Ahhh, the books of summer: trashy novels to carry to the beach, gothic romances novels stained with suntan oil, detective stories as gritty as the sand between their pages. That`s what many people think of, if they think of reading at all.
But what will writers be reading, or recommending to friends, this summer? To find out, Tribune Books asked a number of authors, who provided us with the following hot-weather reading advisories.
William Styron (”Sophie`s Choice”)
”Final Harvest,” by Andrew Malcolm, the true story of a Minnesota crime, told me more about the American farm crisis than anything I`ve read. But it is also an evocative, richly textured narrative in which the Midwest becomes the central character, revealing itself as dramatically as in any work by Sinclair Lewis or Sherwood Anderson. It deserves to become an American classic.
Cynthia Ozick, (”The Messiah of Stockholm”)
The most joy-bringing book I`ve read so far this year is what I suppose you`d have to call a ”sleeper.” It`s been waiting for discovery on every library shelf for a number of years. I came upon it unexpectedly and in a burst of bliss. It`s the Anchor Bible ”Ruth” volume, edited and introduced by Frank Campbell, an unheralded literary mind of the first order, a lovely luminous erudite scholarly mind in possession of a charming and humane and imaginative spirit. Only conceive of rapturously reading footnotes!
Gail Godwin, (”A Southern Family”)
Two new books I am especially urging on my friends are Allan Bloom`s
”The Closing of the American Mind” and Abigail Rosenthal`s ”A Good Look at Evil.” Both have crucial things to say about restoring the poor, battered- about soul in these modern times and about the advantages to both individuals and society of living the examined life. I`m looking forward to reading–when I get a sustained quiet period–”The Complete Notebooks of Henry James,”
edited by Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers.
Ray Bradbury, (”Death Is a Lonely Business”)
I will be re-reading the novels of Honor Tracy, a fantastically talented Irish novelist, whose books, including ”Mind You,” ”I`ve Said Nothing,”
”The Straight and Narrow Path,” ”Season of Mists,” and a dozen others, began being published by Random House 30 years ago. A great writer, too long neglected. Similarly, I will be re-reading the 19th Century author, Thomas Love Peacock, whose ”Gryll Grange” and ”Headlong Hall,” should be read by anyone who thinks ecology/philosophy/psychology satire is something new. Peacock is as fresh and new and bubbling as this morning`s piping hot coffee or this afternoon`s spritzer. Tracy and Peacock! All hail!
Joyce Carol Oates, (”On Boxing”)
This summer I am reading, and rereading, Greek tragedies, primarily Euripides and Sophocles; plus new novels, short stories and collections of poetry, of a heterogenous blend.
Willie Morris (”The Courting of Marcus Dupree”)
I`ve been re-reading ”War and Peace,” ”The Great Gatsby” and ”A Death in the Family.” Also a lot of Faulkner. I`ve recommended to friends, among current books, David Halberstam`s ”The Reckoning” and Doris Kearns Goodwin`s ”The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.”
Erica Jong (”Serenissima”)
My list includes ”The Rules of Life” by Fay Weldon; ”Selected Poetry” of Yehuda Amichai; ”Intercourse” by Andrea Dworkin; ”The White Hotel” by D. M. Thomas; ”The Book Known as Q” by Robert Giroux; ”Little Wilson and Big God” by Anthony Burgess; the ”Norton Anthology of Literature by Women”; and ”A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium,” one of the best books ever written.
Stephen King (”Misery”)
On my summer list are ”Oral History” by Lee Smith, ”Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy, Faulkner`s ”Intruder in the Dust,” ”Pale Kings and Princes” by Robert G. Parker, ”The Handmaid`s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, and something by Alice Walker–I haven`t yet decided which book.
Roy Blount (”One Fell Soup”)
”Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody” by Ian Frazier: I loved all these pieces when they came out in the New Yorker and now I`m appreciating them more all together. ”Southern Food” by John Egerton: I know Egerton knows about this subject; I have seen him eat it. ”Whites” by Norman Rush: These are incredibly good stories about Africa that far too few people have read.
Larry L. King (”None But a Blockhead”)
”Blessed McGill” by Edwin Shrake: A much-neglected novel when published 15 years ago, recently re-released by Texas Monthly Press. One of the all-time underrated or ignored good novels. ”The Thanatos Syndrome,” an excellent novel by Walker Percy. ”G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II,” by Lee Kennett: I`m reading it to refresh my memory in writing my novel-in-progress, ”War Movies.” An excellent, informative read. ”Slow Dancing” by Elizabeth Benedict: A good novel of two years ago, which I so enjoyed I want to read it again.
