I associate the summer with lots and lots of reading. My sister and I used to haul around bags of books on our family vacations and I have such great memories of laying out on the deck in Nova Scotia reading a book with cheese sandwiches and Cokes close at hand. The best. 

Reading should be fun. Reading during the summer should be especially fun. With that said, here are two things to keep in mind. First: Don’t put aside the types of books you really want to read because you don’t see any of your friends reading them. Choosing the books you want to read should be a fun, personal experience. No one is grading you if you’re reading something that isn’t in the hands of everybody else. And second: You don’t have to continue reading anything that you aren’t enjoying. It took me years to get over this, but there is something really freeing about reading 20 pages of a book, rolling your eyes and tossing it in the corner. I mean, some books DO take time to get into, but don’t torture yourself. 

If you need a little push to get reading this summer, here are a few ideas that might help. Don’t feel like you have to follow this to the letter or even follow it at all. I think the best summer reading challenge of all is to read a book on the beach at some point during the summer. If you can do that at any point in the next several months, consider yourself lucky! 

• Read a book that takes place mostly in the summer and mostly at a beach.
• Read a book about a famous event that happened during the summer months. 
• Read a book about a disastrous or funny summer vacation. 
• Read a book that you intended to read as part of the 2013 Reading Challenge but you keep putting it off. 
• Read a book that intimidates you. 
• Read a book that you really want to read but haven’t yet because you’re embarrassed to be seen holding it on the train. (So to speak.)
• Read a well-hyped summer release. What the hell. Read a couple of them. 
• Go to your local library or bookstore and pick two or three books off the shelves (any shelves) based solely on their title and cover design. Don’t you dare take a peek at the back or the dust flaps. Just start them and see if they’re any good. 
• Ask several friends what book changed their life. Read those books. 
• Choose a summer theme and find books that relate to that theme. Some ideas: happiness, relaxation, travel, growing up, friendship, change, meditation, food. 
• Read some nonfiction already. A memoir doesn’t count (I see you over there eyeing Wild). Okay, I guess it counts. But seriously—nonfiction is wonderful and can be just as enjoyable as a novel (or more so) for relaxing reading time. Some of my favorite books are nonfiction! 
• Choose a book from the Washington Post’s summer reading list for high school students. 

I’ll be reviewing what I’m reading this summer here and I also update my Goodreads pretty often if you want to see my to-read list or anything.

I hope this has given you some good ideas! Enjoy!

Anything you’re looking forward to reading this summer?

What I’ve Read: Joyland by Stephen King 

Do you remember the first Stephen King you read? The first one I read was IT. Then Cujo. Then The Stand. I’ve read almost every one of his books since and I thought nothing would or could top The Stand. Until I read 11/22/63 last year and it blew me away. 

Joyland isn’t as good as 11/22/63, but it’s a different kind of Stephen King. It’s not a supernatural, violent, creepy book (which is how all people who haven’t read Stephen King think of his books). Joyland is about Devon Jones, a college student who accepts a summer job at a privately-owned theme park beside a North Carolina beach. Although the book is set in the 70’s and I’ve never worked at a beachside theme park, it still felt nostalgic for me in a way. There is something really magical about summertime during high school and college years and that spirit of adventure and discovery is captured really well in this book.

Of course, there’s still a murder mystery in the book, but it doesn’t consume the entire plot. In fact, I spent most of the first half of the book in suspense, waiting for something crazy to happen. (“Am I being lulled into relaxing right before everyone is going to die?!”) Joyland is really about this kid Devon and his coming-of-age and not solely about a murder mystery—and that speaks to the “old school” Stephen King flavor it has. The first time I read Stephen King was also the first time where the characters in a book were fleshed out so fully that they became awfully close to real people in my head. 11/22/63 felt like that for me again. Joyland was a sweet reminder that 11/22/63 wasn’t a one-off.

P.S. It’s not available on Kindle which is mildly annoying, but on the other hand, I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book while holding the actual book in my hands. That’s how I’ve read almost every Stephen King and it would have been a shame to break tradition I guess.  

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read: The Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore

My review of this book is completely influenced by the fact that I came to read it because I heard an interview on Fresh Air with the author Jennifer Gilmore. Had I read it before hearing the interview, I don’t know if I would have liked it. My impression of the story was colored entirely by having the additional story context that the interview provided. 

