Summer Reading, Had Me a Blast

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Sarah Weinman has a <a href=”http://www.sarahweinman.com”_blank”>link</a> to Time’s survey of writers and their “guilty pleasures” for summer reading. I can’t understand why anyone ever feels guilty about reading anything. I feel guilty about not reading. But, pretty soon, I’m going to atone.

I have seven books ready for a week-long trip and it’s my plan to discard of at least four of them upon finishing, leaving them in places where they might find new homes – and freeing up space for some of the novels I hope to procure, especially Mark Billingham’s latest.

My reading list is:

The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy, with a new introduction by Terry Teachout. I probably won’t discard this one, as the book has never been out of print in the UK. But I may give it to one of the American attendees at Harrogate.

Flower Children, by Maxine Swann.

Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson. (Sue me, I’m late to him.)

A galley for a Book I Know I’m Going to Love.

City of Tiny Lights, by Patrick Neate. I enjoyed his company mightily at our panel at the LA Times Book Festival. Not sure the feeling was mutual, but so it goes.

Therapy, by David Lodge

Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll. I asked my SO to pick out a nonfiction book that he thought I should read. Man, wait until the tables are turned, and I pick out a novel for him. We own this in hardcover, so I would be glad to make a gift of my trade paperback, but it’s almost 600 pages. I’m going to be reading this forever.

I’d love to hear others’ summer reading lists, past, current or future. I think I already told the story here about how I got stuck at the beach when I was 11, with only Walter Farley books – and it turns out I hated Walter Farley. (I wasn’t much for horses. I couldn’t get through Black Beauty or Misty of Chincoteauge.) You’ll note that I learned the lesson that variety is key in a summer reading list.

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29 thoughts on “Summer Reading, Had Me a Blast”

  1. We spend a couple of weeks in August in Elk Rapids, MI on Elk lake, always with books, naps, great food and adult beverages.
    This years list includes:
    Coal Black Horse – Robt. Olmstead (sorry for the horse, Laura)
    Bangkok 8 – John Burdett
    The Blonde – Duane Swiercynski
    The Magdalen Martyrs – Ken Bruen
    Free Fire -C.J. Box
    The Birdman and the Lap Dancer – Eric Hansen
    Garlic and Saphires – Ruth Reichl

  3. Well, let’s see. My summer reading list is kinda eclectic. Star Trek fiction, mysteries, thrillers, Don Bruns’ new book “Stuff to Die For”, which nearly defies cataloguing in a genre, King of Lies by a friend from NC whose name escapes me at the moment, as I’m at work, and a lot of other books I picked up and read to have something to read during lunch/dinner. I don’t have TV at the moment; not enough cash for cable, and that’s all you can get where I am living for now.

    Let’s see…oh yes, a song for Keith to have in his head…in place of the other one…Small World <evil little giggle>

  4. Harry Potter book 7. I also want to re-read the other 6 (seriously, is this just me?). I have Peony in Love, A Good and Happy Child (about a kid who may be possessed), the new Pete Hamill, some chick lit, a book about training dogs as mine has been a brat lately, some Michael Connellys I haven’t read yet and, because I’m tired of being the only one who hasn’t read them, Poisonwood Bible and Memoirs of a Geisha. But first and most importantly, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

  6. Have we ever talked about the food in THE GARDEN OF EDEN? (The posthumous Hemingway book.)

    His female characters are still squirmy little fierce animals to one degree or another. But the food writing is great.

    I had gravlaks and an amazing lobster bisque with just the right burnt butter edge for lunch.

  7. I’ve been having a Chris Bohjalian mini-fest but am currently reading Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Tattooed Girl” and can’t wait to see where it goes.

    Kelly, let me know how you like “Peony in Love”. I read her other one, the name escapes me now and really liked it.

    Who’s Ruth Reichl? I’ve never read anything of hers.

  8. I’ve decided to read nothing but Laura Lippman all summer. <i>Schmooze, schmooze…</i> :)

    Keith: There’s only one way to get that tune out of your head. Tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree. <a href=”http://www.kariokebar.com/lyrics/tie-a-yellow-ribbon_tony_orlando_the_dawn.html Look here.</a>

  9. Ruth Reichl is currently the editor of Gourmet Mag. and has been NYT and LAT restaurant critic. “Tender at the Bone” and “Comfort Me With Apples” are two memoirs of her somewhat food centric childhood and young adulthood. I like “Tender” better than the other. “Garlic and Saphires” is her memoir of her time as the NYT’s critic and I understand is very entertaining. I hear when you read it you are compelled to raid the fridge.

