As everyone starts to get rolling on summer travel plans, I thought now might be a great time to talk about favorite entertainment items. In the past, we've had threads on brain candy books, favorite magazines, and podcasts for working women, but let's just combine them all today and ask everyone to fill out the following with ONE suggestion each for your fellow Corporette readers. What do you heartily recommend for entertainment? For purposes of this mini-survey let's assume people will NOT have good WiFi access, as you do while sitting at the beach, so will want to download things ahead of time.
Fiction Book (please note genre):
Nonfiction book:
Audiobook:
Magazine:
Podcast (general):
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial):
TV Series to Binge:
Movie:
Mobile Game:
My own answers are below (all links to Amazon are affiliate links; thank you for your support)…
Fiction Book (please note genre): The last really fun book I read was The Royal Runaway (rom com); I still stand by my earlier brain candy recommendations.
Nonfiction book: Not terribly new, but I was fascinated by NeuroTribes.
Audiobook:Fire & Fury (political); #GirlBoss was also great on audiobook. I'm listening to White Noise now, and while I enjoy it as a “reread,” I'm not sure I'd recommend it on audiobook for your first “read.” (I'm new to the genre of audiobooks but find I need to take a break from all of my political podcasts at the moment!)
Magazine:Vanity Fair is my go-to airport reading.
Podcast (general): A friend just turned me on to Throughline, from NPR — in each episode they look at the history of a modern problem to better view it in context (so for opioids they looked at the history of morphine and heroin).
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): I enjoyed Bag Man (Rachel Maddow).
TV Series to Binge:Santa Clarita Diet (Netflix)
Movie: (pass, haven't seen anything non-kid related in too long, unless this counts: Iliza: Elder Millennial)
Mobile Game: (pass, curious for recommendations!)
Two Other Random Recommendations for Beach Reading
In addition to the favorite apps we recommended a few weeks ago, including Overcast for podcasts, I'll give a shoutout to two other techy things:
a Kindle is great for the beach, and you can usually even get library books sent to it — I love mine but it's super old (circa 2016), has a cracked screen, and has been dropped numerous times in the water. (Whoops.) It's still holding up great but it might be time to get a new one, so I'm eyeing this one — what are everyone's thoughts?
I just got this mobile chargerand love it — if you forever find yourself texting your travel companions your phone's battery percentage (“FYI I'm at 1%! See you at the hotel at 6 p.m.!”) then just get a mobile charger and be done with it. This one works as advertised — I got this teensy cord to connect my phone to the charger without a lot of excess.
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
23 Comments
Ooh, fun! Some thoughts:
Fiction Book (please note genre): All literary fiction from me, Ali Smith’s seasons quartet, What Red Was, Meet me at the Museum, Home Fire, An American Marriage
Podcast (general): The High Low for pop culture, Pantsuit Politics
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Caliphate
TV Series to Binge: I like my brain candy tv – Brooklyn 99, Scandal, Jane the Virgin
Fiction Book (please note genre): The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (fantasy)
Nonfiction book: Doing Justice by Preet Bharara
Audiobook: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein (bring your tissues!)
Podcast (general): The Daily (NYT)
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (not exactly storytelling, but they discuss one HP chapter each episode, so you still get a serial-type experience)
TV Series to Binge: Jane the Virgin
Movie: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Fiction Book: Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win
Nonfiction book
Audiobook: Crazy Rich Asians trilogy
TV Series to Binge: The Bold Type
Mobile Game: Two Dots; Monument Valley; NYT crossword archive
Re: Kindles, I highly recommend getting one of the refurbished 4’s or 5’s that still have the physical side buttons (forward/back) on both sides of the device. My mom just got herself one of those and I’m jealous.
I have a 1yo basic Kindle w/ touch screen – (a) I am constantly accidentally tapping on a word/highlighting when I’m just trying to turn the d@mn page, and (b) on my old Kindle that died, I loved the ability to alternate which hand is holding the Kindle, which is impossible with the touch screen because you have to tap on the right to advance.