If you’re very spoiler-averse, you may want to stop reading since I do discuss some of the back story from the interview with the author. 

Anyway—Terry Gross interviewed Jennifer Gilmore on Fresh Air about this book, but here’s the thing: The Mothers, while it’s technically a “novel,” is fully based on Gilmore’s real life experiences trying to adopt a child with her husband. Many of the things that happen to the main characters in The Mothers are precisely what happened to Gilmore. In The Mothers, the main character’s husband is a native Spanish speaker. In real life, Gilmore is married to a native Spanish speaker. And so on and so forth. 

If I had picked up The Mothers with no background whatsoever, I probably would have noted how little like a novel it seemed. It reads very memoir-ish and that’s probably because, to a large degree, it is. Of course, that begs the question of why Gilmore didn’t just write a memoir about their adoption process, but I’m assuming it’s because it’s easier to write about family in a less than flattering way or discuss marital problems or talk about weighty emotional issues when you can put them off as things a “character” felt instead. 

All that aside: The Mothers is a well-written book. It’s very raw and emotional and Gilmore translated maternal desire onto the page in an authentic way. (I mean, obviously—considering it’s a memoir. I mean a novel. Whatever.) The portions about how the adoption process affected “Jesse and Ramon’s” relationship/marriage feel the most real. Gilmore writes about Jesse’s maternal yearnings poignantly, but the writing sometimes feels strangely disconnected. I can’t really describe it. Gilmore admitted during her NPR interview that she was experiencing some forgetfulness about how long and arduous their adoption journey was. She compared it to how women forget the pain of childbirth after the baby arrives. While she finished this book before her own adoption process was complete, that may be a hint as to the almost robotic tone the book occasionally takes. Maybe Gilmore had to take her own emotion and experiences out of the equation in order to get words on the page. I don’t feel like I’m describing this well, but if you read the book, perhaps you’ll understand what I’m trying to say.

I hesitate to recommend the book too broadly. I think you have two options: first, you can just jump in and read it and take it simply as another novel…but I don’t know how enjoyable it will be. Second, listen to the NPR interview and if it piques your curiosity, well, there you have it. Stick it on your reading list.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read: Friendkeeping by Julie Klam

I’ve yet to find a book that really gets its hands around the complexity of adult friendship, but Friendkeeping is a valiant effort. (It’s still better than the frustrating MWF Seeking BFF.) Klam goes the anecdotal route, discussing various aspects of friendship in a funny, memoir-ish way that doesn’t tie things up neatly into a bon mot, self-help tone at the end of each chapter. That’s fine—but the book seems to be marketed differently. The tagline/subtitle for example: A Field Guide to the People You Love, Hate, and Can’t Live Without. This really isn’t a field guide to anything except Klam’s personal friendship history. 

While not a great book, it was still an entertaining way to pass the time and some chapters were better than others. The section on online friendships was good and the latter chapters of the book—which deal with long-distance friendships—were especially poignant for me. (My best friend lives in Dubai.) 

One thing Klam does right is talk about how proximity is the best ingredient for maintaining an adult friendship. Without physical proximity, the lines of communication become less intimate and more intermittent. That’s why adults so often have the coworker friend or the gym friend or the book club friend or even the blog-turned-real-life friend. When you’re young, friendship is as simple as having a desk next to someone else in class, living a few houses down from a girl or boy your age or, later, getting close to your college roommate. Post-college friendships require more maintenance than any you’ve had before, but the irony is that there are more demands on your time than ever before too. Proximity helps that. Klam does a great job of explaining how hard it can be for her to maintain friendships when they’re not easily accessible for her. I think that’s something most people can relate to. 

If you’re stuck in a book rut, this is a good little palette cleanser. It’s not too long and it’s light-hearted (and occasionally funny). 

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read: The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber

If you like true crime nonfiction, you really can’t leave this book off your reading list. I had heard of Charles Cullen, the subject of this book, but didn’t know much. I only thought the name and case sounded familiar.

