It officially feels like summer to me: I’ve been able to consistently bike to work, my skin tone is slowly but surely turning from ghostly translucence to a mild tan, and I’ve grilled at least twice this week. With a holiday weekend coming up in just a few weeks, I’ve been searching my bookcases and local bookstores for some goodies to stash in my suitcase that is headed up with me to the family cabin on Pine Lake. Here is my list. Now what’s yours?
Gryphon: New and Selected Stories by Charles Baxter (Pantheon Books, 2011): This book of short stories will be for those days on the dock, reading between jumps into the (OK, still somewhat cold) lake. I’ve already worked my way through a handful and found them rich (albeit, a bit lonely). A self-described “Midwestern writer in a postmodern age,” many of Baxter’s characters show twinges of teeming depths behind their reserved, Midwestern-esque facade.
The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller (Coffee House Press, 2012): If you haven’t already been able to deduce as much, I am in love with Coffee House Press. (This is a book that you will all find in another What We’re Reading post soon, FYI.) Adamine Bustamante is a woman fighting for her personal story. Born in a Jamaican leper colony, Bustamante has the gift of “warning,” but this gift is distorted as insanity when she moves to England. I’ve been giddily anticipating digging into this novel, and this will be my “meaty” book that I am most looking forward to.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Ballantine, 1973): This is because I firmly believe that summer is the perfect time to revisit a classic (as in, something that you’ve read so many times the spine is falling apart). And come on, who doesn’t love this book? Hazel introduced me to it when I was in elementary school. My immediate and steadfast love for the novel is obvious with my name written in a magenta gel pen in loopy elementary school handwriting branded on the first page. Buttercup and Westley’s undying love, their adventures through Guilder trying to find their way to each other, and the host of hilarious, rich characters, including the Sicilian con-man Vizzini (“In-con-theiv-able!” is still among my favorite parts in the movie adaptation), the kind giant Fezzik, the Spaniard Inigo who is out to avenge his father’s death, and many more.
What books will you spend the holiday, and/or summer digesting? Or, which books are you most looking forward to reading in the near future?
