Dorf Summer Reading 2017

One of the eternal questions of bibliophiles: what exactly is a good book for summer reading? In 2009, NPR asked listeners to vote on the “100 Best Beach Books Ever”. There were some choices that were perfect for the beach/summer: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. There were some choices on there that would be good at any time of the year and not just the beach, namely the Harry Potter series, Ender’s Game, and Cold Sassy Tree. But, there were also some choices that made me think that the voters didn’t quite understand what a summer/beach read was. Here are some that made the list: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger . This is not saying that these books are not good books; they are just not, in my opinion, summer reads. It just seems like people voted for their favorite books, regardless of the concept of the poll.

So, again, what is a good summer book? To me, it’s a book that’s not going to be too deep, dark, or depressing. It’s one that can capture an imagination. It, hopefully,  is not one that you have to read for work.

After I finished my Master’s Degree in Library Science in 2012, I promised myself that I would finally read Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Years passed, and life happened, and now I’m finally reading it. Is it a summer read? It made the NPR list, and so far, I can see how. It’s full of adventure, action, and intrigue.

I have made a list of 10 books that I think are good for summer. I looked at my “book book” that contains all of the books I’ve read since 2011. I picked 36 books of them that I thought would be “summer reads.” I then randomly chose 10. Keep in mind that most of the books I tend to read are (1) Nonfiction (2) Sports (3) Politics (4) Humor (5) Biographies (6) Southern Lit (7) YA Lit. Here they are:

 1.       The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul—Phil Jackson. I love sports books that get into the nitty-grittiness of a team and a quest. Jackson’s previous book Sacred Hoops was truly my favorite sports/religious books I’ve ever read (OK, there haven’t been many). With the NBA playoffs coming to a close in June, it’s a great way to end the season by reading a well-written account.  

2.        Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection‎

—A. J. Jacobs. This is the only A. J. Jacobs’ book I have read so far, but I will definitely read his others. Drop Dead Healthy is the perfect Summer book for you to laugh out loud about his exploits to become healthy in 1 year. His treadmill desk is very amusing.

3.        What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures

—Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell makes deep topics available for the masses without dumbing it down too much. I loved his other books, but this one is great for summer reading for those that don’t have a ton of time to read a book that has one long narrative. Dog Saw is a collection of his long-form articles from magazine The New Yorker (which surprises me that he writes for them since they are usually so pretentious). Fascinating.

4.        Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: A Novel: Fannie Flagg. This is one of my favorite Southern Lit books. In fact, it may be the perfect Southern lit book. Great characters. Swift-moving plot. Hysterical dialogue. 

5.        Jim Henson: The Biography—Brian Jay Jones. I always loved the Muppets and Sesame Street. The Dark Crystal terrified me. This book looks at the life of Jim Henson through his struggles of balancing his job and family. It’s not always a happy story, but the process is fascinating. For some reason, I remember being in the car on the way home from elementary school when his death was announced (the same day as Sammy Davis, Jr.).

6.        Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution—Jonathan Abrams. I read this book earlier this year. It truly contains some very sad stories of high school phenom basketball players who thought that they had the talent and skill to make it directly to the NBA, but had no structure (and sometimes not enough talent). The story of Kevin Garnett was intriguing.

7.        Ready Player One—Ernest Cline. If you can do audio books, listen to this book. Wil Wheaton (Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation) reads this so wonderfully. I don’t read a lot of Sci-Fi, but this book was inventive, creative and hit right to the soul of my 80’s Atari self.

8.        Small Steps—Louis Sachar. Holes is one of my all-time favorite books, so I held off on Small Steps for a long time, afraid it would damage my feelings. I wish I hadn’t held off. Steps features X-Ray and Armpit and their adventures through earning money after they got out of Camp Green Lake. This YA novel is a lot of fun.

