11 Summer Reads

No snark, no satire this week. Just literary earnestness. Behold, my summer reading list!

(But before we get to the books, riddle me this: the concept of the summer reading list once one is out of school. Do adults have any more time during the summer months to read than they do in the winter? Is it daylight savings time that gives us more time to read? And the marketing strategy that is “beach reads”? I’ve been to the beach with a child. There was no reading to be had, what with all the schlepping and fetching and rehearsing for my role as a folding-chair-lugging Sherpa in some Broadway show featuring singing Sherpas that I got into my head I should audition for. But you know what? I don’t make the rules. I’ve had summer reading lists since I’m 9, and this summer is no different.)

1. “Swimming,” Nicola Keegan (Knopf Doubleday). A debut novel about a young woman’s journey to the Olympics. Dysfunctional family, troubled adolescence, an unsinkable spirit – sounds like it’s got it all. (Nicola Keegan, by the way, “divides her time between Ireland and France with her husband and three children.” I divide my time between the kitchen and the playroom, where Tink kindly lets me plug in my computer.)
2. “I’m So Happy for You: A Novel About Best Friends,” Lucinda Rosenfeld (Little, Brown & Company). Billed as a “smart, darkly humorous” novel about female friendship. Set in Brooklyn, ground zero for maternal competitiveness.
3. “The Tenth Circle,” Jodi Picoult (Simon & Schuster). Teenage girl accuses a classmate of rape; he ends up dead. I saw the Lifetime movie and hated it. So naturally I want to read the book. (I’ve already read “My Sister’s Keeper.” Eh. I’ll wait for Netflix for the movie.)
4. “South of Broad,” Pat Conroy (Knopf Doubleday). A cast of Southern eccentrics in this “love letter” to Charleston. I figure everyone in the state will be talking about it anyway, so I might as well read it for myself.
5. “This Is Where I Leave You,” Jonathan Tropper (Penguin Group). A “riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind.” We’ll see.
6. “Mating Rituals of the North American WASP,” Lauren Lipton (Grand Central Publishing). A protagonist named Peggy, Tiffany rings and rich old aunts – has all the promise of a Plum Sykes novel. Why not?
7. “Things I’ve Been Silent About,” Azar Nafisi (Random House). Nafisi’s followup to “Reading Lolita in Tehran”; her personal story about growing up in Tehran.
8. “The Food of a Younger Land: A portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional – from the lost WPA files,” Mark Kurlansky (Penguin Group). From the best-selling author of “Salt” and “Cod.” No. I’m not kidding. Kurlansky writes food histories that read like narrative fiction. 
9. “A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table,” Molly Wizenberg (Simon & Schuster). A memoir from the author of the food blog Orangette.
10. “Losing Mum and Pup,” Christopher Buckley (Grand Central Publishing). I hear this memoir about the lives and deaths of William F. Buckley Jr. and his wife, Pat, is sad, but I love Buckley’s novels. The fiction he wrote for Atlantic (and continues to write on his Daily Beast blog) is hilarious. 
11. “Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach,” Meryl Gordon (Hougton Mifflin Harcourt). When the subjects of a juicy tell-all are hideously wealthy philanthropists and the last link to New York City’s Gilded Age, it feels less like celebrity gossip and more like literature.

What are you reading this summer?

 
Check out today’s other lists at Anna’s:

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