  10. Harry Potter No. 7
    Alison Gaylin’s new TRASHED (got an ARC!)
    Megan Abbott’s QUEENPIN
    Sean Doolittle’s BURN
    Patty Smiley’s SHORT CHANGE
    Patrick Quinlan’s THE TAKEDOWN
    and nonfiction ODD GIRL OUT, about all that mean girl stuff because my daughter is 10 and becoming sullen already…

  11. I really enjoyed Garlic and Saphires by Ruth Reichl and I rarely read non-fiction. (Another foodie non-fiction book that I liked was Eugenia Bone’s At Mesa’s Edge–but you might have to be an eastcoast to Colorado transplant to really get it.)

    I also don’t stray from mysteries very often but I did just read Stoner by John Williams at my husband’s suggestion and it really was good. (My husband NEVER strays from dead white male authors and usually they have to have been dead for a century. The fact that he had at least strayed into the last century was in itself so amazing that I had to give it a try). He had read an essay on John Williams in the NY Times Book Review a few weeks ago and decided to go wild and crazy.

  13. “PS: I don’t have to reread Laura’s stuff to catch up because I’ve been with her since the beginning. Neener neener.”

    Me too. Laura even kindly autogragphed my old paperback Baltimore Blues when she was on tour here in the Colorado mountains this year. (I have a shelf of Baltimore books for homesickness prevention. When she was coming I found Baltimore Blues on it, actually sitting next to Homicide, where it had been for years, from long before I knew anything about Laura other than that her name was on a mystery set in Baltimore, or author blogs, etc.)

    But I digress. The point of my post is that I just reread Baltimore Blues and enjoyed it even more the second time around. I would recommend revisitng Tess in her early days.

  14. As soon as I finish WHAT THE DEAD KNOW …

    :o )

    … next up is HARRY POTTER #7. And I refuse to read a paper, surf the Internet, listen to the radio, watch TV, or even leave the house until I finish it, for fear someone is going to commit a SPOILER.

    I have a few anthologies I’m going to read for the rest of the summer: DEATH DO US PART, MEN FROM BOYS, DANGEROUS WOMEN. Then KEN BRUEN’s THE DRAMATIST. Then, perhaps, a classic. Maybe WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

  15. In addition to the boy wizard,I added some titles to my ever growing list from the fun anniversary list at The Rap Sheet of “overlooked or criminally underappreciated mystery/thriller/crime books”. I also have 2 ARCs from 2 of my favorite not-at-all-prolific authors, Ann Patchett and Tony Earley, that I am really looking forward to but I am saving them for vacation as a special treat and as a reward for making it through another Harry Potter (when you work in a bookstore HP releases are fun the way marathons are fun-there’s some recovery involved after).

  16. Apropos of nothing, are you at the Hairspray premiere tonight? I’m a little bummed I couldn’t go ($150 doesn’t grow on trees), ’cause I really want to meet John Waters. (I can’t leave Baltimore until I do.)

    If you did go, please blog about it. :) I can’t wait to see the movie and I love the original.

  18. Just finished A WELCOME GRAVE by Michael Koryta, great book (very jealous of the talented little bastard) and THE MARK by Jason Pinter. On deck we’ve got QUEEN OF BABBLE IN THE BIG CITY by Meg Cabot, Danielle Steele’s new one BUNGALOW 2 (never read Steele before but this one has a fun bright cover and features a screenwriter as MC)CROSSHAIRS from Harry Hunsicker, and a few others I can’t remember. I’ll also probably reread GONE BABY GONE from Dennis Lehane to prepare for the movie.

    PS: I don’t have to reread Laura’s stuff to catch up because I’ve been with her since the beginning. Neener neener.

  19. Yes, Harry Potter 7 as soon as my kids are done with it.

    I’m going to Panama, so PANAMA by Eric Zencey.

    I loved Joe Coomer’s THE LOOP, so I’ll track down another of his.

    Similarly, I thought David Mitchell’s CLOUD ATLAS was an amazing novel–now I want to read something else by him.

    The new Michael Chabon.

    The new Lee Child.

    Just finished the new Mma Ramotswe book–can I live in her world?

