Dig in to some tasty summer reading
By Dave
June 13th, 2008 | Leave a comment
By Diane Evans
DelMio.com
Summer reading should be a little akin to summer cooking. You grill for simplicity’s sake - but you expect a savory result.
A summer book? It should be more the juicy hamburger rather than the fat pot roast that won’t be tender for another hour.
A few of my requirements for a fitting summer book:
Nothing too heavy: Many years ago (we’ll leave it at that) I read “Catcher in the Rye” in the summer and in that one book, discovered the joy of leisure contemplation. I still remember J.D. Salinger’s description of a “studied” air of sophistication as something that helped explain a particular snob in my life. Perspective with a laugh - under a hot sun. That’s the idea.
Read what you want - not what you think you should. To look smart, maybe you feel you need to read one of the new titles on John McCain or Barack Obama. But if you’ve always wanted to read “Gone With the Wind,” then do it.
A fast read, and if it’s short, all the better: One of my favorites:
Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (not morose despite the title). It’s really a treatise on how to live well, so you don’t have regrets later.
Now for a sampling of summer reading recommendations from various 2008 lists:
From the Los Angeles Times:
“The Last Embrace,” a novel by Denise Hamilton on secret doings in Hollywood in the 1940s.
“Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us),” by Tom Vanderbilt, on the meaning of the mundane.
“Shining City,” a satire by Seth Greenland, about a dry-cleaning business that fronts for an escort service.
“America America,” by Ethan Canin, a novel about a working-class boy’s involvement with a senator and powerful New York family.
Recent titles popping up on high school reading lists:
“Life of Pi,” by Yann Martel, and “The Lovely Bones,” by Alice Sebold, both stories of young people coming of age.
Some old favorites, recommended for middle school reading by the National Endowment for the Humanities:
“Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott.
“Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury.
“The Last of the Mohicans,” by James Fenimore Cooper.
“Robinson Crusoe,” by Daniel Defoe.
“Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank.
“The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle.
A few children’s titles, from this year list by the “Association for Library Service to Children:
“Little Rat Makes Music,” by Monika Bang-Campbell.
“When Dinosaurs Came with Everything,” by Elise Broach.
“My Name Is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez/Me llamo Gabito: La vida de Gabriel Garcia Marquez,” by Monica Brown.
“Fred Stays with Me!” by Nancy Coffelt.
“Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale,” by Carmen Agra Deedy.
If you’d like to share your suggestions, please do. Just e-mail me at Diane.Evans@delmio.com.
