Farewell, summer reading!
classics, mysteries & gritty winter westerns in the ungodly heat
My kids go back to school tomorrow. Our collective days of lolling around the house are at an end. What better time for summer reading highlights?
Like any former-homeschooling, semi-militant literary mother, each summer I impose a classic onto my children’s mornings and we take turns reading aloud. It needs to be a book that will hold the attention of both an 8-year-old and her much older teen sisters, which is surprisingly easier than it sounds. (In previous years, we’ve succeeded with My Antonia and The View From Saturday. Though The Haunting of Hill House proved too frightening for our youngest audience member.)
This year we went with Watership Down by Richard Adams. Who knew rabbit culture could be so compelling? Because of vacation and camp interruptions, we actually didn’t finish in time, but we’ve reached the crux of the story and the girls are eager to gather weekend mornings until we see it through.
I also like to gleefully impose a classic on myself every summer. This season, it was The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. How had I never read James?? He seems to have fallen out of fashion when I was coming up as an English major. But Isabel Archer is a compelling protagonist ahead of her time and the book had a twist I most certainly did not see coming. James does female interiority masterfully. Afterward, wanting to talk about it, I found a great conversation on The Great American Novel podcast.
Speaking of twists, I indulged in a current best-selling summer hit on audio to keep me company on a long drive: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. A girl at a sleepaway camp goes missing. In the same woods where her brother disappeared a decade earlier! It’s a multiple POV upmarket1 mystery set in 1975 and I was here for it. A literal page turner. I kept volunteering for errands just to be alone in the car to keep it playing.
Last and IMO best of all—the book I’m stark-raving-mad about: Kevin Barry’s The Heart in Winter. Tom and Polly are lovers on the run from trouble of their own making in 1891 Butte, MT. What I loved most was how Tom was such an anti-hero. A dope fiend/poet/dreamer. Unsuited for the mine work that brought his fellow Irishmen to the territory. He's inept at many things, including facing the wild country and its challenges. Polly recognizes this but like her, the reader loves him anyway.
I actually listened to this the first time through (you can’t do better than Barry’s Irish accent expertly reading his prose) and then bought the hardback and immediately read it again. It’s dark and gritty (with a great deal of profanity, which he talks about here), and wonderfully compelling. And so, so funny.
What did you read this summer that you're eager to gush about? Reply or comment! I’d love to hear.
Cheers,
Lacy
I recently learned the definition of upmarket fiction from an enlightening post by
. Now I can’t unsee it. Book positioning makes so much more sense now!
I'd recommend all my latest summer reads 😊 Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson; Jeeves and the King of Clubs, and Jeeves and the Leap of Faith by Ben Schott; Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa; and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson.
I adore James, have 8 shelves of vintage editions plus most of the fiction pbk + biographies + criticism. I discovered Washington Square in JHS and fell in love. And the Shirley Jackson is brilliant--my students loved it both in creative writing and mystery classes.