Ten Light Summer Reads for Hot, Lazy Days

Summer is coming, and in our house, that means compiling summer reading lists and making too-tall stacks of books on bedside tables. My wife and I are compulsive readers and library-book-sale haunters. We plan dates to bookstores. We both majored in English, in undergraduate and graduate school, and even met and fell in love over our mutual love of books. So when I say that we make summer reading lists, what I really mean is that we put our kids in bed, pour ourselves a nice cold beer, and stand in our living room talking over each other, pulling books off of our shelves. We frantically search for favorite passages and vow to read and reread nearly every book in our collection. This year is no different.

I have already decided to reread Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and my wife says she wants to reread Moby Dick. Of course, not all of our summer reading will be so heavy, nor should it be. Light reading fare is best for those hot, lazy days that make the brain tick at a slightly slower pace. So here, in the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts consisting of “Top Ten” summer reads in various categories, present some favorite literary (fiction) light reads, in no particular order:

1. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson.
Atkinson’s first novel won her a Whitbread Award in 1995 and she has since written a handful of other highly acclaimed novels. Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the story of Ruby Lennox, who narrates her life and the lives of her family members with a keen eye for both the hilarious and the heartbreaking. This novel is a true page-turner and laugh-out-loud sort of book, with some of the best surprises in plot that I have come across in recent years.

2. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera.
Milan Kundera is part novelist, part memoirist, part philosopher, part linguist, and all four parts converge in this beautifully written novel of loss, love, government, and memory. Kundera’s erudite observations on the failures of Communism are paired with the most basic and instinctual sexual desires, family relationships and the struggle to remember those who are gone are paired with absurd coincidences and mishaps. Kundera is absolutely a must-read author, and this quick, enjoyable, and deeply satisfying novel is a great place to start.

3. The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan.
I sat down to read this book one evening and didn’t put it down until 5 AM, when I finished it. Amy Tan is in top form in this story of two sisters who almost never seem to understand one another, or so our narrator assumes. The tightly woven narrative covers the lives of these two women from California to China, and the intense emotional drama, combined with the myriad twists in the plot, make for the sort of book one can manage to read in one sitting, oblivious to the demands of time (or sleep, or food).

4. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.
Many a man could benefit from reading this deft and witty novel, and many women would probably come to a better understanding of the results of hegemonic forces on men by reading this novel. The film adaptation of this novel, starring John Cusack and Jack Black, defninately did the novel justice, but many of the things that the film didn’t include, such as the fact that the novel actually takes place in England, are part of what makes it such a pleasurable read. It’s a light novel which can be finished in only a few days, but many of the themes linger with you for weeks simply because it’s such a great story.

5. Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo.
If you are looking for something completely different from the usual fare, Troll is for you. This novel is a contemporary fairy tale of sorts, but a little weirder and more sinister. The novel is told in a pastiche of sorts—scientific articles paired with legends, myths, journal-style entries, and the narrative of the text (all fictional) combine to tell the story of a man who rescues a troll and keeps it, for a time, as a sort of pet. The human qualities of this forest mammal are both charming and especially insightful. Before you know it, you will have devoured this quirky book, and might even brush a tear from your eye. It is a fun, unique, and impressive read.

6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Yes, I saw the movie, and yes, it’s a sad one. But this book is absolutely worth your time. It is one of the most well-written pieces of contemporary fiction I’ve come across—perfect descriptions, timing, dialogue, pacing. The love story evokes the same feelings you had the first time you understood Romeo and Juliet, and even though one might not consider tragedy when one is picking summer reading books, the journey to the end is what makes this book a perfect choice. Like High Fidelity, it is one of those books that succeeds in creating a world for the reader to become so completely absorbed in that the characters live with you for weeks when you are finished. If you are looking for a book to devour and live within for a couple of days, this is the book you want.

7. Sphere by Michael Crichton.
So, I am not always a Michael Crichton fan, and I am definitely not always a science fiction fan, but Sphere is an incredible read. It is Michael Crichton at his best. The suspense with which the story is rendered, especially the last hundred pages, is so believable that you forget the plot is centered around some American scientists investigating an “alien” space ship submerged in the ocean, which has apparently been there for hundreds years. I have read this book several times, and each time I absolutely could not put it down. The first time I read it, I was so absorbed that I distinctly remember walking to answer the doorbell with book in hand and opening the door, still reading, and asking whomever it was at the door to wait while I finished the paragraph. This book is a reader’s book, a book for people who love the experience of reading or who love a great story.

8. The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A. S. Byatt.
A. S. Byatt is one of my favorite writers, and I debated whether I should put Possession here instead. But I love The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye because it reminds me of cuddling up next to my parents or one of my aunts or uncles to hear a bedtime story. The subtitle to the book is “Five Fairy Stories.” Byatt weaves together five fairy tales that somehow manage to be for adults but also maintain the same wonder and magic that fairy tales had when you were a kid. There is something about reading stories that take pleasure in their existence as stories, and the simplicity of these tales is their most affective quality. What better summer reading than a chance to be lost in a make-believe land like the ones we used to create with our friends on long summer evenings when we played pirate ship or world explorers or kings and knights?

9. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
This is the sort of book you can read in an afternoon and are so refreshed afterward that you wish you would have made it last longer so you could savor the treat. The book is a series of vignettes in a sort of slice-of-life coming-of-age tale of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. She is poor, she is smart, she is talented, and though it seems like a familiar story, Cisneros renders it vividly and with an eye for delicious details. Anyone from any background will relate with Esperanza, the heroine, because Cisneros does not write so much about her specific circumstances as she does about her human-ness. It is a funny, heartfelt reminder of the ways we are all connected.

10. My Ántonia by Willa Cather.
There are dozens and dozens of books about the pioneers who settled the American West but Willa Cather is the voice I think of most. My Ántonia evokes the scenery of the plains, the harshness of the winter, the bleakness of the fields and fields of cropland separating neighbor from neighbor. This serves as a backdrop to one man’s unrequited love for an immigrant girl. We are often taught to think of the settling of the West as a great American triumph; Cather illustrates the hardships and realities of the pioneers’ quest while also telling a damn fine story.