The Glories of Summer Reading

Summer is upon us. Surely as the sun will rise earlier in the East and set later in the West, taking some time to paint us a darker color and make us feel like we’re going to die of exposure, we will see many lists of people’s favorite “Beach Read” novels. The rule of thumb here is to go read a breezy entertainment that’s just on the verge (but not over the border) of insulting your intelligence. In earlier years, I never really understood this. If you have lots of time to read, shouldn’t that be the time to devote to reading books that take more effort? Most of the reading I’ve done that involved challenging myself happened over the summer. I certainly would not have been able to get through David Foster Wallace’s amply-endnoted tome Infinite Jest or Don DeLillo’s summation of the Cold War Underworld, were it not for the extra time summer vacations afforded me to read.

This summer, I began to understand the appeal. Sitting on a couch in Duck, North Carolina, while swamp and forest fires from miles away made the air outside smell like the inside of a Barbecue Pit, I found myself racing through book after book and loving the breezy easy-going journeys through the literature. So here is my list of books that make for great, memorable, and totally fun reading. I do not believe that one need sacrifice quality for entertainment or readability; I believe that each of the works below make for great reading that’s pure pleasure without the guilt.

CASE HISTORIES by Kate Atkinson:

When I was in college, I had a girlfriend who absolutely swooned over Kate Atkinson’s debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I picked it up and just couldn’t get into it, but after reading Case Histories, it may be time to go back and reevaluate. Atkinson is amongst the most charming writers I’ve read, but in a way that feels warm and genuine as opposed to forced and pandering. In Case Histories, she brings her considerable wit and grace to bear on the detective novel, weaving together three cold cases (a kidnapped three-year-old, a woman who murdered her husband and subsequently vanished, and the unsolved killing of an 18-year-old girl) that need solving by ex-policeman-turned-private-eye Jackson Brodie. Atkinson creates a whole cast of memorable characters, living and dead, and the breeziness of her style masks the darkness and depth to be found in this novel of loss, discovery, and how our histories inexorably shape our present selves.

WARLOCK by Oakley Hall:

If I can find any opportunity to get people to read the late Oakley Hall’s brilliant Warlock, I will. Hall’s 1958 Pulitzer nominee had all but lapsed into obscurity before the New York Review of Books republished it in a handsome edition, featuring an introduction by Robert Stone and a lengthy blurb from Thomas Pinchon on the back. I think it’s the Great American Novel, and even if you don’t, it’s still worth checking out Hall’s mid-1950s neo-Dickensian approach to the American Western. Although it begins as a standard Western lightly based (or perhaps steeped) in the legends of Tombstone, Arizona, Hall gradually spins an epic, compulsively readable tale about power, morality, the law, and the promise of America. It takes place in the mining town of Warlock, which, owing to its unincorporated status, has no legal system. When a group of cattle rustlers outlives their usefulness to the town elders, they bring in Clay Blaisdell to be the long arm of the law. Complications ensue, not just from Blaisdell’s finely-tuned code of ethics, but also from his sociopathic best friend Tom Morgan, who moves to town and opens a saloon. The plot is filled with twists and turns that are inevitable and unexpected all at the same time, and the prose – which Hall slightly alters for each character – will make you swoon. Now that the (Neo)Western has become very popular, thanks to Cormac McCarthy, the Coens, and Paul Thomas Anderson, this brilliant work deserves to be rediscovered.

AS SHE CLIMBED ACROSS THE TABLE by Jonathan Lethem:

Jonathan Lethem’s genre-colliding novel is many things, in its scant 190 pages. It’s a male confessional a la High Fidelity, a satire of academia, a work of speculative fiction, a romantic comedy, and a moving tale of obsessive love. Philip Engstrand is a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies (don’t ask) living happily with his theoretical physicist girlfriend, when suddenly she leaves him for nothing. Or rather, a Nothing named “Lack” – a bizarre void that she has created in the lab and that she believes has a personality. As She Climbed is the perfect vacation book – I read it in one sitting in a Bed & Breakfast in Vermont, and it made for an ideal rainy Saturday afternoon. The tonal modulation that occurs during the journey of the novel is remarkable, and it has the best final line I’ve ever read.

SCOTT PILGRIM by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s slacker take on Manga has gotten a lot of press lately, now that the series is being made into a movie directed by Edgar “Hot Fuzz” Wright and starring Michael Cera. It is worth checking out on its own terms, before the film rolls around. Scott Pilgrim lives in Canada, sponges off his gay roommate Walace Wells, plays in a mediocre band called Sex Bob-Omb, and dates an obsessive high schooler named Knives Chau. When he meets Ramona Flowers, he thinks she just might be the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately for him, he must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to become her number one man. What starts out as a hilarious take on being a 20-something ne’er-do-well chockablock with vintage Nintendo jokes, DIY music making projects and recipes for vegan chow gradually evolves into a heartfelt tale about growing up and learning how to be a man.

OUR MAN IN HAVANA by Graham Greene

When I worked at my local bookstore, I was continually shocked at how few people had read Graham Greene, given that he’s widely regarded as one of the lions of Twentieth Century literature. I think it’s safe to say there’s a whole host of writers whose work is unimaginable without Greene’s influence. If you’ve never read him, Our Man in Havana is a wonderful place to start, especially in the summer. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner dealer based out of Cuba, needs money to help finance his daughter’s emergence into teenagerdom. So he agrees to become a spy for the British secret service, except instead of doing any actual spying, he just bases his reports on random acquaintances and vacuum cleaner schematics. All seems to be going swimmingly, until his reports start coming true. Once you get past the book’s casual colonialist racism, Our Man In Havana’s humor and suspense are only matched by its prescience in anticipating not only the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the kind of faulty intelligence that lead to the fiasco in Iraq.

These are just six books that will see you through your vacation with style, grace, and aplomb. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Isaac Butler is a theatre director and writer based out of Brooklyn, New York. Check out his blog, Parabasis!