Her opinions on City life.

“ There is a dynamic and an energy in cities which is diametric to the life-forces of the forest. Still the cabin is the wellspring, the source, the hub of my existence. It gives me tranquility, a closeness of nature and wildlife, good health and fitness, a sense of security, the opportunity for resourcefulness, reflection and creative thinking.”

— Anne LaBastille

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States By Samantha Allen

Allen has an interesting take on the queer culture in big liberal cities vs. queer culture in smaller red state towns. Since the numbers of gathering places and people are smaller in small red cities, the L’s, G’s, B’s & T’s have to coexist under one roof creating more of a cohesive community instead of the fragments you see in larger liberal cities.

“Nothing could be queerer than getting out of your comfort zone.”

— Samantha Allen

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Centry By Jessica Bruder

I can’t count how many people brought up this book, actually the movie based off this book so I decided to check it out after not being able to finish the movie. Bruder spends a few years entrenched with several people who live out of their vans or trailers as the cross the country looking for work. The story is larger than that as she explores the communities this nomadic life style creates and the economic disparities that drive them to live this way.

“Some call them “homeless.” The new nomads reject that label. Equipped with both shelter and transportation, they’ve adopted a new word. They refer to themselves, quite simply, as “houseless””

— Jessica Bruder

Crier’s War (Book 1) By Nina Varela & Iron Heart (Book 2) by Nina Varela

Taking a break from all of the nonfiction, I found this Scf-fi fantasy novel that features some queer characters. After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.

“If longing is madness, then none of us are sane.”

— Nine Varela