I was paging through Matt Sewell’s delightful book “A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Wild Gatherings” recently, thinking it was just the sort of book that should should linger on nightstands during the summer months. It’s not so much a book to read as a book to page through, delighting in the play of language and color. Sewell pairs neat watercolors of animals — each with expressive eyes, each seemingly worthy of a chidren’s book tale — with the creative collective nouns assigned to their ilk. Here we find a quarrel of sparrows, a shiver of sharks, a dazzle of zebras.
It’s the sort of book one might set aside for more serious pursuits during the rest of the year. It’s the sort of pleasure one can best enjoy when days are long and warm, when time expands as obligations slow.
Or at least that’s our conception of summer reading. In truth, the boxes on our calendars are already far too crowded. But let’s not give up on the dream of lazy days spent turning pages.
We’ve put together a guide to help you spend your precious summer hours most wisely, whether your mood skews toward a dishy biography, a transporting work of fiction, or Fourth of July prep for the coming midterm elections. We have two works of fiction — an exclusive excerpt from Rebecca Makkai’s forthcoming novel, “The Great Believers,” as well as the winner of the 2018 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Short Story Award. We’ve also got advice for how to spend these precious few warm months outside in Chicago — whether it’s visiting local literary landmarks, tucking away in the perfect reading nook, or just finding wonder in our natural world.
Perhaps one evening you’ll stumble upon a gaze of raccoons or a cloud of bats. Which makes me wonder: For those of us intent on soaking up as many words as we can this summer, what collective noun should we invent for ourselves? An ambition of readers? An aspiration of readers? A curiosity of readers?
No matter. Just open the cover and crack the spine. Summertime is here.
— Jennifer Day, Chicago Tribune