9.        Wishful Drinking—Carrie Fisher. I love Star Wars. I love biographies. Perfect combination on this one. I had never read any of Carrie Fishers’ books, but I will read the others after this one. She is so darn funny. It’s a little bittersweet to read now that she is deceased, but the inside info on her life as Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynold’s daughter is so interesting. If you do audio books, listen to this one. Carrie reads it.

10.      The Art of a Beautiful Game: The Thinking Fan's Tour of the NBA

—Chris Ballard. This is one of my favorite sports books of all time. Ballard digs deep into the nuts and bolts of NBA basketball, but in a different way. I loved the chapters on Dwight Howard’s rebounding and Kobe Bryant’s will to win. This one is also great to read in June.

So, I had to throw in a baseball book because that’s what I do in the Spring/Summer: read a baseball book or two.

11.      The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports—Jeff Passan. Why so many baseball arm injuries? How is it in Japan, pitchers throw 140-150 pitches per outing, but don’t seem to get injured as much? How is Youth league baseball hurting kids? This book digs deep on these topics and more. 

Malinda's 10ish Books for Summer Reading

Summer reading – it’s one of the Best events of the year. I love to spread out on a cozy quilt under a shady tree and dive into a book. Recently, a co-worker asked me for some recommendations for summer reading. I tried So Hard to keep my list to just ten books, but I stealthily name dropped my book friends until it was a bit more than 10.

Without further ado, here are 10ish books that I would recommend for your summer reading list.

1. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - I adore Barbara Kingsolver. Sometimes she writes a sentence that I need to read 2 or 3 times just because it is so beautiful. This book is about a young Mexican American man who becomes mixed up with Frida Kahlo and Trotsky and the Committee on Un-American Activities. History + Great Characters + Heartbreak + New Perspectives (I am also especially fond of her books The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.)

2. The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls – Walls’ The Glass Castle is one of my favorite dysfunctional memoirs, and I love this fiction work by the same author. I've read Star three times, I think. It is about two sisters who, abandoned by their mother, must move back to the small, southern, factory town where their family once owned the local mill. It is sort of a modern Southern Gothic, coming of age, classism/racism/sexism tome.  (This book was recommended to me by JM who recommends amazing books like A Year of Biblical Womanhood and Mindset.)

3. Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters - My colleague BD, who always recommends the best books (like Cultural Literacy and The Last Policeman), sent this one my way. It is a politically insightful, perhaps controversial, adult dystopian novel. The setting is a re-imagined America where the Civil War did not happen and there are still several slave states. An undercover African American agent works to catch escaped slaves for a government agency.  It is for the Black Lives Matter movement what The Handmaid's Tale is to liberal feminism. 

4. Winterdance by Gary Paulsen - I literally could not care less about sports adventure books where people go off and do something crazy in the name of proving they can. Except for this book. I love this book. Only the author of Hatchet and The Winter Room could make me care, deeply, about the Iditarod. I read it last summer and was, at points, forced to climb under a blanket because I was experiencing Alaskan cold along with Gary Paulsen. I plan to read it again this summer. 

5. Heartless by Marissa Meyer – If you have ever heard me gush, it might have been about Marissa Meyer. I think she is Beyond Fabulous. This is her most recent book and it is brilliant. It is the story of how the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass became a violent force of nature who roams Wonderland screaming, “Off with their heads!” The way that Meyer takes the stories and poems of Lewis Carroll’s classic works and weaves them into a beautiful, heartbreaking, romantic, adventure-filled YA novel is delicious.  

6. The Rosie Project by Grame Simsion - I read a lot of books about autism and this is one of my fictional favorites (along with Mockingbird and The Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). It's a quirky Australian romance about a genetics professor who is attempting to find his perfect mate by using a carefully crafted questionnaire. It's sweet and funny and insightful. It was recommended by my friend BT (who also passed me the luscious mystery The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.)

7. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell - This book is so weird. Sarah Vowell (who I really would love to have in my circle of friends – along with Anne Lamott) decides to delve into the deaths of assassinated presidents, largely by visiting their places of death and places associated with their deaths. It has a lot of cool history in it, and I relish Sarah Vowell's playfully sick sense of humor. 

8. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - I got this book from my friend LG, who I still love even though she does not appreciate my devotion to Life of Pi. This is like Southern Gothic if that was a British genre. It's got a main character who loves books (which I'm a sucker for), a story within a story, and lots of really twisted family plots. Also, it makes some excellent allusions to classic Gothic novels. 

9. Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe - I read this because I wanted to read the part about the making of the Outsiders movie. I was not expecting much. It was so good that I passed the copy on to my husband who also really enjoyed it. It was well written with lots of crazy stories and endearing stories and inside Hollywood/political stories. It's my favorite celebrity book other than Bossypants. 

10. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - I love geeky books (looking at you Invisible Gorilla and every book by Erik Larson) and Malcolm Gladwell always makes me feel really geeky and smart. This is a well-written book about how decisions are made. It leads to some introspection as well as some new thinking. 

For the Love

I just finished listening to For the Love by Jen Hatmaker and I am so conflicted. There is a lot – really, a lot – of good about this book. But there is this one Really Bad Thing. In time, I may forget the Bad Thing, but right now it makes me think I won’t pick this book up again.

First, let’s celebrate the good. Jen Hatmaker reads this audiobook and she does a great job. When an author reads his/her own work (and does it well), it brings me joy. I have seen Jen Hatmaker speak and I can honestly say that her reading voice sounded like her speaking voice: friendly, expressive, conversational, and heartfelt.

Jen Hatmaker is funny. This is one of the reasons people love her. Although it felt a little confusing from a strictly literary standpoint, this book went back and forth between celebrating women, laying down God Truth, and Jimmy Fallon-style thank you notes. The parts celebrating womanhood were the most humorous, especially the parts about child-rearing. Jen Hatmaker (yes, I have to call her by her whole name – I don’t know why, it’s just what I do) is self-deprecating in an honest way that a lot of moms aren’t. It’s nice to laugh at how preposterous this whole parenting gig can be. And the thank you letters…the thank you letters are hilarious. My favorite was the letter to Facebook Quizzes. You should Google it.

The theology that Jen Hatmaker lays down is truthful and solid. She speaks to issues like pastoral honesty and church community and mission work. Her passion for the poor is evident in her writing, as is her desire to see mission trips done right. I wish every church would read her section on how to work with local churches in missions. She puts forth the radical idea that Americans on mission trips should listen to the local church leaders and Do What They Ask instead of setting our own agendas. And she states that we need to be more committed to those churches instead of taking One and Done mission trips.

Okay, the Really Bad Thing. Full disclosure: I’m being petty. Jen Hatmaker makes me feel bad about myself. I’m sure she doesn’t intend it, I know that it’s my own problem, but it’s still real and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Jen Hatmaker has five kids and writes and is a pastor’s wife and some kind of wonder-cook and yet she has All the Friends with All the Closeness. She talks about her tribe, her people, all of these amazing friends she always seems to be with who are so supportive and taking vacations together and having deep conversations and OMG what is wrong with me that my kids and my job are pretty much all I can handle and I don’t have that kind of Sex and the City Working Mom Iron Chef thing that she has?  I couldn’t finish her book Seven for the same reason. Yeah, I get that it’s me and it’s not “what’s wrong with me” but more “it’s okay that I’m not there in this ‘season’.” But, seriously, I feel bad. And just in case this might make you feel the same way, I’m putting it in this review.

So – great audio book reader. Funny. Solid theology. If you are living the large circle of extremely close friends, this is so your life. If you don’t give a flip whether you have a large circle of extremely close friends, namaste on your evolvement – read the book. If you can’t handle hearing about someone else’s large circle of extremely close friends right now because that’s not where you are, maybe wait on this one.

Happy reading,

Malinda