What I Read This Summer
This year’s back to school probably looks different where you are. It sure does here in Chicago. The neighbors with elementary school-aged children invested in desks and rearranged living areas to create virtual learning centers. And life goes on differently.
And not so differently too. These kids are getting back into the swing of their classroom with essays about what they read this summer. For years and years, teachers have assigned this task, equal parts ice breaker and progress assessment. Being reminded of these kinds of book reports made me a little (okay, a lot) nostalgic for my own school days when I would show off a bit after a summer spent checking out books from the library.
Some people express to me they aren’t able to concentrate and read these days. Others say that disappearing into books is all they do to escape the dystopian aspect of life that accompanies 2020 like a parasite, a particularly nasty one that seems to deplete our joy along with our energy.
For those who only want to read, and also for those who find it impossible, I’m offering up my own Summer Reading summary. Fodder for the voracious, and hopefully a little temptation for those who need coaxing back to the page.
Books I Spent the Most Time With
Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar
At the start of this darkly atmospheric literary thriller, the reader doesn’t know exactly what has derailed Kate’s career as a journalist, only that something did happen and it was big enough to make her an outcast in her circles and force her into exile at her aunt’s and uncle’s home in California. There, she takes a job helping the recently divorced Theo catalogue his artist mother’s personal collection of letters and documents. A sullen divorcé, his unhappy childhood, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his mother’s suicide could add up to a compelling but straightforward mystery. However, Sligar creates complex characters in Kate, revealing her past mistakes as she struggles with mental illness, in the abrupt Theo who is also a devoted father, and in Miranda, his famous photographer mother, and from them, begins to explore themes such as what it means to be an artist, how an imbalance of fame might take a toll on a marriage, domestic violence, balancing motherhood with an artistic calling, and women dealing with sexism at every step of their careers. The book is layered and, as a result, rich, so rich I read it twice.
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
I follow the Chicago author Mikki Kendall on Twitter, and when her book was released earlier this year, I approached her about doing a program for the Friends of our branch library. She agreed and I immediately dug into her collection of essays that add up to a call for change in the largely white women’s movement that has tended to focus on issues that are not the bread and butter issues of black women and families. Mikki writes with such clarity as she offers the practical reminder to white feminists that by homing in on kitchen table issues of housing, healthcare, and hunger, we might lift all women into a world of increased opportunity and true equity. “True equity starts with assuring that everyone has access to the most basic of needs.” To reach this place of true equity, Mikki continues, white feminists must face some uncomfortable truths, namely "the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others.... White women can oppress women of color, straight women can oppress lesbian women, cis women can oppress trans women, and so on." This is a book that you will pick up, read a chapter, and then contemplate that chapter while on a long walk or during a quiet moment. Kendall’s perfectly reasoned arguments for change simply won’t let you go.
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
If you followed me over here from the Food and Fiction blog, you’ll know how much I love to bake bread. I’ve been baking and experimenting at home for years, I took a bread course with the inspiring Richard Bertinet, and I even carried my beloved sourdough starter over to Switzerland after drying it and flaking it into small chips that would later be reconstituted. For those who are knowing me for the first time, there’s your introduction to the bread nut in me. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about the trend of no-knead bread baking in enameled cast iron casseroles, but I am now a convert. Forkish is an artisan baker based in Portland, Oregon, and in this book, he has scaled his popular recipes for the home baker. You’ll find yourself fascinated by his techniques and the explanations of why methods work. The baker’s percentages, water absorption, levains, different types of flour, and dough temperature may sound too technical to capture the attention, but Forkish is so passionate about what he produces that the book copy is highly readable and enjoyable. His Pain de Campagne is my weekly go-to levain loaf, and the Same Day Straight Pizza Day is now the mainstay of Friday pizza night.
Mysteries and Armchair Traveling
Mysteries are my guilty pleasure and also the type of book I turn to when I’m writing my own novels. Maybe because I’ve been housebound for months, these ones with a deep exploration of human relationships and strong sense of place were my favorites this summer.
American by Day by Derek B. Miller
Policewoman Sigrid Odegard travels from Norway to upstate New York to look for her brother, who has dropped off the radar and may be involved in a murder. In between the action, fish-out-of-water Sigrid ponders the differences between a heavily armed US police force and her own more restrained force in Norway where a recent encounter with a hostage taker forced a shooting that continues to haunt her.
Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones
The one person who should take on federal immigration police intent on rousting immigrants from their hardworking neighborhood in a rebuilding Detroit is a former cop who has no fucks left to give. Half-Black, half-Mexican August Snow is fiercely proud of his city and protective of the people who chose to live there to make a new life in the US.
Trace Elements and Unto Us a Son is Given, the two most recent Commissario Brunetti mysteries by American author living in Venice, Donna Leon
The guiltiest pleasure of all guilty pleasures are these taut, brooding mysteries featuring the moral and philosophical policeman, Guido Brunetti. I’ve read every last one in her series and never tire of the time spent with the characters or, through them, wandering the calle and canals of Venice. Sometimes I read them with a map handy, trying to recall my own walks through this beautiful place.
In the “To Be Read” Pile
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
I snagged a signed copy from Women and Children First bookstore last fall but spent the fall and winter working on editing my most recent novel. This winter, though, this book and I have a date with the corner of the sofa, a fluffy warm blanket, and lots of peppermint tea.
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk
Shortly after the Polish author Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in 2019, I listened to a radio interview with her English translator. I talked about the interview with my son, who, it turned out, had read a couple of her books for a college class. He gifted me with this short story collection a couple of months later at Christmas. Another one I’ve been saving for a time when I’m not in my own characters’ worlds.
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
I hear wonderful things about this latest from author Lily King. “It’s honest, romantic, funny, acerbic.” Based on all the reviews, I have a copy, however I have been hesitant to pick it up. Why? King’s protagonist, Casey, is an aspiring writer facing all the obstacles that aspiring writers face – struggle for recognition, no pay, condescension, misogyny – and maybe that hits too close to home. Wait, no “maybe” about it. I’ll crack the spine soon, but not yet.
What did you read this summer? What are you reading now? What’s in your to be read pile? What might be a difficult subject for you to read?