Summer Reading?
You know how, all winter long, amidst the work deadlines and kids’ basketball games and the demands of prime time television, you told yourself you were planning to use your summer to deplete the stack of must-read novels waiting on your nightstand? Did you have an image of yourself stretched out on a beach (or at least stretched out on a couch), book in hand, comfortable and satisfied?
Well summer’s about halfway over. How’s the reading coming?
I ask because as I prepare for my family’s vacation to Yellowstone I’m interested in some reading recommendations. I’m up for just about anything—heavy or fluffy, creepy or funny—just as long as it’s good. I’ll kick it off with my list:
—Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. A literary novel that’s also an incredibly fast and satisfying read. Although the story of racial tension and prejudice on a Mississippi Delta farm in the late 1940s can be harrowing—and yes, a touch predictable—the writing is lovely and the characters richly drawn.
—Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout. If you haven’t read this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction, you should. Stout writes with charity, which is the highest compliment I can pay any writer. Plus, Olive is a character you won’t soon forget.
—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This one’s a beach book for sure. A quintessential thriller, full of plot twists and mysteries to be solved, Dragon Tattoo will keep you guessing. I found the beginning of the novel a little long to slog through, but once the story got going it really took off. Plus, the novel’s translated from the Swedish, so it has that touch of international cache that John Grisham’s latest title lacks (but of course you don’t care about cache, right?).
—For all of you non-fiction readers: A Failure of Capitalism by Richard A. Posner. True confession: I haven’t read the whole thing (yet) since I bought it for my husband for Father’s Day, but what I have read is lucid and interesting and makes the complexities of our current economic crisis relatively easy to understand for those (like me) without much background in economics. Not the cheeriest of summer books, to be sure, but if you approach your summer reading with a sense of purpose rather than a sense of escape, then here you go.
—And finally, for those of you planning to enter next year’s Irreantum fiction contest: Story by Robert McKee. Our own Stephen Carter has recommended this title a number of times and I finally broke down and read it. Great stuff. Much of my summer has been spent reading the entries to the Irreantum fiction and creative nonfiction contests (over 100 entries in all), and while I have come across some gems—if you entered, yes, it was probably you—the majority of entrants could definitely use some story structure intervention. McKee’s book gets at the heart of story structure in a practical, accessible, memorable way. For all the writing books I’ve read and pieces of fiction I’ve studied and written and edited and graded, McKee helped me see the act of story creation in a whole new way.
Now I want to hear about the books you think I should be reading. Yellowstone is right around the corner. Hopefully I can get my nose out of a book long enough to see some buffalo.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 9:17 am
I just finished Mudbound and loved the characterization! A Failure of Capitalism looks deep (in a good way).
I’m reading Q&A, which is the book that Slumdog Millionaire is based on. It’s great, and I feel like I’m getting a whole different story (slightly darker) story than was presented in the film. The funny thing is that they renamed the book Slumdog Millionaire, and it seems sort of ridiculous to even give it the same name because it’s so different.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
I loved Mudbound!
I finished a book called The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carelton a month or so ago. This book was re-released after 20+yrs out of print. It’s very reminiscent of Cold Sassy Tree or To Kill a Mockingbird.
I also loved The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. She uses some harsh language in detailing her cancer diagnosis. So it may not appeal to everyone. But as mom of similar age with similar aged children, I felt like I was reading a book by a best friend.
The Help is next on my list…I’ve heard wonderful things about it.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Shelah, I loved Slumdog, so I’d really like to hear what you think of the book once you’re done. And Melissa, you’ll have to tell me about The Help when you’re done, too. I’ve seen it around, but I had a weird visceral (negative) reaction to the cover for reasons I’m not psychologically astute enough to understand. It’s also the same shade of yellow as the paperback covers of both Mudbound and Olive Kitteridge. What’s up with all the yellow paperbacks?
Thanks for the recommendations!
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
And I just realized the cover of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is yellow as well. What IS up with that?
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
As always you can see what I’m reading and have recently read on GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/216811
If you are looking for some classic realism that is so very topical, I suggest Dreiser’s The Financier.
If you are like me and are one of the few epic fantasy readers who hasn’t read The Name of the Wind, that’s very much worth tackling.
And if you are looking for something funny and imaginative but with some depth, I suggest Terry Pratchett’s Nation — although if you haven’t read any Pratchett yet, I don’t know that that’s the novel to start with.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
And thanks for reminding me that Olive Kitteridge is on my to-read list.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is next on my list – I’ve only heard very good things about it. Also plan to read Beauty by Roger Scruton soon, which I got last month for my birthday. (of course this is amid the countless titles cramming into my life at any given moment.)
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I just finished a non-fiction book titled “Faith Among Shadows” by Malcolm Leal that felt like the story of conversion of Jason Bourne! Malcolm is Cuban and he claims that he has never written a book but this one is just as powerful a narrative as they comes. It goes from his growing up in a fishing village in Cuba with his great grandmother that read the bible to him, to being trained by the Soviets and the Vietnamese as a special forces command and being chased by the CIA in the jungles of Central America. His description of his “abuela”, as he calls his grandma are just delicious. This is some of the best LDS non-fcition writing I have seen in a while.
July 25th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I’m currently reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. My copy also has a yellow cover, so sounds like a perfect addition to your summer reading list, Angela. It gets double cachet points for Nobel Prize + African author.
Previous read was White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and subsequent read will maybe be The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. I’ve got to get reading, because I want to enter the drawing for the local library’s adult summer reading program for a chance to win a weekend at the Sylvia Beach Hotel.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Let’s see, right now I’ve got a few books I’m working my way through: Psalm and Selah, poems by Mark Bennion (which I just finished then started again because the first time was just to get a feel for Bennion’s language); Why the Church is as True as the Gospel by Eugene England; What-the-Dickens by Gregory Maguire. I’d also like to get all the way throuh Wayne Booth’s The Company We Keep before I dive back into school at the end of August. (And none of my book covers are yellow; I’m feeling kind of left out now…)
July 31st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I read “Oliver Kitteridge” and enjoyed it so much that I read Elizabeth Stout’s other novels. I really enjoyed ‘Funny in Farsi”, “Left to Tell”, and “Beautiful Child.”
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