IN THE WINTER, it’s all about the nightstand: That’s where my teetering, tottering pile of reading material and wishful thinking resides most of the year. (Where I live, winter IS five months long, and that pile is tall.) But now, as the sun finally shines more hours than not, and the end of school approaches, and with that transition, the prospect of lazy afternoons spent–dare I dream?– reading, begins to tantalize.
The classic take on the beach read is that it’s un-put-downable but maybe, just maybe, a little trashy. Nothing wrong with that. But I have friends who insist that beaches are the place to read poetry, or the classics you missed the first time, or are dying to reread. I am a sucker for great non-fiction, so I often find myself toting around a biography or three, or maybe a wonderful collection of letters.
Here at TSP, we’ve already given you loads of suggestions: non-fiction that makes us sit up straight, classics of sisterly-lit you shouldn’t miss, new books that we hope you’ll read and discuss with YOUR sisters. I’ll be adding more picks to those lists over the coming weeks, some old, some new, many definitely borrowed (from the public library, natch.) But in the meantime, tell us: What’s your must-read book of the summer?
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Precisely because I can never make up my mind when faced with the choices you describe (nonfiction? fiction? poetry? biography? escape?) and always want it all and hardly ever know on what degree of immersion the season or weather will permit, my choice is always old New Yorker magazines. They travel light and age well, qualities to which I can aspire, too.
Petra,
There is nothing better than going to someone’s house for a weekend and discovering a stack of old New Yorkers–the older the better, when they had those three-part series on soybeans. They are truly the books you’d never buy or take out of the library but you eat up the stories when they are in The New Yorker.
Elechi Amadi’s “The Concubine”, Chinua Achebe’s “Anthills of the Savannah”, and some paperback mysteries…
I have to throw in a plug for this series which I picked up in Tokyo. Manga for foodies! Who knew? Diverting, quirky and fun!
http://www.amazon.com/Oishinbo-1-kariya-Tetsu/dp/1421521393
Nicie–How cool is that? I recently took the River to NYC and we visited the store Forbidden Planet, where we picked up loads of cool manga thanks to a very helpful and enthusiastic salesperson who really knew her stuff–but we hadn’t seen this one. Can’t wait to check it out. My current manga pick is Solanin.
I”m also gearing up for Vicki Forman’s “This Lovely Life,” which from all accounts, is a tremendous account of a mother’s suffering and survival. It’s just out.
http://www.thislovelylife.com/