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.
