With summer just around the corner, we know you’re bound to be getting busy with barbeques, festivals, lakefront fun and all of the great things Chicago has to offer. Fear not! This month’s selection, I Was Told There’d Be Cake is slender volume of essays guaranteed to fit in your beach bag or bike basket. This collection is the first from writer Sloan Crosley – a NY resident and frequent contributor to The Village Voice and The New York Times – and was widely heralded by literary favorites like Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Ames and David Sedaris upon publication in 2009. Crosley’s website calls the autobiographical stories “a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.” Read the full review from Publisher’s Weekly below:

For those for whom the publication of new work by David Rakoff or Sarah Vowell would be a literary event equivalent with the announcement of an eighth Harry Potter novel, the release of Crosley’s debut collection of keenly insightful personal essays should have similar impact. The New York Times, NPR, and Village Voice contributor’s take on everything from volunteering to vegetarianism, bridesmaid’s duties to baking disasters escorts readers on a raucous ride through the fluctuating minefield that is contemporary culture. Crosley’s sardonic observations have a sassy edge; her nimble humor, a naughty zing. Yet beneath her smug persona of “young woman about town” (that town being Manhattan) lurks another, more vulnerable image: that of sensitive “mall rat from suburbia” (the suburbs being Westchester.) Real and recognizable, Crosley’s is the voice of everyone’s favorite quick-with-the-quips sister, daughter, roommate, coworker. With an unabashed appreciation for the trenchant irony inherent in life’s more quotidian activities, Crosley exposes society’s—and her own—most endearing qualities.

Stop by the 2nd floor desk at the Oak Park Public Library to pick up a copy, and join us to discuss this twenty-something’s perspective on everything from unpleasant weddings to plastic ponies at 8pm on Tuesday June 28 at Molly Malone’s. And if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can find a sneak peak of our remaining 2011 discussion titles on Goodreads.