Summer Reading List

Ahh, the summer reading list. Though we're not in high school anymore, it seems like every newspaper book section I read has recently come out with a list of top summer reads.

Below is my list of 10 books that I'm planning to read between now and the end of August, though I reserve the right to change my mind at any time — after all, summer reading shouldn't be too much like school.

• The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman

• The Thieves of Manhattan, Adam Langer

• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender

• The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker

• Last Night in Montreal, Emily St. John Mandel

• Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

• Persuasion, Jane Austen

• The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson

• The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

What's on your summer reading list?

2010 Reading Resolutions

Happy 2010, Attic Salt readers! I still have yet to formally write down my New Year's resolutions — maybe I should add "stop procrastinating" to the list — but I've also set some reading resolutions for the new year as well.

1. Read 50 books — I came close to 40 this year, and that was in a year where I was very slow getting started (I read one book the first two months of the year). 50 is nearly a book a week, but still gives some lee-way if I'm reading a particularly long book or am sick/on vacation/otherwise busy.

2. Read all six of Jane Austen's books — So far I have only read Emma, and after paying a visit last month to the Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York, I'm finally ready to read her six novels in order. I'd like to have some conversations about her novels on this blog, so if you'd like to join me, or have already read them and want to chime in, that would be lovely.

3. Read some of the books that have gone unread for years on my shelves — It's kind of embarrassing what percentage of my bookshelves are unread. This year, book-buying needs to slow down, as does my library-habit, while I finally read books like Sacred Games, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides With Samuel Johnson and Light in August.

Does anyone else have any 2010 reading resolutions? Any books and/or authors you've decided that it's finally time to read?

Oxford American's Southern Literature Issue

When I saw that the most recent issue of Oxford American was on Southern literature, I ran right out to get it. I'm woefully deficient in Southern lit, and since a topic you don't know much about can be overwhelming, I knew they would have suggestions for how to approach something so vast. Besides including numerous essays dedicated to the topic, Oxford American polled Southern writers, editors and publishers to compile lists of the top 10 fiction works, the top 5 non-fiction books, and a list of underrated books that have come out of the South.

Of the top rated fiction books, I've read two — To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn. The former I read in ninth grade and the latter in sixth grade, which means it's been awhile since I picked up something from this list. (I very recently read The Member of the Wedding, which I loved, so I guess it hasn't been that long since I've read something that came out of the region.)

William Faulkner got three books in the top 10, including Absalom, Absalom!, which came in first in the poll. Faulkner tops the list of authors that I am embarrassed I haven't read (Toni Morrison is also on that list), and reading about why he's so brilliant encouraged me to pull my copy of Light in August off my shelf, where it's been languishing unread since my 23rd birthday. I'm at page 50, and love it so far.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men gets the nod for top non-fiction work, and it's a book I've been wanting to pick up ever since I found out that my favorite artist William Christenberry garnered inspiration from it for his own work. There's also a handful of essays about writers I'm deficient in (Thomas Wolfe), an essay about teaching Faulkner, and a piece (which I can completely relate to) about the concept of "notwriting" (wherein a writer spends time actively not writing in pursuit of "inspiration").

While the idea of rankings is always tricky, since books inevitably get left off and everyone has their own opinion where a book belongs, there's value to doing something like this — people start talking and debate the merits of one book over another, hidden treasures get unearthed and new reader/writer relationships begin, and people like me get driven into the arms of writers like Faulkner. I'd love to see some sort of similar treatment for Western writers and Midwestern writers. I think I've got a lock on what could be termed "Northeast Literature," but I'm deficient in every other region of the country.

How Many is Too Many? On Reading Multiple Books at the Same Time

I'm reading four books right now — Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery and Hardball by Sara Paretsky. I'm reading the first because we're in the last weeks of Infinite Summer; the second because it seems like everyone is reviewing it and I want to read it; the third because I loved her other book (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) and because it just came out in the U.S.; and the fourth because I interviewed her this morning and needed to talk about it. They're four very different books, which means getting the plots mixed up is impossible. But what happened to the days of picking up one book, reading it, and then moving on to the next one?

Growing up I would occasionally read two books at once, but I think it was in college that I really started reading multiple books at a time. When you're studying literature, and you have to read more than one novel a week, you kind of have to be reading them all at once. But I also think in some ways my literary multi-tasking is related to the way our world is changing. Nowadays, we're expected to be able to balance an in-person conversation, keep up with two e-mail inboxes, and field phone calls that come in — all at the same time, thanks to new devices like the iPhone. While I'm in the camp that is flat-out refusing to have any hand-held device with the Internet, the expectation is there that we are able to do many things at a time. So while I may not be able to answer my e-mails and cook dinner at the same time, can I read a book for a review, along with a book for an interview, along with a book I'm reading for myself? Sure. I just did it this week.

But when you're reading multiple books it's easier for some of them to fall by the wayside. Every time a shiny new book comes into the D.C. Public Library with my name on it, Infinite Jest gets put down. Whenever I have to read a book for an interview or review, (two nights this week were devoted to reading Kate DiCamillo books), other things get set aside. And everything is going to get put down this weekend when I tackle the stack of New Yorkers, Food and Wines and Smithsonians that I've skimmed through but haven't read thoroughly yet.

I think this is okay, because even though I put books aside, I almost always go back to them. Sure there are books I don't finish, (I'm looking at you, Snow), but usually once I start a book, I have to see it through to the end. Maybe it's because so many of my writing projects linger unfinished for months or years, while finishing a book is much easier, less time consuming, and also gives me the satisfaction of completion that I need. At the same time I worry — is four books too many? Am I not giving them all the time they deserve? Is it really bad to put a book down for a long period of time before picking it back up? I don't know.

Does anyone else do this too?