Harry Mark Petrakis (”Collected Stories”)
As I have in summers past, I`ll try to make time to reread some of Nikos Kazantzakis, perhaps the wonderful book of his letters compiled by his wife, Helen. I`ll read some short stories, some poetry, Dylan Thomas, Odysseus Elytis and Constantin Cavafy.
Isaac Asimov (”Foundation and Earth”)
I`m working my way through the ”Poldark Saga” by Winston Graham, all 10 books–except that I`ve got to get the eighth book (”The Stranger From the Sea”) somehow. This is my second time through, and I like it better than the first time. The picture it draws of Cornwall in the 1780s and `90s is riveting. It seems more real than New York in the 1980s.
Anne Tyler (”The Accidental Tourist”)
I plan to return to one favorite recent novel now that I have the time to enjoy it properly–Sharon Sheehe Stark`s ”A Wrestling Season,” which is a funny, sprawling, endearing book about an unhappy family. And I`ll be looking up another title simply because so many people have recommended it to me
–Thomas Mallon`s ”A Book of One`s Own.”
Shirley Ann Grau (”Nine Women”)
”Spinster” by Sylvia Ashton-Warner: A superbly executed character study, a story of love, of beauty, of wonder. I reread this every few years.
”Pan” by Knut Hamsun: Another love story, half funny, half sad, the whole thing glittering with an unearthly light–like a remembered fairy tale. ”The Sweet-Shop Owner” by Graham Swift: I admired the audacity of his novel
”Waterland,” so I thought I`d try this.
Scott Spencer (”Waking the Dead”)
I`m telling friends to read anything they can get their hands on by the British naturalist and travel writer Redmond O`Hanlon, whose work gives you the opportunity to gasp with wonder and terror while laughing your fool head off. As for myself: I`ll be going back to Vladimir Nabokov for a refresher course, as well as ”Left, Two, Three,” a new novel by Charles Spencer, my father.
Mary Gordon (”Temporary Shelter” )
My summer reading includes prose by Marina Tsvetaeva; Marguerite Duras`
”The War” (I adored ”The Lover”). I will be rereading Christa Wolf–all I can get: ”No Place on Earth,” ”The Quest for Christa T.,” ”Cassandra” and ”Patterns of Childhood.” Also: Rilke`s ”Rodin” and Elaine Scarry`s
”The Body in Pain”
Diane Johnson (”Persian Nights”)
I`ve been telling my friends to read Christopher Coe`s forthcoming ”I Look Divine,” such a marvel of polish and elegance. And I always tell people to read Francine Prose`s wonderful ”Bigfoot Dreams,” which has one of the best and funniest and smartest women narrators ever. I`d been telling some students to read Dostoevsky, realized I hadn`t read ”Crime and Punishment”
for about 20 years, so I`m reading that, and it`s so wonderful.
Bobbie Ann Mason (”In Country”)
I don`t read as much during the summer, because there`s too much else to do, and the question about summer reading always seems to apply to people who take vacations and go to the beach, which I never do. And my years in school with summers off have taught me that summers are an enormous illusion. You make lists of things to do and things to read, but summer always gets away from you. However, if I were going to make a book list this summer I`d like to reread some stuff I read when I was in college and didn`t really understand then. The ”Iliad” and ”Odyssey,” for example. I think they`d make sense to me now. In college, things made an intellectual sense, but I didn`t always relate to them personally. I`d like to reread Joyce`s ”A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” And Fitzgerald`s ”Tender Is the Night.” Someday I`d like to read ”War and Peace.” And I`d like to reread everything Vladimir Nabokov ever wrote. This ought to keep me busy till Christmas.
Eugene Kennedy (”The Queen Bee”)
I`m going to read some of those Library of America volumes that have been like clean sheets, waiting for someone to climb into them. I look forward to living with Henry James, Henry Adams and Mark Twain in an age more spacious and less perilous than our own.
David Mamet (”Writing in Resaurants”)
I`m reading ”Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe, ”Life and Death in Shanghai” by Nien Chen, and ”A Good Enough Parent” by Bruno Bettelheim.
