Summer Reading, Part II: Tuesday's Reflection

I am moving into this new week following a week of rich, full days. I will no doubt write about them in a post in the near future, but for now I need to simply hold them in my heart. 

In the meantime here is Part II of my summer reading recommendations. This time the focus is nonfiction. I tend to think of fiction as the more normal choice for summer reading, but, of course, reading is all about personal choice. My nonfiction reading tends to be books about writing or memoir or books related to spiritual topics, and I have more than enough good choices waiting for me on my shelves. 

Nonfiction

1.     The Art of Stillness, Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer. The author reflects on the pleasures of stillness in an age full of distractions and demands of technology. 
2.      The Soul Tells a Story, Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life, Vinita Hampton Wright. I read and liked another one of her books, The Art of Spiritual Writing, and think this one will be helpful to me as I continue to work on my spiritual memoir. 
3.      The Bright Hour, A Memoir of Living and Dying, Nina Riggs. Yes, I know there are lots of memoirs with this topic --I have a bunch on my shelves--but this one was on lots of summer reading lists a year ago and comes highly recommended.
4.      The End of Old Age, Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life, Marc E. Gronin, MD. I DO NOT like the title, for it sounds like major denial to me, and I don't think that is actually the topic of the book. Besides, the only end to old age is death. Instead, I think the book is more about finding value and strength in the aging process. We'll see!
5.      No Time to Spare, Thinking About What Matters, Ursula K. LeGuin. Essays from one of our literary giants. I have read the first section called "Going Over Eighty," her views on aging, and they are sharp and witty, and true. 
6.      Unbinding, The Grace Beyond Self, Kathleen Dowling Singh. I have read both The Grace in Aging and The Grace in Living, so I guess I am a member of Singh's fan club. WISE WOMAN.
7.       The Trilogy about the King Years by Taylor Branch. Bruce and I are going on a civil rights tour to Alabama and Mississippi in November and I know I will want to do lots of reading to prepare. I read the first in this trilogy, Parting the Waters, 1954-1963 when it was first released, but I think it would be good to read it again. The other two books are Pillar of Fire, 1963-1965 and At Canaan's Edge, 1965-1968. These are massive books and will be quite the undertaking, but this feels important and necessary. 

Additional Notes: I recently read May Sarton's journal At Seventy. I remember reading it when it was first published in 1984 and I was only 36. What was I thinking! I read all of her journals then, however, because I was and still am an avid journal keeper, but obviously now more of what she says in this book resonates with me. I also read The Art of the Wasted Day by one of my writing heroes, Patricia Hampl. I revisit her other books frequently and am so happy to have a new one to treasure. Finally, I am reading Living an Examined Life, Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey by James Hollis, PHD. I am grateful his chapters are short, for he packs so much wisdom into a sentence, and I need time to process and absorb. 

An Invitation
What nonfiction titles are on your list? I would love to know. 

Summer Reading: Thursday's Reflection

Summer reading is not just about the books you choose to read, but summer reading is also about where you choose to read them.

My reading place of choice in the summer is Paris. Unfortunately, not Paris, France, but my pretend Paris--the side garden at our house. For some reason, sitting in "Paris" reminds me of French cafes or the hidden garden of a chic Parisian home. The arch with the delphinium in bloom is almost a secret passageway into a place of contentment and quiet. A small statue of Buddha beckons me into stillness--turning a page is the only motion--and the fountain disguises the traffic noises. And, of course, the resident gardener has planted flowers in abundance, mainly white, as I requested. Yes, this is a good place to read. 

I think about other summer reading places in my life: beaches where I stretched out on a blanket or colorful towel, the screen porch of the cabin in northern Minnesota where my family always vacationed, and the porch swing on the front porch of the home where we raised our family. More recently, our home in Madison had a large front porch, and I spent most of each summer day there writing and reading. We ate our evening meal there, too, and when the grandkids visited, the porch became their playroom. 

Choosing where to read (anywhere!!!) is easy, but my pile of choices is massive, and I know there won't be enough summer to work through the entire stack. Here, however, are some possibilities. Let me know if you have read any of them.

Fiction
1.     Death Comes to the Archbishop, Willa Cather. Quite awhile ago I started reading or rereading Cather's novels in chronological order. This is #8 on the list. I'm eager to revisit this classic. 
2.     Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. I loved his Remains of the Day and think it is time to read something else by this winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
3.     Enchanted islands, Allison Amend. One of the main female characters works for the Office of Naval Intelligence before WWII, and her top secret assignment is to marry a spy and move to the Galapagos Islands. 
4.     Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue. Our book club's selection for June. A Cameroonian immigrant family lives in Harlem, and the father is hired as a chauffeur for a wealthy business man.
5.     The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy. I loved her The God of Small Things. Set in India as well, this book has been called a protest novel, a political masterpiece. Can't wait! 
6.     The Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan. An aging writer who has collected lost objects--things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidentally left behind--charges his assistant with the task of reuniting the objects with their original owners. 
7.     The Antiques, Kris D'Agostino. Three sibling reunite to plan their father's memorial and to sell his beloved "lesser Magritte" painting.
8.     Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein. Recommended by my granddaughter. A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France in 1943. The pilot and passenger are best friends, but just one of the girls has a change at survival. 

Who knows if I will read all of these or if I will get diverted to other choices, including books on my "requested" list at the library. Being led along new and unknown paths is one of the gifts of summer, after all.

Stay tuned for a list of nonfiction titles. Maybe next week. 

An Invitation
Where do you like to read in the summer and what do you plan to read there. I would love to know. 

