Summer Reading List

I love summer. To me, it's the time when, freed at last from course syllabi and lists of required reading, I can sit back and relax with a cup of Darjeeling and a book of my own choosing. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and my mom would take me and my sister Brigid to the summer reading programs at the library, the same library where I worked throughout high school. Each week, we'd be entertained by the traveling Mashed Potato Players comedy shows or an exhibit of animals from the Jacksonville Zoo. We'd line up to have our reading logs stamped and collect our prizes for reading five books each week, a benchmark which I never failed to reach and often surpassed. I still have my collection of plastic clown bookmarks from one of those reading-filled summers.

This post is the second in a series about my Summer Reading Log for Grown-Ups. Since I last wrote, I finished

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. Don't waste your time on this one. I thought the book really had it going until the very end, where, between a gimmicky time travel scene and an irritating necessity on the part of the author to wrap up each and every loose end with a red ribbon, I became so disgusted I could barely finish.

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. If Revolution was the raw burger at a two-star diner, A Soldier of the Great War was dinner at La Cupole. This book was a delight from start to finish (thank you, Jacob, for the recommendation). The writing was descriptive and blessedly consistent; the story remained light in spite of the heavy subject matter (for more on lightness in literature, I recommend Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino); and most importantly, the book made me want to go to the places I had read about. I credit my vast experience with British literature as the inspiration for my trip to England last summer, and after finishing this book, I must go to Italy. I highly recommend this one.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. While not the best of his books, this one is sure to please old Rushdie fans. If you're new, hold off on this one and read The Moor's Last Sigh first. You'll know after that one whether you like him or not. This novel takes us to Renaissance Florence and the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. A mysterious Florentine traveler, revealed later to be none other than Niccolo Machiavelli, travels to India and explores many questions of power, passion, and human nature with the emperor. A good read, if you are a Rushdie fan.

Great by Sarah Benincasa. This beach read aimed at a young adult audience is a fun, if predictable, retelling of The Great Gatsby, this time with a lesbian twist. I bought this one on my Kindle after spotting it on a recommended reading list from the folks over at Book Riot.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I. Love. This. Book. A loaner from my friend, Jordan, White Teeth is one of the freshest novels I've read in a long time. First of all, Zadie Smith's writing is absolutely hilarious--it is very difficult for me to find a book that makes me laugh out loud, but this one did. Smith looks at British suburban life in the 80's through a lens that's slightly askew, and her novel is populated with characters as eccentric as the ones you'll find next door. Everyone should read this book; it should be required reading for high schoolers everywhere. It deals with so many questions of race, suicide, education, friendship, and literature in an honest, funny way that is very true to life. White Teeth examines how the stories we tell about our past shape who we are now, a fitting homage to the power of literature to create our worlds.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton. This one I finished just today; I read it on my Kindle after finding it on the same list as Great. This book is magical realism with a strong Gothic component. Though it's aimed at the YA audience, it resonates equally well with older readers, I think. It is the story of a family, a girl with wings, and the characters' journeys as they endure heartbreak and learn to love themselves. A fun summer read--I breezed through it in less than a day.

Until next time,

Anna

Put me in summer and I'll be a . . .

Greetings, fellow readers! I, like Olaf, am overjoyed that summer is finally here! The semester is over, final grades are in, and now it's time for me to dive into my summer reading stack. Here's a quick overview of what I've read so far this summer:

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. This account of a Victorian era prostitute's ascent through the social strata of London promised to be an excellent read, at least for the first couple hundred pages. The vocabulary is lush and descriptive and the writing so mesmerizing I found myself immersed in the book for hours at a time. However, the story bogged down after a while in the minutiae of the characters' inner lives. I realize that's precisely what a novel is supposed to be about, but all the characters except Sugar (the prostitute) and Emmeline Fox (who doesn't get a lot of narration time anyway) were thoroughly detestable. As anyone who's ever been to the movies with me will attest, I do not like whiny characters, and this novel, alas, was full of them.

Conclusion: A good book, but not one I'd leap out of my chair to recommend to a friend.

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. This one came to me last summer from an excellent recommender, but as the book is nearly 800 pages long, I had to wait until this summer to start it. It's the story of an Italian alpine veteran of World War One, and it reads a lot like A Farewell to Arms, only without the misogyny. The main character's reminiscences have a more Romantic bent as well, which I can appreciate. I'm about a quarter of the way through this delightful book--it's one I'll enjoy reading slowly.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. I read her first novel, A Northern Light, last summer at the recommendation of my friend Elli. It was ok, but Revolution is better. Perhaps that's because the plot centers around one of my most cherished dreams: a young girl finds a diary from the past hidden away and commences to solve the mystery of its origins and contents. In this case, protagonist Andi is a musician who travels to Paris to work on her senior thesis. The diary she discovers is from the time of the Revolution and the Terror, which just so happens to be the very period she is researching for her project. I just started the book yesterday, so the mystery is still in its early stages, but I am excited to know what happens.

Not a bad list for my first week back home! Stay tuned for more updates and reading adventures this summer.

Until next time,

Anna