+1 – I love the side buttons and am dreading the day my current Kindle dies on me.
The new series, the Voyager (available as refurbs for cheap) and Oasis have page turn buttons and they automatically recalibrate the page turn areas when you rotate the kindle. I have a Voyager and I love that I can switch hands so easily and use the page turn buttons when I want them. I only buy Kindles that have their own 3G, which I know is not a requirement for most people, but I want to make sure that I can always buy and download a new book and I don’t have to worry about logging into any strange/public wifi
You can still alternate hands on the newer Paperwhite (without buttons) because you can swipe left or swipe right on either side of the page and still turn pages one handed. Or at least I can on my circa 2014 Paperwhite.
Fiction Book (literary fiction): Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series (My Brilliant Friend, et seq) – if there is anyone left who has not read it!
Nonfiction book: Educated by Tara Westover
Movie: Crazy Rich Asians
It’s not exactly light and breezy but I’m super excited for the new season of Handmaid’s Tale which started yesterday!
Fun!!
Fiction Book: Crazy Rich Asians
Nonfiction book: Sacred Table (a collection of essays about Kosher laws)
Audiobook: I’ve been re-listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks :)
Magazine: Food and Wine
Podcast (general): Pod Save America
TV Series to Binge: Just started Lucifer – I love it!!
Movie: The Other Woman
Mobile Game: They’re kind of weird, but I love the Haiku Games series – they’re hidden object games.
I live via podcasts during work and my commute.
General:
* By the Book – 2 friends live by sifferent self help books for 2 weeks and discuss how it changed/didn’t change their lives
*Anna Faris is Unqualified
*Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
*Reply All (internet mysteries and more)
*The Mortified Podcast (adults read from their teen diaries in front of live audience)
*WorkLife with Adam Grant
*History Extra
*You Must Remember This
*The Dollop (American history stories & improv)
* Unhappy Hour with Matt Bellassai
True Crime:
*Best Case Worst Case
*Real Crime Profile
*My Favorite Murder
*Criminal
*Spooked
*The Shrink Next Door
*Dr. Death
*Uncover
*Crime Junkie
*Court Junkie
*A Date with Dateline
*A Killing on the Cape
*Sword & Scale Rewind
*Murder Made Me Famous
*Cold Case
*Dark Poutine (Canadian)
*Hollywood Crime Scene
*All Killa No Fila (UK)
*Bloody Murder (Australian)
Bachelor/Bachelorette:
*Bachelor Party
*Rose Procks: A Bachelor Roast
*Will You Accept This Rose
*The Basic Bachelor Podcast
*Bleav in Bachelor Blab with JAckie Maroney
*Rosecast Bachelor Recaps with Rim & AB, the #1 interracial male best friend duo in teh Bachelor recap podcast genre
Listen to Here To Make Friends! It’s my fav bachelor recap podcast.
That’s a great one, too!
When it is summer, I like to sit on the beach or by the pool with my Marie Claire magazine to get caught up with the latest going on that I often miss working all of the time. I do not have a better suggestion for the hive other then Marie Claire, b/c it highlights what is important to us as professional, yet stylish, women. YAY!
TV: Lately binging “Last Kingdom”- which DH calls historical fic and I call fantasy. Its gory, with lots of men bashing at each other with swords, but the men are quite pretty and take their clothes off from time too time.
Fiction Book: the Maisie Dobbs serier
Nonfiction book: The Russian Five- about the geopolitical climate and hockey team management/ownership strategy in extraditing Russians to the US to play for the Redwings
Audiobook: Peter Sagal- the incomplete book of running
Magazine: Bon Appetit and HBR
Podcast (general): Cheddar’s What You Need to Know, Wait Wait Dont Tell Me, Forever3
TV Series to Binge: Just started The West Wing- I never saw it in it’s original run and I’m loving it! Also, Life in Pieces
Movie: Always Be My Maybe, Vice
Mobile Game: Toonblast, Ticket to Ride online
Seconding your fiction rec! Starting the Maisie Dobbs series was one of the best gifts I ever gave myself.