George Garrett (”Poison Pen”)
Here are some of the new and recent good books I am recommending to my good friends this summer: anything at all by Mary Lee Settle; anything by Madison Smartt Bell. Short stories: ”Spirits” by Richard Bausch, ”Town Smokes” by Pinckney Benedict, ”Madonna on Her Back” by Alyson Carol Hagy,
”Collected Stories: 1946-1986” by Wright Morris, ”Learning the Mother Tongue” by Cathryn Hankla. Novels: ”Cooper” by Hilary Masters, ”The Hussar” by David Slavitt, and ”The Fred Chappell Reader.” Memoirs: ”Fall Out of Heaven: An Autobiographical Journey” by Alan Cheuse. Also I never let a chance go by without strongly recommending to everybody–friends and strangers and even enemies, one of the great, neglected novels of our era, an original masterpiece, one I wouldn`t know to do without–R.H.W. Dillard`s
”First Man on the Sun”.
Russell Banks (”Success Stories”)
Normally, I reread certain books that have been important to my work, touching the sources as it were, and measuring again the impossible distance one still has to go. Which has meant Hawthorne, Sterne, Faulkner, Conrad, etc.–one of them, at least, every year. This year it looks like Flaubert, a choice encouraged, perhaps, by my recent encounter with Julian Barnes`
”Flaubert`s Parrot” and Francis Steegmuller`s ”Flaubert in Egypt.” Then there is always a stack of books by friends, and this spring a batch of old friends who happen to be poets published new books: William Matthews, Robert Morgan, Daniel Halpern, Charles Simic. And finally, as one continues one`s life-long studies, there is Simone Weil.
John Irving (”The Cider House Rules”)
As I`m trying to finish a novel I`m presently writing, I`m not planning to read anything this summer; but I`d recommend several books to summer readers: ”The Sunset Maker” by Donald Justice, which includes new poems by Justice, some stories and a memoir; it`s the best book I`ve read this year. And the new Julian Barnes novel, ”Staring at the Sun,” which might lead readers back to Barnes` earlier ”Flaubert`s Parrot” and ”Before She Met Me.” And watch for Paul Buttenwieser`s novel, ”Their Pride and Joy.” And if anyone really cares about the lies Mr. Reagan is telling about his beloved
”freedom fighters,” read Peter Davis` ”Where Is Nicaragua?”
Michael Dorris (”Yellow Raft on Blue Water)
My summer reading includes Josephine Humphreys` new novel ”Rich In Love” and, as always, Barbara Pym.
Louise Erdrich (”The Beet Queen”)
I`ll be reading Albert Camus` essays and Ursula LeGuin`s ”Always Coming Home.”
Mona Simpson (”Anywhere But Here”)
This summer I am reading Lady Murasaki Shikibu`s ”The Tale of Genji,”
and Flaubert`s ”The Sentimental Education.” I`m also going to continue my way through ”Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire, translated from the Portugese by Myra B. Ramos, and bring along the poems of Czeslaw Milosz, to read one at a time. I`m going to Yaddo to work this summer and Yaddo is in the woods, so I`ll bring some basic book on birdwatching and what-is-the-name-of- thi s-tree. I also bring along family letters–my parents` and my grandparents`–to read at night when the stars are high and I seem far away.
Richard Stern (”A Father`s Words”)
On my summer reading list of recent fiction are ”El Yanqui” by Douglas Unger, ”The Counterlife” by Philip Roth, ”More Die of Heartbreak” by Saul Bellow, ”The Congressman`s Daughter” by Craig Nova and ”The Periodic Table” by Primo Levi. Old fiction: Fitzgerald`s ”Tender Is the Night,”
”Cousin Pons” by Balzac, Isaac Babel`s ”Collected Stories,” ”The Man Who Loved Children” by Christina Stead and ”La Dorotea” by Lope de Vega. Poetry: ”The Sunset Maker” by Donald Justice; and ”The Hand on the Head of Lazarus” by Christine Zawadiwsky
Frederick Busch (”Sometimes I Live in the Country”)
”The Pickwick Papers” by Charles Dickens: W.H. Auden tells us that we always read this book when we`re too young for it. I have, alas, discovered that I`m the right age. Also ”Spirits” by Richard Bausch. This is Bausch`s first book of stories. His novels, so lean and passionate and humane, provoke me to find out what he can do with the short form.
