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What Are You Reading? Summer Edition
Too much Twitter (help, I need an intervention). And my erudite book group turned me on to a writer’s writer, Denis Johnson. How about you?
Illustration by Ellen Frances Sanders
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I’m reading some good Canadian literature (The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy). I also watched a Jane Jacobs documentary last night, and now I’m thinking of reading the Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Do you switch easily between fiction and non-fiction?
Books 2 and 3 of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series
The Power of Meaning (Emily Esfahani Smith)
When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)
Currently reading August Wilson’s Fences, since I haven’t read a play in several years. And I have the last of the Ferrante series on deck, along with Bonnie Jo Campbell’s collection of short stories, American Salvage.
Add to that a few master’s theses (not necessarily fun reading!) and back issues of Fine Cooking, Saveur, and Culture.
Good luck with your Twitter–I’m working on limiting Facebook (and I periodically do fasts). So easy to get sucked into these things!
Nighttime reading is Ferrante’s book 3.
I’m finding myself drawn to non-fiction this summer for the first time in a long time. I just finished Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates), which should be required reading, and I am about to start The Givenness of Things (Marilynne Robinson).
Lauren–I love Marilyn Robinson. I’ve read Housekeeping and Home. Haven’t read all of her works (and none of her non-fiction).
Petra, I have heard nothing but good things! I can’t wait. 😉
We’re on the same page (so to speak).
I agree about Coates’ book. And Marilynn Robinson is a treasure.
“Since We Fell” by Dennis Lehane (excellent thriller); “Shattered” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Barnes (about the Clinton campaign); “Golden Hill” by Frances Spufford (terrific historical novel about mid-1700s Manhattan; “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven” by John Eliot Gardiner (wonderful piece of biography about my favorite composer).
I’m curious to hear what you think about Shattered.
It’s fascinating, Wendy, and not a little depressing. Basically, it’s a textbook on how to lose an election. And not just “Monday morning quarterbacking” — the errors in judgment along the way were appallingly obvious.
…and here we are.
When you say, “not a little depressing,” do you mean. It’s not depressing or really depressing?
Not a little depressing = a LOT depressing.
That makes sense.
I am nearly finished Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I read more than one book at a time but do a mix of fiction / non-fiction … reading Letters to Max Beerbohm by Siegfried Sassoon.
I bought & read the Ferrante novels … I so wanted to shake the heroine!
I have Marilyn Robinson’s books here … all wonderfully written if a trifle dispiriting.
What a great list.
Unfortunately law school killed my love of reading. I’m trying to read again now before bed to help me wind down. I am reading Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin – picked off my mom’s bookshelf. I read a bio on Peterkin and so I was interested in reading some of her work.
Twitter is the only social media I have and it’s such a time suck but I can’t look away!
Why did law school kill your love of reading?
We had to read an insane number of pages a day of court opinions. Didn’t leave time for any other reading. I guess just as much it took me out of the habit of reading for pleasure.
I hope you can get it back. Short stories, maybe?
Closing Time by Joseph Heller, the sequel to Catch-22. Just as outrageous as the first, and both are still (sadly, infuriatingly) timely. After that, either Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger, or Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein. Haven’t decided yet, but leaning toward Einstein, since National Geographic recently ran Genius.
So no beach reads for you?
No beaches in this neck of the woods (literally…the woods), so…
I wouldn’t survive on a beach anyway. I go from ghost to lobster in five minutes.
I’m not much for beach reads anyway.
All the Light We Cannot See. So beautiful!
I loved that book too. It’s a stunner.