I love this!
Fiction Book: I don’t read hard things for fun. Harry Potter series (YA/Fantasy), The “Will Robie” series by David Baldacci (crime thrillers), anything by John Grisham (legal thrillers), Women’s Murder Club series by James Patterson (crime thrillers).
Audiobook: So Here’s The Thing by Alyssa Mastromonaco
Podcast (general): Dear Prudence, Death Sex & Money, Happier in Hollywood, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Her Money, The West Wing Weekly, Young House Love
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Cover-Up, Slow Burn, Terrible Thanks for Asking
TV Series to Binge: Bosch, Call the Midwife, The West Wing, The Great British Baking Show
Movie:
Mobile Game: Candy Crush
Fiction: (romance – my fave) Ilona Andrews or the newest Sarah Maclean!
(Apocalyptic) The Stand by Stephen King
Nonfiction – Nothing to Envy-Private Lives in North Korea
Magazine – New York Magazine or the New York Times Magazine
TV Series: Schitt’s Creek
Movie: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (also recommend the books)
Fiction Book (please note genre): A Gentleman in Moscow (historical fiction)
Nonfiction book: Becoming by Michelle Obama
Audiobook: I love Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series
Magazine: Country Living (proof I have become my mother) and the New Yorker
Podcast (general): Hustle and Flow with Heather Hubbard
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): pass
TV Series to Binge: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (PBS, available on Netflix I think)
Movie: Always Be My Maybe
Mobile Game: Words With Friends
Fiction Book (please note genre): Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan; Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand; 2 high quality summer reads authors
Nonfiction book: Strategize to Win by Carla Harris (women’s career advice); Becoming by Michelle Obama
Magazine: Real Simple or Yoga Journal
Podcast (general):
TV Series to Binge: Workin Moms; Billions; WestWorld; Catastrophe; Insecure; Scandal; Madame Secretary; The Crown; This Is Us; Mad Men
Movie: Girls Trip or Wine Country are on my list; Sideways for a perennial summer fave
Fiction Book: Circe
Nonfiction book: anything by Mary Roack
Audiobook: Evil Has A Name
Magazine: Us
Podcast (general): Decoder Ring
Podcast (storyteller like Serial): Last Seen, Slow Burn, Ear Hustle
TV Series to Binge: Deadwood, Luther
Movie:
Mobile Game: Pokémon Go
Fiction Book (please note genre): (Fiction) The power Naomi Alderman; anything by Karin Slaughter; Where the Crawdads sing Delia Owens; Where’d you go Bernadette Maria Semple;
Nonfiction book: Five days a memorial Sheri Fink; The New Jim Crow Mass incarceration… Michelle Alexander
Audiobook: I don’t love audio books
Magazine:STRONG fitness magazine for women
Podcast (general):
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial):
TV Series to Binge: Dead to me netflix; big little lies HBO
Movie: Endgame (I ready ALL the xmen comics growing up
Ooh, fun! Some thoughts:
Fiction Book (please note genre): All literary fiction from me, Ali Smith’s seasons quartet, What Red Was, Meet me at the Museum, Home Fire, An American Marriage
Podcast (general): The High Low for pop culture, Pantsuit Politics
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Caliphate
TV Series to Binge: I like my brain candy tv – Brooklyn 99, Scandal, Jane the Virgin
Fiction Book (please note genre): The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (fantasy)
Nonfiction book: Doing Justice by Preet Bharara
Audiobook: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein (bring your tissues!)
