2014 Summer Reading List

As of late, the posts have been all about baking. Time to fix that and so here it is, another summer reading list. The thing is, I've had a bit of a dry-spell, a reader's block (I swear, it's a real thing). There is no rhyme or reason to these choices, a mix of the books I have on my nightstand already and those in my GoodReads queue that stood out.

First, The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt. I very much enjoyed Possession and Angels and Insects, but the former is a dense terribly clever read while the latter is, well, you'd have to read it. The Matisse Stories are mercifully brief, less than 200 pages, three short stories about women, the book threaded together by references to the said artist.

The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell, awesome title, right? It's about a pig. It's Irish. If I end up loving it, the book is a part of The Pig Trilogy.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. The book is about Earnest Hemingway and his wife Hadley during the Paris years paling around with the Lost Generation posse. I know very little about Hemingway and A Farewell to Arms might be the only one of his books I actually read, an oversight, clearly. Though I usually gravitate to more wacky book choices rather than historical ones, this will be a nice change of pace (and I already have it, thought I cannot say with any certainty where I got it).

The Cuckoo's Calling by the writer that shall not be named. The Casual Vacancy was a little tough for me, the writing was excellent, of course, but the topics the book tackled were difficult at best (some pages still haunt me). I expect this will be very different still and I have been curious to read it for a while but never quite got to it.

Jasper Fforde never fails to deliver an alternate reality that makes perfect sense: why couldn't you jump into fiction? Of course color-spectrum-perception determines the social pecking order! His Dragonslayer series are not quite so far fetched, it's just about the shortage of magic. The Eye of Zoltar, the final Dragonslayer book just came out (at least on this side of the Atlantic), so naturally it makes the cut for my summer reading.





Here are book picks from the years past - what are you reading these days?

2013 Summer Reading
2012 Summer Reading
Winter List
Other picks worth a look

Beach Book Bag

I belong to the annoying tribe of people who feel the need to be productive. At the beach completing a book offers a sense of accomplishment, provided you choose your reading well. Beach reading cannot be too heavy  (I don't think this is the time to start Proust) but it cannot be blatantly trashy. Here is my list that got me through July in the city, a week of sandy beach and I expect will take me through to seaside girls weekend in September.  

You cannot go wrong with the tried and true authors. It is a shame Stella Gibbons is mainly known for Cold Comfort Farm because her books do not disappoint. Nightingale Woods is a clever Cinderella story set among 1930s gentry. Twenty-one year old widow Viola Withers is not terribly clever or sparkling, but you cannot help rooting for her. Read it! And let's hope more of Ms. Gibbon's books come back to print.

Fair warning - Brunelleschi's Dome is not strictly speaking a beach read, but you will learn a lot about Renaissance architecture. Ok, it is not a beach read at all, but it is short and feuds between capomaestros do spice things up and you really will up your ante on the construction of cathedrals earning your own esteem.

I will read anything Jasper Fforde will dish out.  This is my number #6 Thursday Next book. These books are chock full of wordplay, book jokes, and familiar characters from the classics. Did I mention it is set in book world where there is a feud between Racy Novel and Women's Fiction genres?

I am eagerly awaiting the last of Corfu trilogy by Gerald Durell. Durells are quirky, kooky, and you just want to be among those dropping in on them in their villa. There is mild Mother, bookish Lawrence, gun-toting Leslie, and perpetually obsessed with her looks Margo. The writer, Jerry at the time, is the youngest. What would it be like to spend your childhood collecting animals on the Greek Isles?

Sorcery & Cecelia is for the Austen-lovers. Two well brought up girls, one in London for the season, the other moored in the country, usual Regency fair.  Oh and there is magic, of course, nothing extreme, just some enchanted chocolate pots and charms. It is a silly little book and a good one at that.

I read Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle a few months back, but should have saved it for the summer! Though it would be just as perfect on a chilly fall evening. Sisters Cassandra and Rose grow up rambling in a ancient castle. They are bohemian and naive. And then Cotton brothers show up. Of course.

Remember Lemony Snicket? Yes, one in the same. Daniel Handler wrote several grown up books and I am yet to read them, certainly an oversight. Adverbs is a novel written in short stories. Can't wait!

Here is last year's Summer Reading list

Charming Little Book of Stories

Don't let the title fool you, "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" isn't just for holiday reading. Nor is it only for lovers of Stella Gibbons - only one of the stories actually features Starkadders of the "Cold Comfort Farm" fame.  It is a lovely little book, even it has never shot up to stardom.

The book's cleverness is reason enough to pick it up...

"She felt that if she had to spend another year of interesting, congenial work during the days, and sensitive, cultured, intelligent talk in the evenings, she would go mad or die"

...and its stories are reason enough to hang on to your copy after you have finished. Though written some eight decades ago, the book does not feel like a time capsule. One protagonist struggles to balance work she loves with family happiness - sound familiar? Bohemians and sensible people are forever at odds with each other. Characters  face their choices, pressing ones and reflecting on the path they have already taken. And stories are about capacity for change, not dramatic important change, but a quiet change impacting only the intimate circle of those involved. 

This book is a rare gem. "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" is easy to read on a morning commute or poolside but it also has depth and subtlety. It is easy to care for its flawed characters. Without delivering dramatically happy endings most stories are satisfying in the end.   But the book also catches one by surprise as if the stories are a lens to one's own choices. 

Can you tell I enjoyed it? This one will be a tough act to follow.

Summer Reading List

It is already mid-July and I am yet to post about summer reads! A perfect summer read is a tricky balance, nothing so raw that it haunts you for days. And nothing so frivolous that you feel slightly more stupid for having read it. Here is what's on my list this summer, a few tried and true authors from across the pond and a couple new ones.

Remember Gosford Park? Like Downton Abbey? Then give Julian Fellowes' novels a try. His novel Snobs is chock full of traditional snobbery but set in modern time. His second book, Past Imperfect, is patiently waiting on my nighttable for attention.

Alan Bennett is a master of taking a perfectly absurd situation and treating it as if it is quite normal. I enjoyed  The Clothes They Stood Up In (a middle aged affluent couple finds their stuffy home robbed down to the toilet paper roll) and loved Uncommon Reader (Her Royal Majesty takes up common hobby of reading). Best of all, his books are diminutive in size without giving up any depth. I am very much looking forward to stories in The Laying On of Hands.

I will read just about anything Jasper Fforde writes because it is a mad jumble of genres sprinkled with wordplay which all, somehow, work. If summer is long enough I will be reading either his Shades of Gray (NOT to be confused with the smutty one, this is about strange future society where social standing is determined by ability to perceive colors)...

or Fforde's Dragonslayer series about modern day society where over-regulated magic falls on hard times.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand was suggested and kindly loaned to me by a friend and I am nearly finished. The book is touching, it is about finding friends late in life when one who isn't foolish judges people for their essence. The author has succeeded in teaching this lesson as with every chapter one grows attached to characters often in spite of oneself.

I am not particularly proud of this one. But there is only so many times a girl can re-read P&P. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict is not going to win prizes for the quality of writing but it feeds the fleeting fantasy of falling through the Regency rabbit hole. Enjoy this one by the pool with a spritzy drink.

If you are headed to New England this summer, grab a copy of Olive Kitteridge on your way. The book of short stories set in a small Maine town are connected by a thread of Olive Kitteridge, at times abrasive but very human. Unlike frothy Jane Austen Addict, this is a more melancholy read suitable for the coast of Maine if not Miami Beach.

What are you reading this summer?