There have been several “Angel of Death” serial murder cases over the years. The term “angel of death” first appeared in well-known cases primarily involving female nurses that performed a sick form of euthanasia on elderly or terminal patients. Charles Cullen, on the other hand, was a serial killer in this same vein, but with a profile and MO that the FBI profiling unit did not readily recognize at the time. Cullen eventually admitted to killing 40 patients under his care, but the book notes that experts consider the figure may be well into the hundreds. If that’s the case, it would make him the most prolific serial killer in US history. 

So, needless to say, this book is disturbing. The brazenness with which Cullen skipped from hospital to hospital leaving a trail of obliviousness or vague suspicion in his wake is really astounding (and scary). He is described by most coworkers as a weird guy and a strange loner, but at the last hospital he works at (Somerset Medical Center) before his arrest, he becomes close friends with another nurse there. She eventually proves to be pivotal in law enforcement bringing charges against him. 

The first part of the book is focused on describing Cullen’s spotty employment history and fills in the blanks with his known victims where it can. Later, when the hospital begins to suspect that a nurse or doctor may be killing patients, the book moves away from Cullen and focuses more on the law enforcement side—a fascinating study in legal sidestepping and outright evasion from the hospital involved. (For example: Somerset Medical Center was equipped with a medication dispensing machine that tracked which nurses and doctors requested specific medications and time stamped each request. When detectives requested Cullen’s records from Somerset, they were told that records were only available for 30 days. Detectives later spoke to the machine manufacturers who were startled and told them that data was available indefinitely and they could just go in and access it right away.) There is an interesting interplay between the hospital administrators/legal representation, the police department and the Poison Control Center, who had originally advised the hospital that they had a major problem and it was a police matter. The hospital still waited several months before contacting police. The book mentions that families of the victims have since received civil settlements from the hospital. Insane.

After Cullen’s arrest in 2003, he was convicted and is now serving life in a maximum security prison in New Jersey. The book makes it clear that it was really only a series of coincidences that led to his arrest. Without these random puzzle pieces coming together, he may have gone on to even more unsuspecting hospitals. A crazy book, an unbelievable case. 

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read: Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington

I am a million light years behind on reading this. I had been on a library hold list for it for months and I nearly broke down and bought it—but no. I was invested in my hold list. I told myself to wait it out. Anyway. 

It was worth the wait. The book is so enjoyable to read. It’s witty, quick and written with a wry sense of humor and welcome doses of self-deprecation. Looking at her personal illustrations throughout is almost as fun as reading her words, but of course, the real highlight (or highlight reel) is a full-color photo collection of her best-known editorials in the appendix. Seeing these spreads, laid out one on top of another, is even more delightful after having read the background on many of them throughout the book.  

Like many memoirs, there is an abrupt shift in tone once the book transitions out of childhood. This is a constant source of frustration for me when reading memoirs. Grace’s chapters on her childhood and youth were particularly charming and well-written, but the emphasis on her personal life becomes more calculated and opaque the closer the timeline gets to the present-day. For example, she discusses Anna Wintour often and with an equal dose of respect and candidness, but once the book reaches the zenith of her professional career, the personal “memoir”-ish bits are relegated to a discussion on her favorite cats and her relationship with various designers or photographers. Definitely not unwelcome to read, but it is candid in a different way. To be frank, it was her personality and her obvious artistic genius that first captured the public attention in The September Issue. Her memoir gives us plenty of her personality and some descriptions of her at work or her preferences about work and fashion and the like, but it occasionally feels shallow. Or unfinished. Maybe she didn’t want to delve too deeply into what she does because what she does is incapable of being transformed into words. Or maybe she guards her privacy more carefully in the wake of her sudden fame and doesn’t want to delve too deeply into potentially sensitive or painful issues. Her objectiveness about these matters leaves her an enigmatic figure. She becomes someone that you feel you might know in the way you know a business acquaintance. You’re aware of the rough details of their life, but are closed off to the intimate feelings under the surface. At any rate, I closed the book with a good grasp of the breadth of Coddington’s talent, of highlights from an impressive and glamorous life and of her personality. 