Podcast (general): The Daily (NYT)
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (not exactly storytelling, but they discuss one HP chapter each episode, so you still get a serial-type experience)
TV Series to Binge: Jane the Virgin
Movie: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Fiction Book: Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win
Nonfiction book
Audiobook: Crazy Rich Asians trilogy
TV Series to Binge: The Bold Type
Mobile Game: Two Dots; Monument Valley; NYT crossword archive
Re: Kindles, I highly recommend getting one of the refurbished 4’s or 5’s that still have the physical side buttons (forward/back) on both sides of the device. My mom just got herself one of those and I’m jealous.
I have a 1yo basic Kindle w/ touch screen – (a) I am constantly accidentally tapping on a word/highlighting when I’m just trying to turn the d@mn page, and (b) on my old Kindle that died, I loved the ability to alternate which hand is holding the Kindle, which is impossible with the touch screen because you have to tap on the right to advance.
+1 – I love the side buttons and am dreading the day my current Kindle dies on me.
The new series, the Voyager (available as refurbs for cheap) and Oasis have page turn buttons and they automatically recalibrate the page turn areas when you rotate the kindle. I have a Voyager and I love that I can switch hands so easily and use the page turn buttons when I want them. I only buy Kindles that have their own 3G, which I know is not a requirement for most people, but I want to make sure that I can always buy and download a new book and I don’t have to worry about logging into any strange/public wifi
You can still alternate hands on the newer Paperwhite (without buttons) because you can swipe left or swipe right on either side of the page and still turn pages one handed. Or at least I can on my circa 2014 Paperwhite.
Fiction Book (literary fiction): Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series (My Brilliant Friend, et seq) – if there is anyone left who has not read it!
Nonfiction book: Educated by Tara Westover
Movie: Crazy Rich Asians
It’s not exactly light and breezy but I’m super excited for the new season of Handmaid’s Tale which started yesterday!
Fun!!
Fiction Book: Crazy Rich Asians
Nonfiction book: Sacred Table (a collection of essays about Kosher laws)
Audiobook: I’ve been re-listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks :)
Magazine: Food and Wine
Podcast (general): Pod Save America
TV Series to Binge: Just started Lucifer – I love it!!
Movie: The Other Woman
Mobile Game: They’re kind of weird, but I love the Haiku Games series – they’re hidden object games.
I live via podcasts during work and my commute.
General:
* By the Book – 2 friends live by sifferent self help books for 2 weeks and discuss how it changed/didn’t change their lives
*Anna Faris is Unqualified
*Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
*Reply All (internet mysteries and more)
*The Mortified Podcast (adults read from their teen diaries in front of live audience)
*WorkLife with Adam Grant
*History Extra
*You Must Remember This
*The Dollop (American history stories & improv)
* Unhappy Hour with Matt Bellassai
True Crime:
*Best Case Worst Case
*Real Crime Profile
*My Favorite Murder
*Criminal
*Spooked
*The Shrink Next Door
*Dr. Death
*Uncover
*Crime Junkie
*Court Junkie
*A Date with Dateline
*A Killing on the Cape
*Sword & Scale Rewind
*Murder Made Me Famous
*Cold Case
*Dark Poutine (Canadian)
*Hollywood Crime Scene
*All Killa No Fila (UK)
*Bloody Murder (Australian)
Bachelor/Bachelorette:
*Bachelor Party
*Rose Procks: A Bachelor Roast
*Will You Accept This Rose
*The Basic Bachelor Podcast
*Bleav in Bachelor Blab with JAckie Maroney
*Rosecast Bachelor Recaps with Rim & AB, the #1 interracial male best friend duo in teh Bachelor recap podcast genre
Listen to Here To Make Friends! It’s my fav bachelor recap podcast.
That’s a great one, too!
When it is summer, I like to sit on the beach or by the pool with my Marie Claire magazine to get caught up with the latest going on that I often miss working all of the time. I do not have a better suggestion for the hive other then Marie Claire, b/c it highlights what is important to us as professional, yet stylish, women. YAY!
