Hi everyone! To help us assemble our fall reading lists, let’s share our favorite books from the summer. ‘Girl, Woman, Other,’ which was the best novel I read this year, and ‘They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us,’ which is as beautiful as it is timely, topped my list. How about you?
I finally read The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead after having it on my shelf for years. It was a little hard to get into at first, but about a third or so of the way through, it really picks up. I have this habit of reading authors in the order of which they've published their books, so wanted to get that one in before reading The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys this fall.
My favorite books this past summer were The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, a 1913-ish novel about a young woman who comes to NYC to seek her fortune, a story that still felt timely (one character has Trumpian overtones) and The Witch Elm by Tana French — which I enjoyed but came to like even more after I heard a good interview with French on the NYT Book Review podcast.
I am working up the courage and energy to finally read Wolf Hall. I look forward to the new Ferrante but it will probably take me five years to get around to it.
I went through a whole bunch of books this summer (though I've slowed down again — 2020 has resulted in some very inconsistent moods when it comes to reading). I'll just mention some highlights: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett lived up to the hype for me. I finally read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, which I also really enjoyed - that dreamy quality in his writing always does it for me (even though there was one chapter I found pretty upsetting). Mexican Gothic also wound up being a fun summer read that I got through within just a couple of days.
I also finally read Into the Wild, but I felt it was... fine. There was something very unsettling about it, which I expected, but I don't know that it definitely needed to be more than a magazine article personally. And I ready Sally Rooney's Conversations with People. It was OK - I kind of like Normal People better, though she has the same general vibe in both books.
it’s hard to conceive of “summer” (what is time, even, anyway?) but I’m pretty sure I read Claire Comstock-Gay’s Madame Clairvoyant’s Guide to the Stars at the beginning of the summer and it was so good. If you don’t know her writing and you’re not into astrology you’ll probably feel like you should pass on it but it’s so much more than a book about horoscopes. She’s such a warm writer; she’s righteous and honest and full of love, and I really appreciate her and also this book. I also read Lauren Groff’s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, and couldn’t put it down, which is to be expected with her writing, but it was still cool. Very different from the darkness of Fates and Furies, but still masterfully mysterious. I think I like books right now that have warmth and a bit of human kindness to them.
I read a lot including just getting into E.C.R. Lorac who is an author of Detective fiction. I've read two, Murders by Matchlight and Fell Murder which I really loved. They both take place in WW2 and are really colored by that and MacDonald who is the main Detective is so not your usual investigator. Like he's just a guy and his skills mostly come from like talking to people and understanding them which is cool.
I finally read The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead after having it on my shelf for years. It was a little hard to get into at first, but about a third or so of the way through, it really picks up. I have this habit of reading authors in the order of which they've published their books, so wanted to get that one in before reading The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys this fall.
My favorite books this past summer were The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, a 1913-ish novel about a young woman who comes to NYC to seek her fortune, a story that still felt timely (one character has Trumpian overtones) and The Witch Elm by Tana French — which I enjoyed but came to like even more after I heard a good interview with French on the NYT Book Review podcast.
I am working up the courage and energy to finally read Wolf Hall. I look forward to the new Ferrante but it will probably take me five years to get around to it.
I went through a whole bunch of books this summer (though I've slowed down again — 2020 has resulted in some very inconsistent moods when it comes to reading). I'll just mention some highlights: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett lived up to the hype for me. I finally read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, which I also really enjoyed - that dreamy quality in his writing always does it for me (even though there was one chapter I found pretty upsetting). Mexican Gothic also wound up being a fun summer read that I got through within just a couple of days.
I also finally read Into the Wild, but I felt it was... fine. There was something very unsettling about it, which I expected, but I don't know that it definitely needed to be more than a magazine article personally. And I ready Sally Rooney's Conversations with People. It was OK - I kind of like Normal People better, though she has the same general vibe in both books.
it’s hard to conceive of “summer” (what is time, even, anyway?) but I’m pretty sure I read Claire Comstock-Gay’s Madame Clairvoyant’s Guide to the Stars at the beginning of the summer and it was so good. If you don’t know her writing and you’re not into astrology you’ll probably feel like you should pass on it but it’s so much more than a book about horoscopes. She’s such a warm writer; she’s righteous and honest and full of love, and I really appreciate her and also this book. I also read Lauren Groff’s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, and couldn’t put it down, which is to be expected with her writing, but it was still cool. Very different from the darkness of Fates and Furies, but still masterfully mysterious. I think I like books right now that have warmth and a bit of human kindness to them.
I read a lot including just getting into E.C.R. Lorac who is an author of Detective fiction. I've read two, Murders by Matchlight and Fell Murder which I really loved. They both take place in WW2 and are really colored by that and MacDonald who is the main Detective is so not your usual investigator. Like he's just a guy and his skills mostly come from like talking to people and understanding them which is cool.