Summer Reading

It’s that time of year in New England when the daylight lasts until almost bedtime, and my local friends begin disappearing for weeks at a time to the beach. Although summer schedules mean we may not see each other in person as often as usual, one way we stay connected is through our reading. Someone is always looking to find their next great read or share their latest favorite!

Julia and I have assembled a short list of summer reading recommendations. These are mostly new-ish books, but not brand new. Many of them are available now in paperback, and if you haven’t read them yet, give them a try and let us know what you think.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Ziven and published last summer, chronicles the vast and tumultuous friendship between main characters Sadie and Sam. The two meet as preteens under unusual circumstances and bond over video games until a rift quashes their relationship. When they meet up again in college, their connection rekindles and they embark on an enterprise to create their own innovative and smash-hit video games that seem to rise to the level of art. Even if you have no interest in video games (I don’t), this story holds your attention and leaves you with an appreciation not only for their friendship, but their art as well.

Spare by Prince Harry is a book that I would never have bothered with had I not learned from this New Yorker article that J.R. Moehringer was the ghostwriter behind the tome. I loved his own memoir, The Tender Bar (and the movie version directed by George Clooney, starring Ben Affleck and Tye Sheridan), as well as Sutton, his biography of notorious bank robber Wille Sutton. I’ll read anything Moehringer writes, and Prince Harry’s story captivated me from the get-go in typical Moehringer style. If you hate long books, royals or already know most of the facts from the public domain, you could skip the book. But then you’d miss out on Moehringer’s magic touch, and I did appreciate Harry’s own rare perspective as the unfavored and paparazzi-harangued young prince.

The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly by Katherine A. Sherbrooke is next on my reading list, and it comes highly recommended by friends. The themes of friendship, fame and family combine with 1940s Hollywood glamour, relationships, motherhood and all the decision-making and drama inherent within them.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger immerses the reader in the vivid scenery of the Gilead River in rural Minnesota, following four orphans as they attempt their escape from an oppressive school during the Great Depression. What starts as a quest for survival leads to an odyssey in which the protagonists learn about inequality, identity and the many ways we can define family.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks commingles fact with fiction to tell the story of Lexington, the greatest racehorse that ever lived, and also to share the largely ignored history of the critical role back jockeys and trainers played in the early days of the thoroughbred horseracing industry. While Lexington is a key figure in the novel, the story of two black men living more than a century apart provides the centerpiece of the narrative. As NPR’s Scott Simon said in his NPR interview with the author last year: “It’s a human story that takes us from the time of Jarret Lewis, the enslaved young man who becomes his groom, to the racing grounds of old New Orleans and contemporary scholars in Washington, D.C., who resurrect Lexington with a portrait and with his long-abandoned bones, discovered in the attic of the Smithsonian.” 

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin offers generous insight into the visionary recording industry executive’s views on what art is and how to make it. His words are carefully chosen to lay out a path for tapping into and creating conditions to nurture our own creative voice, using the knowledge he has gleaned over the span of decades helping artists of many musical genres create their best work. I found both peace and inspiration in his work, and I enjoyed listening to his sonorous voice on the Audiobook version.