TV: Lately binging “Last Kingdom”- which DH calls historical fic and I call fantasy. Its gory, with lots of men bashing at each other with swords, but the men are quite pretty and take their clothes off from time too time.
Fiction Book: the Maisie Dobbs serier
Nonfiction book: The Russian Five- about the geopolitical climate and hockey team management/ownership strategy in extraditing Russians to the US to play for the Redwings
Audiobook: Peter Sagal- the incomplete book of running
Magazine: Bon Appetit and HBR
Podcast (general): Cheddar’s What You Need to Know, Wait Wait Dont Tell Me, Forever3
TV Series to Binge: Just started The West Wing- I never saw it in it’s original run and I’m loving it! Also, Life in Pieces
Movie: Always Be My Maybe, Vice
Mobile Game: Toonblast, Ticket to Ride online
Seconding your fiction rec! Starting the Maisie Dobbs series was one of the best gifts I ever gave myself.
I love this!
Fiction Book: I don’t read hard things for fun. Harry Potter series (YA/Fantasy), The “Will Robie” series by David Baldacci (crime thrillers), anything by John Grisham (legal thrillers), Women’s Murder Club series by James Patterson (crime thrillers).
Audiobook: So Here’s The Thing by Alyssa Mastromonaco
Podcast (general): Dear Prudence, Death Sex & Money, Happier in Hollywood, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Her Money, The West Wing Weekly, Young House Love
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): Cover-Up, Slow Burn, Terrible Thanks for Asking
TV Series to Binge: Bosch, Call the Midwife, The West Wing, The Great British Baking Show
Movie:
Mobile Game: Candy Crush
Fiction: (romance – my fave) Ilona Andrews or the newest Sarah Maclean!
(Apocalyptic) The Stand by Stephen King
Nonfiction – Nothing to Envy-Private Lives in North Korea
Magazine – New York Magazine or the New York Times Magazine
TV Series: Schitt’s Creek
Movie: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (also recommend the books)
Fiction Book (please note genre): A Gentleman in Moscow (historical fiction)
Nonfiction book: Becoming by Michelle Obama
Audiobook: I love Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series
Magazine: Country Living (proof I have become my mother) and the New Yorker
Podcast (general): Hustle and Flow with Heather Hubbard
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial): pass
TV Series to Binge: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (PBS, available on Netflix I think)
Movie: Always Be My Maybe
Mobile Game: Words With Friends
Fiction Book (please note genre): Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan; Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand; 2 high quality summer reads authors
Nonfiction book: Strategize to Win by Carla Harris (women’s career advice); Becoming by Michelle Obama
Magazine: Real Simple or Yoga Journal
Podcast (general):
TV Series to Binge: Workin Moms; Billions; WestWorld; Catastrophe; Insecure; Scandal; Madame Secretary; The Crown; This Is Us; Mad Men
Movie: Girls Trip or Wine Country are on my list; Sideways for a perennial summer fave
Fiction Book: Circe
Nonfiction book: anything by Mary Roack
Audiobook: Evil Has A Name
Magazine: Us
Podcast (general): Decoder Ring
Podcast (storyteller like Serial): Last Seen, Slow Burn, Ear Hustle
TV Series to Binge: Deadwood, Luther
Movie:
Mobile Game: Pokémon Go
Fiction Book (please note genre): (Fiction) The power Naomi Alderman; anything by Karin Slaughter; Where the Crawdads sing Delia Owens; Where’d you go Bernadette Maria Semple;
Nonfiction book: Five days a memorial Sheri Fink; The New Jim Crow Mass incarceration… Michelle Alexander
Audiobook: I don’t love audio books
Magazine:STRONG fitness magazine for women
Podcast (general):
Podcast (storytelling, like Serial):
TV Series to Binge: Dead to me netflix; big little lies HBO
Movie: Endgame (I ready ALL the xmen comics growing up
Mobile Game: n/a