For a summer/beach book, you can’t do better. It’s a fast read. I don’t think she had a ghost writer (and if she did, they were very good), and she admits more than once that she’s scarcely read two books in her life. It reads like the book of someone that doesn’t like to read. Meaning? It’s fast. It’s entertaining. She knows her audience as much of the latter half of the book is devoted to her experiences with or impressions of fashion photographers, editors, models and designers, etc. You can buy the book on Kindle, but after reading the hardback edition, I can vouch for how delightful it was to read on paper. I’m afraid an ebook version would remove some of the magic from the illustrations/color photos. 

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon

This is a substantial book in every possible way. The total number of pages are 962, but some of that includes the bibliography and index. The actual book portion clocks in at a dense 702 pages. The subject matter is impeccably researched (Solomon spent years interviewing hundreds of subjects). The chapters are labeled by spartan titles: Deaf, Dwarves, Autism. Solomon can write provocatively—the book is certainly not fully objective—but his tone is so measured and his points so succinct that I feel it would have been a lesser book without those observations.

It’s not an easy book to read and, frankly, it shouldn’t be. Discussing children and parenting is a minefield on the most innocuous of topics (breastfeeding, anyone?), but when you step into the world of autism or Down Syndrome or children born of a rape, there are layers of complexities and internal politics that most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Save for this book, of course.

This book challenged everything I felt I knew about parenting. My struggles seem trivial, stupid and privileged when compared to some of the heartwrenching and selfless chronicles of parents within the book. Keep in mind, though, that Solomon developed close enough relationships with his interview subjects that they spoke very candidly to him. Their accounts are not always heart-breaking because they are groomed for an Oprah-type, hope-filled interview. They are heart-breaking because they are honest. They are always tired, often bewildered and, in most cases, caught between a place of hopelessness and a place filled with unconditional love. As I read, I often caught myself thinking, “I don’t think I could do that.” How many of the interviewees in this book would have thought the same once upon a time? For the many parents interviewed in the book who have sacrificed everything for their children: their honesty and their determination is admirable beyond comparison.

On the other hand, there are some accounts of absolutely despicable abuse. It’s a theme that runs through nearly every chapter of the book: abuse, abuse, abuse. Abuse of the parent. Abuse of the child. Abuse of the wife or girlfriend or stranger. The chapter on rape was extraordinarily hard to read.

Blogging or reading other blogs or seeing bloggers on Instagram feeds a particularly unique and privileged view of a modern family lifestyle. It’s an insulated bubble of perfection—scarcely marred by divorce, let alone the topics covered within this book. I’ve read blog posts defending accusations of “perfection” by arguing that they want to only show what is positive and what is beautiful because that is uplifting. That’s fine. That is your prerogative. But do not forget that it is also a privilege. As I read over and over again in this book, there is the possibility of a fault line that could change everything in each of our lives.

So, please read this book. It may challenge or affirm everything you know about parenting. It will teach you something. Every page was an eye-opening, thought-provoking one for me. The words “identity” and “acceptance” and “love” took on new meaning. It should be required reading for anyone contemplating children or already expecting one. It’s a remarkable, substantial book. You won’t regret reading it.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

What I’ve Read:

I am so far behind with these. I hate combining multiple book reviews into one post, but if I don’t, I’ll never catch up. Here we go.

Lay the Favorite by Beth Raymer - I know next to nothing about gambling and especially little about sports gambling. Luckily, despite this book being all about gambling, my lack of knowledge didn’t matter much. After moving to Vegas and waiting tables, Raymer gets a job assisting a professional sports gambler and gets increasingly drawn into a shady, crazy, money-filled world that she pretends she’s still outside of. The best part of this book is not Raymer, though she’s the one telling it and most everything is happening to her. The supporting characters (especially Dinky, the first pro gambler she works for) are the reason I kept reading. I guess it’s recently been made into a pretty crappy movie (which I haven’t seen, obviously), but I can see why someone would have thought “movie!” upon reading this. It’s insane. I finished it and felt like I’d been on an all-night bender. In a good way. Great vacation book or beach read. 

One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea by Dana Becker - This book is utterly fascinating, but a warning: it’s dense. It can be witty and Becker clearly has opinions, but they can get lost in the muck of myriad studies and works cited. This hasn’t been turned into “nonfiction lite” for a casual reading audience. That’s not to say it’s not a valuable book to read. It is. Fact-driven and beyond thorough, it really challenged the way I think about “stress” and my use of the phrase, “I’m stressed.” It’s also made me take a closer look at what I consider “stress relief.” Becker challenges a lot of conventional thinking and years of commercialization of what’s basically an idea. The sections about how stress is viewed differently depending on someone’s economic or social conditions are particularly good. 

