The thought of a summer reading list is almost enough to make one groan. A little too reminiscent of summer school, perhaps, where hardly anyone wanted to be.
But for writers, a summer reading list is often more than just a literary to-do chore. The books on it, in addition to being enjoyable, often do second duty as research, preparation for a future or current project. We asked some writers not only what they’ll be reading this summer but what they’ll be working on too.
– Louis Menand (a distinguished professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the author, most recently, of “The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America”):
“I’m planning to read the third volume of Robert Caro’s bio of LBJ, even though I wish it were finished. Maybe it will be by the time I’m done reading.
“I don’t know what I’ll be working on! But probably something to do with Vietnam, which is why I’m reading Caro’s books.”
– Garry Wills (a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who teaches history at Northwestern and is the author of many books, including “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” “John Wayne’s America” and “A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government”):
“This summer I plan to be reading the papers of Timothy Pickering (at the Massachusetts Historical Society) in order to write a book on Jefferson and the Slave Power (the belief that slaveholding Southerners held the reins of the government and used their power to ensure the extension of slavery).
– Malcolm Gladwell (a staff writer for The New Yorker, a former business and science writer at The Washington Post and the author of “The Tipping Point”):
“I am planning to work on my next book, the subject of which is a secret (or so my agent informs me). But I can say that [researching] it involves visiting lots of social-psychology types and doing things like interviewing test pilots.
“As for reading, I’m actually dying to read a book by one of my favorite psychologists, Daniel Wegner, called “The Illusion of Conscious Will.” That and a lot of thrillers.”
– Sara Paretsky (a Chicago author and creator of the V.I. Warshawski mystery series): I just finished Carol Shields’ elegiac novel “Unless.” I have read some but not all of her previous books and am about to embark on those, starting with “Swann.”
As for my own work, I am about a third of the way through a book in my V.I. series, dealing with some of the ghosts still haunting us from the McCarthy era. And I’m working on a short story about a young woman who is possessed by a dybbuk.
– Julia Alvarez (a writer in residence at Middlebury College, a poet and a novelist whose books include “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” and “In the Time of the Butterflies”):
“The two questions are totally interrelated for me. My reading tastes are intertwined with what I’m musing on, which usually means what I am writing about, or feeling the urge to write about. I need teachers, masters, mentors, muses, and so I read, read, read in the genre or on the topic I want to learn more about.
“Right now, I’m working on poems, a new collection, tentatively titled `Keeping Watch.’
“So my summer reading will be full of poetry books, including `New and Collected Poems,’ by Czeslaw Milosz (what a master!), and `Without End,’ by Adam Zagajewski. (His poem after Sept. 11 in The New Yorker, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” gave us all a chastened but necessary sense of hope.)
“I’ve put `The Collected Poems,’ by Emily Dickinson, up on that summer-reading shelf as well. Although I’ve read and reread many of these poems, I want to go back and spend more time with them. An excellent and old biography/critical study of the poems, which I read years ago and loved, will be by my side, `Emily Dickinson’s Poetry: Stairway of Surprise,’ by Charles R. Anderson.
“I’ve read most of Ed Hirsch’s wonderful “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry” but have a few more chapters to go. I also got the tape of Billy Collins’ “The Best Cigarette,” so that even when I am driving the car, I can be “reading” poetry this summer!”
– Peter Mayle (whose most recent book was “French Lessons”):
“The book I’m hoping to read this summer is `Master of the Senate,’ the third volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson. Since it runs to more than a thousand pages, it will probably last me through the fall as well. I found the previous two volumes fascinating and beautifully written, and I’m sure this will be just as good.
“As for work, I’ve just started on a novel set in Provence and Bordeaux about nefarious behavior in the wine business. The research is delicious.”
– Bebe Moore Campbell (author of “Brothers and Sisters,” as well as “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine,” for which she won an NAACP Image Award for literature):
“This summer I’ll be reading `Gabriel’s Story,’ by David Anthony Durham, `John Henry Days,’ by Colson Whitehead, `You Know Better,’ by Tina McElroy Ansa, and `By the Sea,’ by Abdulrazak Gurnah. I am currently working on a play about a family coping with mental illness.”
– Linda Fairstein (a mystery writer who headed the sex-crimes unit of the Manhattan district attorney’s office for more than two decades and whose most recent novel is “Likely to Die”):
“I’ll start the summer with Robert Caro’s new installation in the Lyndon Johnson biography, `Master of the Senate.’ Then I’ll do crime–Michael Connelly’s `City of Bones,’ John Sandford’s next `Prey’ book, whatever comes from Robert Crais, and Jane Stanton Hitchcock’s delightful `Social Crimes.’ I always squeeze in a classic; this year it’s Laurence Sterne’s `Tristram Shandy.’
