Summer is often thought of as a time to indulge oneself in activities that are not typically seen as “productive”: traveling, sleeping in, reading to excess. (I would argue that all of these are productive activities.) And many folks have their pile of books for “summer reading.” You know, the romances, the mysteries, the stories that we enjoy but rarely remember much of.
And part of the fun of summer reading is sharing with our
friends the titles and summaries of what we’re reading. So, friends, here is
some of my summer reading.
Last week’s read
Last week I finished Fauna
and Family (1978) by Gerald Durrell. Those of you who enjoy Masterpiece on
PBS will recognize the name from the series The
Durrells in Corfu. Fauna and Family
(originally published under the title The
Garden of the Gods) is the final installment of the Corfu Trilogy, which
recounts the Durrell family’s five years living on Corfu, a Greek island,
before WWII.
Ten-year-old Gerald spends his days observing, studying, and
collecting specimens of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals that he finds on
the island. The book alternates between wonderfully lyrical passages describing
the natural beauty of the island and the author’s fascination with the fauna
around him, and the comical hijinks of his quirky mother and siblings.
A quick sample: That
summer was a particularly rich one; it seemed as if the sun had drawn up a
special bounty from the island, for never had we had such an abundance of fruit
and flowers, never had the sea been so warm and filled with fish, never had so
many birds reared their young, or butterflies and other insects hatched and
shimmered across the countryside. (p 139)
If you like travel, nature, or laughing, you will enjoy this
series. The first two books are My Family
and Other Animals (1956), and Birds,
Beasts, and Relatives (1969). The first book tends to focus more on
Durrell’s study of nature than the other two, but there are some hilarious
scenes also.
This week’s read
One of my all-time favorite books is a memoir by Mary Karr
titled The Liar’s Club (1995) about
her tumultuous childhood in East Texas in a dysfunctional family, focusing on
that time her mother shot her father. It is both heartbreaking and funny.
Karr’s style and the non-linear structure keep the reader on the edge of her
seat. I read this book about 25 years ago on the recommendation of a friend.
I’ve been thinking about this book lately and went looking
for it at a used book store so that I could reread it. I didn’t find it, but I
did find another of Karr’s memoirs, Cherry
(2001), which picks up where The Liar’s
Club leaves off. In the prologue, we see 17-year-old Mary getting ready to
leave home, and East Texas, for Los Angeles, and the author teases us with
suggestions of the deaths, arrests, and overdoses that lead up to her escape
from aptly named Leechfield. Karr’s poetic style keeps the reader engaged, and
will evoke memories of childhood and adolescence (both the good and the bad)
for those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s.
Book club
Téa Obreht’s new book, Inland, was released Aug. 13. Inland is set in 19th century Arizona Territory. My book club has selected it for our next meeting. One of the first books we read together was Obreht’s The Tigers Wife (2011), and it remains one of my favorites. If you’re not familiar with magical realism, it is a melding of the real and the fantastical, and Obreht’s books are an excellent place to explore the genre. The Tiger’s Wife won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. And Newsday listed Inland in its “Best Summer Books of 2019.” I am starting it now.