The Scientists by Marco Roth - Marco Roth, co-founder and editor of n+1 magazine, begins this memoir discussing his father’s slow decline from AIDS. It’s not a long book, but it is sharp and poignant. There is something really irresistible to me about memoirs that discuss how relationships and feelings toward parents change and grow. Describing the moments when a child realizes that parents are not impermeable, perfect beings can make for a really wonderful book—if done properly. This is a good one. 

Have you read any of these books? Any recommendations for me?

What I’ve Read: Vow: A Memoir of Marriage (and Other Affairs) by Wendy Plump

Personal memoirs are at their best when they are unflinchingly honest. Plump’s decision to write openly about her ex’s affair—the one that ended their marriage—and their respective numerous affairs that came before makes for an uncomfortable, revealing look at the slow unraveling of a relationship.

Are we meant to be monogamous? Plump asks this question over and over. Throughout the several affairs she had before she discovered that her husband had been seeing the same woman for years and had a 9-month-old child with her, Plump makes clear the blunt facts about how and why she did it. What she questions later in the book is why some people don’t. Her conclusion? “I think you either cheat or you don’t. It’s either hardwired in you or it isn’t. Infidelity may rest latent in you, but if you have that inclination, it will be difficult to resist. Or there will always be the question of it hanging, exhaustingly, in front of you.”

Plump’s unusual situation—having been both the cheater and the one cheated on—makes her uniquely qualified to discuss the consequences of infidelity from all sides. To speak to the honest tone she’s taken throughout the book, she doesn’t leave out the parts she enjoyed either. “The arms that wrapped around me at night or the face that hovered above me during sex or the man who waited in my driveway for a homecoming after South Carolina…”

I’ve no doubt that a person could read this book and dismiss it as an exotic tale—something so far outside the realm of their own life that they could never imagine themselves in Plump’s shoes, as either the one cheating or the one cheated upon. This book is not a warning shot across the bow so much as it is a reminder. A reminder to anyone in a long-term relationship or a marriage that betrayal does not always happen to someone else. It may not strike your relationship personally, but at some point in your life, you will feel the shockwaves. You’ll feel them as you comfort a friend or listen to a teary confession from a family member or learn a dark secret about a parent that you never expected to hear. We’re human, after all. We’re inclined to want more. “The grass is always greener” is maybe the truest description of human nature. So, do you cheat? Or don’t you?

Plump references often her boredom with the safety of her marriage as a reason for her infidelity. Later, after her husband has moved out, she contemplates safety in a new way.

“At those times [in the middle of the night] safe didn’t feel boring. Safe felt like a rescue. Safe felt like the most romantic, knight-on-a-horse, warrior-brandishing-a-sword existence possible. Not because I was insulated from trouble when in a couple, but because I was facing it with someone. […] This is not hindsight. It’s serious, keening, howl-at-the-moon regret over not recognizing the luck that surrounded both Bill and me. The sound of my husband sleeping. The cut and cottony smell of his T-shirts in the laundry. […] These are the details of married life. You could slay a dragon with them. What a pity that we missed the most salient point of union, that we fell prey to the most obvious stupidity—not knowing how good it all was.”

Plump’s affairs, which took place before her husband moved out, were complicated for her: fun, exciting, dangerous, scary, sad. But, she never felt the pull to, as she put it, “make the journey from Other Woman to Woman.” Why? “In my view, crushing, worrisome regret lies in wait for the single woman or the single man who has an affair with a married spouse, pulls the spouse away, and then marries him or her. As the new spouse, you would have to help justify the sacrifice of the first marriage on a too-often basis. If you or he or both don’t cheat again, you will end your days worrying that it’s about to happen. When you are betraying a spouse, one of the things you demonstrate most emphatically is how untrustworthy you are. Not much of a basis on which to hang a new marriage.”

I can’t say this book was an enjoyable read per se. It felt personal, gouging. It is emotionally raw and intensely well-written. It’s a book I won’t soon forget.

Have you read this book? What did you think?