I don't know what makes summer reading different from reading any other time of year. I'm not sitting on a beach, or lying in a hammock or even curled up on a sofa leisurely making my way through books. I pretty much always read books (as opposed to newspapers and websites) at the end of the day, lying down in bed, no matter what the season. Nor have I been devouring "beach reads" or particularly trashy novels - my choices are just as eclectic as usual.Nonetheless, there is still a different feel to reading in the summer and if anyone has any insights into this phenomenon, please let me know.
Among recent reads: "You Know When The Men Are Gone" by Siobhan Fallon, a series of short stories about American soldiers and their families, based in Fort Hood, Texas; "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett, a novel that follows the quest of a woman to track down a posssibly crazy rogue scientist in the Amazon (a kind of modern day "Heart of Darkness"); "A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard, the memoir about her 18 years of being held hostage (I had to read this after reading "Room," a fictional depiction based on the same idea) and "Say Her Name," by Francisco Goldman, an elegant and moving memoir about the life and death of his young wife, the writer Aura Estrada. Currently, I am reading "Who's Body?" an old Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel by Dorothy Sayers which I somehow missed decades ago when I was devouring everything Sayers had written.
Maybe it's the complete lack of connection and serendipity of these choices, but whatever it is, I've been particularly enjoying the literary ride over the last month.
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