Theoretically, summer affords time to read.
We have been programmed since childhood to make time to read during the summer to keep our minds sharp and to give our caregivers a moment’s peace. Publishers would certainly have us stock up for the summer, preying on our romantic notions of sitting waterside under an umbrella with a good book in hand.
Personal pan pizzas as a reward from libraries and English teachers reinforced the assignments, though I cannot remember ever actually claiming that prize back in the day. I particularly enjoyed Beverly Cleary’s “The Mouse and Motorcycle” (a fact my dad still references with mocking glee to this day) and her “Henry Huggins” series as well as “The Mad Scientists’ Club” by Bertrand R. Brinley. In adulthood I thoroughly enjoyed summer reading with the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Clyde Edgerton, Brian McLaren, Rachel Held Evans and George R. R. Martin among others.
I am not immune to these influences, and though I can take my sweet time to finish a book these days, I have ambitions of getting through quite a stack this summer. No one was asking, but here is what’s on my list:
“Bless Your Heart: A Field Guide to All Things Southern” by Landon Bryant. To be fair, I’m cheating with this hilarious masterpiece by one of my go-to sources of internet joy over at Landon Talks. As the summer reading season commences in full, I am more than half way through it. It’s great. No matter how much I take in, in a sitting, I laugh and nod and appreciate how Landon captures all of the great Southern idiosyncrasies of the past and how they still play out in our post-modern context. Since it’s not a narrative, there is no story to motivate completion. It’s the laughs that bring me back to its pages anytime I have a spare moment.
“The Looking Glass War” by John le Carré. Last year I started reading le Carré’s spy novels about George Smiley and completed the first three: “Call for the Dead,” “A Murder of Quality” and “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” I needed a beat before picking up the story again, but I think I’m ready now. Written in 1965, the action is set in East Germany and has Soviet and Soviet-influenced antagonists. I particularly enjoy le Carré’s phrasing and word economy, so this will be an exercise in enjoying good writing as well as a good story.
As regular New South Essays’ readers will remember, I have been working on learning the beautiful game, and one of my instructors has been Men in Blazers co-founder Roger Bennett. His podcasts are so laden with metaphor spoken with the Skouser accent of a genuine Liverpudlian transplant to the USA that truth be told, I sometimes have to replay portions of the podcast to get what he’s saying. I love his enthusiastic hyperbole. Whether it’s Terry’s chocolate oranges or Everton Football Club, I appreciate his appreciation of what he appreciates. I’m eager to dive into his memoir, “(Re)born in the USA: An Englishman’s Love Letter to His Chosen Home.” I recently finished “Encyclopedia Blazertannica” that had me LOLing from A to Z, and I expect this to be as funny as it is poignant.
Another encyclopedia of sorts, Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion” has been on my list for years. I’m tired of asking my middle son, Harris, for backstory whenever any of Tolkien’s works come up in conversation – which is a surprising amount – or when we’re watching some recent adaptation of Tolkien’s work such as Amazon’s “The Rings of Power” or last year’s animated film, “The War of The Rohirrim.” With “The Hunt for Gollum” and another season of “The Rings of Power” in production, I need to bone up on my Middle Earth lore. Like Landon’s and Roger Bennett’s encyclopedic works, this is another book without a narrative structure that can be ingested one entry at a time without losing the throughline. And who doesn’t love maps!
For Father’s Day Harris added “Tales from the Perilous Realm” to my Tolkien collection. Illustrated by Alan Lee, this will be a great book to dip into and out of when I need a Tolkien fix while engrossed in the other books on my list. I also suspect Harris will want to borrow my copy when I finish.
My Father’s Day also included Carlton’s gift of “Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind” by one of my favorite comedians and frequent subject of New South Essays content, Nate Bargatze. I feel obligated to point out that Bargatze’s career has taken off since I first mentioned him in New South Essays, and while not taking full credit for his success, I can’t help but point out the obvious correlation. The book’s title comes from one of his jokes about playing golf at a course with llamas as bag carriers. This will be a fun read to intersperse among the others when I need a good laugh.
“Peach” by Amanda Greene will serve as the palate cleanser between the more plot-driven reading on my summer list. Published by Bitter Southerner, “Peach” is a collection of Greene’s photos that capture the contemporary South in compelling ways. I’ve thumbed through it a number of times, but peak peach season, which is upon us, seems to be the most appropriate time to spend quality time with this gift from my oldest son, Barron.
And finally, “Jimmy Carter: Rivers & Dreams” by Jim Barger Jr. with Dr. Carlton Hicks seems fitting to at least begin during the summer. Another of Bitter Southerner’s titles and also one of Barron’s gifts, this book covers “Rods, reels, and peace deals, plus the one that got away” in a sort of memoir of fly fishing trips with President Carter. Very Georgia-centric, the book appeals to my fascination with and appreciation of fishing as a storytelling catalyst. I look forward to descriptions of natural settings along with some fish stories as an added bonus.
So that’s it. It may be too ambitious to think I will get through them all, especially since I’m afflicted by the writer’s malady of feeling like I should be writing anytime I’m reading. But I look forward to maximizing our beach trip and my Sunday afternoons on the porch to make as much progress as possible.
What’s on your list this summer? (Besides New South Essays, of course.) Leave a comment of your summer reading aspirations along with any other recommendations.
Happy reading, but don’t count on getting a Personal Pan Pizza from New South Essays.
New South Essays 