This is the time of year when msot publications print their book lists. I always find these very stressful because there are usually 20, 25, or in this case, 50 books you should read over the summer. I am a very prolific reader and, as a teacher, I am not even working over the summer, but there is no way, I can read 50 books. If you manage to read the 50 recommended by the Post, I will send you a copy of Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, The Ten Year Nap (to be reviewed next week), as your 51st.
Intimidation by the sheer numbers aside, over the next few weeks, I will try and keep up with the links to summer reading suggestions so you can choose a few texts t accompany you on your holidays.
Here is the link for the Post’s 50 Books To See You Through The Summer.
There was also a great collection compiled by Jesse Kinos-Goodin on page 4 of The Weekend Post of well-known authors and book lovers and the one book that "changed their lives, that they’ve read a dozen times without ever getting old."
Here’s a summary ( I have asterisked the ones I have read):
Gail Bowen – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Simon Armitage translation)
Kevin Newman – Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield)
Abigail Carter – The Egg and I (Betty MacDonald)
Augusten Burroughs – Midaq Alley (Naghib Mahfouz) *
Mary Swan – The Pumpkin Eater (Penelope Mortimer)
Andrew Westoll – Fugitive Pieces (Anne Michaels)*
Todd Babiak – The Great Gatsby (F.Scott Fitzgerald)*
Reva Seth – How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (Nigella Lawson)
Mark Kingwell – Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis)
Shelagh Rogers – No Great Mischief (Alistair MacLeod)*
John Moffat – Space, Time and Gravitation" An Outline of the General Relativity Theory
(Sir Arthur Eddington)
Anne Simpson – D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths (Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire)
Christopher Shulgan – Lenin’s Tomb (David Remnick)
Kildare Dobbs – What is Life? (Erwin Schrodinger)
Ibi Kaslik – The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) *
Bob Rae – Homage to Catalonia (Michael Knight)
Taras Grescoe – Dispatches (Michael Herr)
I’d love to read some reviews if you have read any of these. Feel free to add your own summer reading recommendations.
Happy Reading!