“I’m putting the final polish on my own `The Bone Vault,’ due out in January 2003, and in between reads figuring out who to kill next.”
– Alex Kotlowitz (Chicago-based author of “The Other Side of the River” and “There Are No Children Here,” which the New York Public Library listed as one of the 150 most important books of the century):
“The first set of books are, in part, for work. Once I finish a documentary for PBS’ `Frontline,’ which presently has consumed my time, I’ll begin work on a short book on Chicago for Crown, which has asked a number of writers to write on a place of their choosing. I’ve chosen my hometown. What does Edward Abbey or Thoreau have to do with Chicago? Not much, except that they’ve written about `place’ with such passion and engagement I figured I could learn a thing or two.
“The rest of the list is purely pleasure reading, which, God knows, I could use plenty of: `Nature’s Metropolis,’ by William Cronon, `The Pig and the Skyscraper,’ by Marco d’Eramo, `Desert Solitaire,’ by Edward Abbey, `Walden Pond,’ by Thoreau.
“I’ll revisit Jane Jacobs’ work as well as Bellow, Algren and Wright, `Refuge,’ by Terry Tempest Williams, `True History of the Kelly Gang,’ by Peter Carey, `The Haunting of L,’ by Howard Norman, `The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,’ by Michael Chabon, `Still Love in Strange Places,’ by Beth Kephart and `A Bend in the River,’ by V.S. Naipaul.
“Reading lists like this are undoubtedly overambitious. Between work, kids and canoeing, I suspect I’ll have less time than I think. But, hey, can’t a guy fantasize of lingering summer afternoons on his front porch with book in hand?”
– Nora Roberts (author of more than 130 novels, her most recent being “Face the Fire”):
“I’m planning to read everything I can steal from my husband’s bookstore. There’s nothing like plunking down at the end of the day on my front deck with a book and a glass of wine.
“I’ll be working on an `In Death’ book as J.D. Robb this summer. As I’m finishing one up now, I hope to get my teeth into what I’m planning to title “Imitation in Death” before the first of the month.”
– Mona Simpson (the author of “Anywhere But Here” and “Off Keck Road,” she teaches at Bard College where she holds the Sadie Samuelson Levy Chair of Languages and Literature):
“I’ll be working on `My Hollywood,’ a novel I’ve been living with for almost five years. I’m reading `Roll, Jordan, Roll,’ by Eugene D. Genovese for that and probably also C. Van Woodward’s `Mary Chestnut’ and `Within the Plantation Household,’ by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.
“For no other reason than fun, I’m planning to get to `Don Quixote,’ odds and ends of Nabokov, Colette stories and teenage-girl novels.”
– Robert Rodi (the Chicago author of five novels, including “Fag Hag,” “Closet Case” and, most recently, “Bitch Goddess” also writes the comic-book series “Codename: Knockout” for DC/Vertigo):
“This summer I’ll be reading the works of the great American comic novelist Dawn Powell, who died in 1965. Her works are bitingly unsentimental, even caustic, which may be why she remained unappreciated in her own time. Also, with the help of my friend Paola Morgavi, I’m reading Dante in his native Italian, an experience that’s very nearly as musical as it is literary.
“At the same time, I’ll be working on the screenplay for the film version of my novel “Kept Boy” and a book about American tourists in Tuscany, with my friend, the Chianti tour guide Dario Castagno (working title: `Too Much Tuscan Sun’).”
– Scott Turow (a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, current partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and author of the books “Burden of Proof” and “Presumed Innocent,” among others):
“Right now I’m reading a draft of Jim McManus’ `Positively Fifth Street,’ a sensational, non-fiction book about how McManus went to Las Vegas to cover a murder trial and ended up finishing fifth in the World Series of Poker. After that, I’ll go back to Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize novel, `The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,’ which is so dazzling that I sometimes want to spit in jealousy. I have a galley of Jeffery Eugenides’ `Middlesex,’ which I’m looking forward to after hearing much favorable clamor, and I’ve decided it’s time to read another novel by Ian McEwan, probably `Amsterdam.’
“As for myself, I’ve just finished a novel that will appear in the fall. While I contemplate the next long project, I’m going to be writing a non-fiction magazine piece, a memoir of my dealings–in my lawyer life–with the death penalty.”
