If you’re like me, you’ve been enjoying more time outdoors, doing yardwork, planting gardens, or just relaxing. That means there is more opportunity to interact with the other people that live around you! We’re sharing some book this week about neighbors and neighborhoods, ranging from happy encounters to romances to thrillers that might have you watching the people that live nearby with a wary eye.

City Shapes by Diana Murray. illustrated by Bryan Collier
“Diana Murray’s playful and poetic verse encourages readers to look for shapes everywhere, noticing the hidden details in even the simplest of scenes around them every day. And Bryan Collier’s beautiful illustrations add even more layers to the cityscapes, letting readers get immersed in the hustle and bustle, culminating in a thrilling twist when the girl looks through her kaleidoscope and sees the skyline in a completely new way.”

In Lucia’s Neighborhood by Pat Shewchuk, illustrated by Marek Colek
“This beautiful, thought-provoking picture book about a little girl’s observations of her community has been adapted by the award-winning author/illustrator team of Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek from their animated short film, Montrose Avenue. Inspired by the work of urban studies writer and activist Jane Jacobs, seven-year-old Lucia takes readers on a daylong tour of her own bustling city neighborhood, commenting on all the people and their activities that she encounters along the way. Intergenerational and multicultural, her busy neighbors are seen going to school, tending their gardens, opening their shops, practicing Tai Chi and visiting with each other on their porches.”

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
“The first time Juli Baker saw Bryce Loski, she flipped. The first time Bryce saw Juli, he ran. That’s pretty much the pattern for these two neighbors until the eighth grade, when, just as Juli is realizing Bryce isn’t as wonderful as she thought, Bryce is starting to see that Juli is pretty amazing. How these two teens manage to see beyond the surface of things and come together makes for a comic and poignant romance.”

The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
“From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.
Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pasts—until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel.”

Edith’s Diary by Patricia Highsmith
“As Edith Howland’s life becomes harsh, her diary entries only become brighter and brighter. She invents a happy life. As she knits for imaginary grandchildren, the real world recedes. Her descent into madness is subtle, appalling, and entirely believable.”

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell
“You live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbours for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?
Midsummer night: a thirteen-year-old girl is found unconscious in a dark corner of the garden square. What really happened to her? And who is responsible? “

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
“Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago, he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects—the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidentally left behind—and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners. As the end nears, he bequeaths his secret life’s mission to his unsuspecting assistant, Laura, leaving her his house and and all its lost treasures, including an irritable ghost.

Recovering from a bad divorce, Laura, in some ways, is one of Anthony’s lost things. But when the lonely woman moves into his mansion, her life begins to change. She finds a new friend in the neighbor’s quirky daughter, Sunshine, and a welcome distraction in Freddy, the rugged gardener. As the dark cloud engulfing her lifts, Laura, accompanied by her new companions, sets out to realize Anthony’s last wish: reuniting his cherished lost objects with their owners.”

I love road trips! I love to go places, see new things, have small adventures. I love to stop at every brown highway sign. (Brown signs point you to cultural interest things, including historical waysides, small museums, scenic overlooks, and more. Guaranteed fun for a nerdy person like me!) I’ve driven all over New England, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. I’ve driven across I-94/90 from the Pacific to the Atlantic. One summer I visited every public library on the Lewis and Clark Trail. Road trips are super fun.

I turned 50 this year, and that was pretty exciting for me! Seems like an event that I should commemorate by doing something a little out of the ordinary, something I can tell people about when I’m in my dotage. So this year I’m on a quest: I’m planning to visit all 50 states. I’m driving to all of the lower 48 states – because road trips are great! (I’ll fly to Alaska and Hawaii, because at some point, road trips are just impractical/impossible. But I need all 50, to make the complete set – obviously!)

Is this silly? Sure. Is it reasonably pointless? Totally agreed. Am I super-excited, and planning out chunks of states to visit? You bet!

I’ve visited eleven states so far this year, and the week of May 19 I’ll be doing some very intense road tripping to visit 16 other states!

This will not be the super-scenic version of road tripping that is so fun. Instead this will be the version that involves a cooler of food in the seat next to you, a tent in the trunk, and a steady supply of audio books combined with loud music. Think the final trip to Chicago from the Blues Brothers movie, and you’ll have the right idea.

So, yes: fun! (If such things appeal to you!)

In my May travels, the plan is to hit these states:

• Minnesota (I’ve already counted this state, and repeats don’t get counted again; but I’ll be driving thru it!)
• Iowa (another repeat)
• Kansas
• Missouri
• Oklahoma
• Arkansas
• Texas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• Indiana
• Illinois (a repeated state)
• Wisconsin (another repeated state)

If you have road trip suggestions, things I have to see (as I blow thru states at maybe just a hair over the speed limit), or books I should not miss out on hearing – send them to me! I’ll have time on my hands as I zoom along.

In the meantime, if you want to start thinking about your own road trip, or if you think the idea of road trips is better done on the couch than in a car, we have some book suggestions for you!!

Tomato Rodriguez hops on her motorcycle and embarks on the ultimate sea-to-shining-sea all-girl adventure — a story that combines all the best parts of Alice in Wonderland and Easy Rider as Tomato crosses the country in search of the meaning of life, love, and the perfect post office.
Flaming Iguanas is a hilarious novel that combines text, line drawings, rubber stamp art, and a serious dose of attitude. The result is a wild and wonderful ride unlike any you’ve ever taken before.

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other — a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue — it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and — the author’s favorite — historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Charles Wang, a brash, lovable businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, has just lost everything in the financial crisis. So he rounds up two of his children from schools that he can no longer afford and packs them into the only car that wasn’t repossessed. Together with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra, they head on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the Upstate New York retreat of the eldest Wang daughter, Saina. 

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation’s backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about “those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi.” His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

After ten years in England, expatriate American Bill Bryson was gripped by an urge to return to the land of his youth. Borrowing his mother’s old Chevrolet, Bryson traveled 13,978 miles through thirty–eight states, seeing pretty much what he wanted to see, and a good deal that he didn’t. He visited Mark Twain’s birthplace and the place where Roosevelt died. He glimpsed the Grand Canyon through a thick fog and failed to find the giant Californian Sequoia you can drive through. At once a savagely funny portrait of contemporary America and a poignant memoir of lost youth, The Lost Continent is a comic masterpiece.