Summer Reading Recommendations, Part 2
Earlier this week, I linked to several summer reading lists, and today, at the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend, I’ve got some more for you.
First up, Sara Nelson’s “13 Hottest Summer Reads” from the Daily Beast. Her list includes several books mentioned in previous lists, including the latest from Pat Conroy and Stieg Larsson. But it also includes several I haven’t seen anyone talking about, including The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich (Doubleday), about the founding of Facebook. Could a nerdy genius story be exciting? The book’s sub-subtitle, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, implies as much. Nelson, former editor in chief of Publisher’s Weekly and author of So Many Books, So Little Time, weights her list toward nonfiction.
The New York Times has a short piece on novels released in May, including Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (Scribner) and Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger (Riverhead Books). Says NYT: “if May’s books are any indication, the beaches of America will be dark and chilly this year.”
I couldn’t find any summer reading lists yet, but have to link here to a terrific video interview with Neil Gaiman from the Times of London. Gaiman’s perspective on writing is well worth a listen. The Times’ book page is always worth a look, too.
Hopefully my husband, father and brother aren’t reading today because if so, they’re about to hear what they’re getting for Father’s Day: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. Michael Agger’s review of the book at Slate convinced me. And given the trio I just mentioned will all be stripping and re-roofing our house this weekend, I think it’s particularly apt. I’m looking forward to reading this tribute to working with your hands, too.
And a movie recommendation for this holiday weekend: Adventureland. I don’t know if it’s still in theaters, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think it’s a well made movie, but for me, it’s hard to separate the nostalgia from the film. I spent the summer of 1984 working, along with hundreds of other college kids, in the Wisconsin Dells, an entire town that’s a lot like Adventureland. Like the movie’s protagonist, I was an academic success/social misfit who badly needed money. Memorial Day weekend kicked off the summer season, a summer that taught me a lot.