  21. Books I have been saving for a time when I can give them the attention I deserve (no idea when that will be):

    Richard Ford, THE LAY OF THE LAND
    Cormac McCarthy, THE ROAD
    Jane Smiley, 12 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NOVEL (this has been on my nightstand for more than a year)
    Denis Johnson, TREE OF SMOKE (got an ARC at BEA)

    I’m considering booking back-to-back cross-country flights just to give myself enough uninterrupted time to read.

  22. Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem
    Bourne Ultimatum – Ludlum (OK, that one is guilty)
    Acacia – David Anthony Durham
    The Great Deluge – Douglas Brinkley
    Beasts of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala
    Strangers in Paradise – Terry Moore
    Up in Honey’s Room – Leonard (It was inscribed by Leonard for my grandfather, but he died three days after the book arrived, so it’s pretty special and I don’t know if I want to read that copy)

  23. I shouldn’t admit I’ve read 26 books in July, should I…

    But some of the books I have on my immediate TBR:

    PYRES – Derek Nikitas
    ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS – J.T. Ellison (which just about wraps up the Killer Year crowd)
    EVIDENCE OF THINGS UNSEEN – Marianne Wiggins (bf has been pushing this on me in a major way)
    THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES – Stef Penney
    MUSICOPHILIA – Oliver Sacks (ARC of his “music and the brain” book, I am so excited to read this it is not even funny)
    A BOY NAMED SHEL – Lisa Rogak (Yup, the unauthorized bio which is out in November. I read this once, but I have to read it again for fuller commentary)
    ENGELBY – Sebastian Faulks (I was planning on reading this before the James Bond announcement, now I think I pretty much have to)

  25. OOOH! Also apropos of nothing, you’re Baltimore’s Best Writer (in the new Baltimore magazine).

    It says: “The work of Laura Lippman has long been straitjacketed as “crime fiction,” thanks largely to the success of her Tess Monaghan books. But this year’s publication of What the Dead Know”–a finely crafted, Tess-less novel–has changed the conversation as Lippman finally gets her props for being an excellent writer, period. It’s about time.”

    Congratulations! :)

  26. I am trying to meet the challenge of reading 6 authors who are new to me this summer. Thus, my summber reading list so far is:

    SACRED COWS by Karen E. Olson
    GET SHORTY by Elmore Leonard (yes, I know everyone else has read him, but I was late to the party)
    SIN KILLER by Larry McMurtry (I may have cheated here; I listened to a fine unabridged recording by Henry Strozier…a McMurtry fan friend of mine says that doesn’t count so he’s lent me THE WANDERING HILL to actually read)
    BLINDSIGHTED by Karin Slaugther
    THE LAST PLACE by Laura, just because I have to catch up with Tess

    That’s four. I still have to get two more who are new to me! This is a good exercise.

  27. What I’m lugging up to Cooperstown, NY:
    –To the Power of Three (okay, so I’m late to this particular party, but am happily making up for lost time…)
    Spook by Mary Roach
    Fancine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer
    Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach–he wrote it to be read in a single three- or four-hour sitting, so I’m looking forward to that.
    Three old paperbacks of Gwendoline Butler’s Coffin series–I’d never heard of her, found these at a library sale–has anyone else read her?
    Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things

  28. I may be the only person alive who has no intention of reading the new Harry Potter book and has never read any of the previous six. I watched the movie of the first one on HBO and kept falling asleep. I am beyond redemption, so don’t bother trying to argue me out of my failing.

    I’m waiting for Karin Slaughter’s new book but have plenty of other things to read in the meantime. I can recommend a debut mystery called The Last Nightingale by Anthony Flacco, set in San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake and fire. The ending’s a little wobbly, but I think the book is excellent overall. I was given an advance copy of Jasper Fforde’s new “literary detective” farce, but I simply could not read it and so cannot supply the requested online review. If anyone out there enjoys his books and would like to have the new one AND will promise to review it somewhere, let me know and I’ll send it to you.

  29. Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool
    Lori Bryant Woolridge, Weapons of Mass Seduction
    Rita Lakin, Getting Old Is Criminal
    Shayne Jones, Lottery Winners Guide (I’m optimistic)
    Hilma Wolitzer, Summer Reading
    Kim Addonzia, My Dreams Out In the Streets
    Jen Lancaster Bight Lights, Big Ass
    A.M. Homes Things You Should Know

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