Suicide Bookshelf: Summer Reading (Had me a Blast)

People are always saying "I don't read books." Too often, the problem is reading too many of the wrong books, thus turning a potentially great experience into something they'd rather avoid. This is where _DictionaryGirl_ and PointBlank come in and let you borrow something awesome. Let's go to town and make some recommendations, shall we?

Memorial Day is the official unofficial start of summer. That means it’s also the beginning of hot dog season and the start of Summer Reading time. It seems, however, that we apologize too much for what we read during these hot months. “Oh, this Danielle Steel? No, it’s not great. It’s just a summer read.” Why do we do this? Is winter the only time you can curl up with Dostoevsky? Is summer exclusively the realm of Clancy, King, and Hiassen?

Probably not. But I do think there are a few qualities that a book should have to be considered a Great Summer Read.

First of all, it has to be exciting and gripping enough for you to want to read it instead of taking a dip, or eating another burger. If action is what you seek, check out Neil Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon if you haven’t already. The story manages to combine code-breaking during World War II, treasure hunting in the Philippines, the invention of the digital computer, international finance and half a dozen other things, but the plot moves at at such a breakneck pace that you never feel weighed down with all that information. You just want to find out what happens next .

At over 1,100 pages, you might just have a read that will take you until Labor Day, but don’t be surprised if you’re finished after the first rainy day.

If you’re done early, why not try another tale of international intrigue, revenge and deception? Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo has been a perfect summer book for over a century. The basic story of Edmund Dantes: the innocent man arrested and thrown in prison, his love stolen from him, and his subsequent escape and revenge is familiar to everyone, but the book has so much more. Like Cryptonomicon, it is long, but also exciting enough to keep you hooked.

Another rule that a summer book should follow is that you should be able to put it down once in a while. Despite what all the cool kids say, life’s not all about reading your summer away. I like to pick up a collection of short stories every summer. I don’t read them very fast, but there are few things better than spending the summer with a great story teller. The Stories of John Cheever should be required reading for anyone interested in what the modern short story can do. Winner of both the Pulitzer and the National Book award when it was published in 1979, this collection contains all the stories that Cheever published during his life. Mostly set during the post-war years in the tonier parts of the Northeast, it is essential summer reading if only for The Swimmer, the story of a man who decides to swim home, pool by pool, from one end of his suburban town to the other.

But maybe you like your stories a little less blue-blooded and WASP-y? How about the world of down-and-out Scotland? James Kelman is famous in America for, if anything, his Booker Prize-winning novel How Late it Was, How Late and the controversy that surrounded its selection. He is also a fantastic short story writer, and his collection Busted Scotch is one of the best of the last dozen years. Some of it might seem too grim for summer, but it’ll definitely make you appreciate the warmth a bit more.

My last requirement for summer reading is a bit less concrete, but maybe just as important. I like to find something new in summer. Whether that means finding a new writer, like Kelman, or discovering the fun in 19th Century French potboilers, like Cristo, I don’t really care. I just think the summer is time for discovery. What better way than picking up some non-fiction and learning something new? Nick Tosches’ Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ‘N’ Roll has everything: drinking, drugging, and some of the weirdest and wildest musicians of all time. Rescuing the music from the likes of Billy Ray Cyrus and Shania Twain, this is the real story of real country music. Oh, and Tosches is one hell of a badass writer. Imagine a history-loving Hunter S. Thompson and you might get an idea of what his writing is like.

Ok, so maybe Country music isn’t your thing. Maybe chess is more your bag (nerd!)? JC Hallman’s The Chess Artist is both a history of the great game, as well as a gripping story of the author’s immersion into some of the fringes of the chess world, including a trip autocratic Soviet republic ruled by a dictator who is also the head of FIDE, games played by death-row inmates, and the chess hustlers in New York’s Washington Square park.

So, there are a few books to keep you reading all summer long. Of course it’s a small list, and you can’t go wrong by picking up something by Elmore Leonard, one of John D. Macdonald’ Travis McGee novels, or a good Heinlein space opera. Why not tell me what you’re excited to pick up this summer? Oh, and don’t forget a good pair of sunglasses. Your eyes are important!

RIP, Lloyd Alexander
On a less summery note, I’d like to say a big thank-you to Lloyd Alexander, who died almost two weeks ago. Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain was one of those discoveries I made as a child that made me want to read and write for the rest of my life. He was 83.