NOTE: To read last year's summer reading list, go here.

Summer Reading: Tuesday's Reflection

Why is it I always make a list of books I want to read in the summer? Why bother when, looking back at the end of summer, I discover I have read only a few of the books I included on my list, but had wandered onto other titles?  

As a lifelong list-maker (I think I will add the initials LLM) after my name from now on), the very idea of creating another list is an opportunity not to be missed. Plus, there is always that feeling of summer stretching in front of us (Has anyone else noticed that it is already June 23 and July is already almost here?) and while I want to relax and let myself ooze into the days, I also don't want to let the days slip away without notice. Thus, a list as a source of measurement. Am I using these days well?

I look at my bookshelves, especially the shelves of books unread as of yet and think, yup, this summer I am going to finally read George Eliot's Middlemarch and finally, probably the last person in literate America, read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, but I fear the summer will end with both of those still unread. 

This summer I will be writing more than reading, thanks to personal goals I have set for myself and also because of the intensive online class I am taking. The class, however, includes   assigned reading in some excellent writing books, and I am especially eager to reread I Could Tell You Stories, Sojourns in the Land of Memory by Minnesota's own Patricia Hampl. 

Because of my reading restrictions this summer, making THE LIST seems even more crucial this year. Suggestions and inspiration, as always comes from a variety of sources. First, there was an intriguing list reported in Bookwomen. BBC polled dozens of U.S. book critics, asking them to name the best books so far in this century. Four of the 20 books selected, by the way, are by women writers and a number are by writers of color from around the globe. I've only read four of the 20, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I recommend all four. One on the list intrigues me, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and a couple others are ones I missed when they first came out and I am grateful they have come to my attention again, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, but I don't know if they will make the summer list.

Another great source of inspiration is our couple's book group. We gathered this last weekend and discussed The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro, which received mixed reviews from our esteemed group. I did not care for it myself. A couple months ago we read Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, many of us having read it more than once, and had one of our best discussions ever. Based on that, I wondered if we should consider revisiting books we had read earlier in our lives, possibly because they were assigned in high school or college classes. I encouraged our group to think about classics that might appeal more to our mature and experienced minds OR to think about books we loved the first time around and would like to read again. Here are some of those suggestions:
* A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This book was one of the last books my mother read before she died. She had read it when it was first released and loved it both the first and second time. I read it many years ago and loved it, too. Interestingly, this book, which is often viewed as a "girls' book" was mentioned to the group by one of the men who thought it was wonderful.
* Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. The group moaned when this was mentioned, but nonetheless...
* Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner. This is probably my husband's favorite book and one the group loved the first time we read it many years ago. 
* Babbit by Sinclair Lewis. Two of us had heard Garrison Keillor mention this book in a recent talk and that sparked our interest. 
* Giant by Edna Ferber. I don't think I have ever read this, but surely, I have read some of her books along the way.

And, drum roll please, our August book selection is Babbit by Sinclair Lewis.

As I thought about books I want to reread, at the top of my list ALWAYS are all of the Jane Austen books. I can hear you groan, but I don't care. I would also like to read Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, which I think will achieve classic status for generations to come, and two books by A.S. Byatt, Possession and The Children's Book--all three of those books are big books, but ones I know I would not regret devoting time to. 

So, Nancy, get on with it, I hear you say, if you are still with me. What is on your summer reading list? 

Fiction
* All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Our book group read this months ago, but I was not at that meeting and just didn't get to it, and now feels like the perfect time. It is on my bedside table, and I will start it today.  
* Babbit by Sinclair Lewis. I am eager for the discussion
* A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith in homage to my mother and for the sheer pleasure of the reread. 
* The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
* Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell (Also recommended in book group)
* The new Louise Penny mystery due to be published in August. Can't wait. 

Nonfiction.
* The Grace in Aging, Awaken as You Grow Older by Kathleen Dowling Singh. This is my current morning meditation book, a slow, contemplative read, which I highly--deeply--recommend.
* Beween the Dark and the Daylight, Embracing the Contradictions of Life by Joan Chittister
* The Odd Woman and the City, a memoir by Vivian Gornick. 

Books I Have Recently Read and Now Recommend
* Old Filth by Jane Gardam. FILTH stands for Failed in London Tried Hong Kong. I loved this book about a man who was a judge in Hong Kong but retires in England and looks back over his life.
* The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfrid Price, Puveryor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones. Set in Wales in 1924, I fell in love with the characters in this book who come to accept their own faults, as they encounters challenges to their hopes and dreams. A gentle and lovely book. 
* The Soul of a Pilgrim, Eight Practices for the Journey Within, Christine Valters Paintner. Wonderful chapters on crossing the threshold and walking, and embracing the unknown, among others. 

For Your Consideration and Reflection

          Has it ever occurred to you that the acts of reading
          and meditation resemble each other in many ways?
          Both are usually done alone, in silence and physical
          stillness, our attention focused, our whole selves--body,
          mind, and heart--engaged. Both can draw us deeply into
          ourselves. Our consciousness shifts. We are not our
          everyday selves with various roles to play in our
          families, our jobs, society, with our concerns, major 
          and minor, about the people we love, the things we 
          to do, our needs and wants, the state of the world. We
          become centered, our energy concentrated, with no
          purpose served by what we are doing other than the act 
          itself. We are, at the moment, only the reader, or the
          contemplative. 
                                          Walking a Literary Labyrinth,
                                           A Spirituality of Reading, pp.1-2
                                           Nancy M. Malone

An Invitation
Obviously, I am eager to know what is on your summer reading list. Happy reading!