It's Summer - Time to Read For FUN!

Ahh, summer's here. Time to relax at the Springs with a good book. The only problem is, the only reading I'm updated on at the moment is on the subjects of Human Capital Theory, Quantitative Methods for Management, and Mental Health Care in Texas. I think I've had my share of those topics. It's TIME TO READ A BOOK FOR FUN!!! This has already been the topic of conversation between several of my fellow student friends, and I thought we should all share our recommendations of some good summer reading. If you can, just add a comment to this post with 1, 2, or 100 tasty books you think others would like. Please!

So here's my list of favorite summer reading (you'll notice no non-fiction on this list...see above).

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
This is a story set in India around the time of its independence from Great Britain. It is so beautifully written and also very educational. I have an affinity for stories set in India, and this is one of the first and best that I've read. It's a love story, a war story, and an arranged marriage story all rolled into one.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
I finished this book in one afternoon on a beach in Vanuatu. That says a lot considering I could've been diving or snorkeling...I really couldn't put it down. I was completely impressed by the male author's ease at writing with a woman's perspective as she goes through life changes, body image issues, etc. Wally's books really stick with me - I also loved I Know this Much is True (about a set of twins, one with mental illness) and Couldn't Keep it to Myself (stories about women living in a prison in NY and what brought them there).

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This is a simple fable about a boy going on a set of unexpected adventures. It's really just a metaphor for life and its curve balls. I read it when I had just moved to Australia and really identified with the main character as I travelled to random places I never expected to see and picked up new hobbies I hadn't thought of before. After reading this book, I read some others by the author (a hugely successful Brazilian author), one of which was a fictional story set on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Wouldn't you know, four years later, I found myself walking the Camino. I love to think about how this simple book made me more open to new things.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
"My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
I took a writing course for teachers a few summers ago, and these first two sentences of this book were used as an example of a great hook. It's a sad book, but so beautifully written and hard to put down. Susie tells the story from heaven. It follows life for her family and friends after her death.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This book is an absolute show-stopper and you must read it now if you haven't. The fact that Chris, his mom, and myself all loved this book will prove its universal appeal. Cal, the main character, is transsexual, but it's not just a book about that. The book goes back two generations, starting on an island in the Mediterranean and ending in Detroit. The character development is fantastic, but what also struck me about this book is the huge amount of research the author must have done to write it. The descriptions of Detroit and the Greek island are fantastic. Oh, and it also has a killer hook: "I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
A man, a dog, and a vehicle. What else could you want for summer reading? It's especially fun to read about places you've been and compare your version of them with Steinbeck's, which was written in 1962. I've read it several times now, and it always leaves me wanting to see more of our vast country.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Roy is another Indian author I really enjoy. The story is about twins and their Indian family and hardships they go through. I highly recommend it, although I can't articulate at this moment what exactly makes it so memorable. All I can say is that it's one of those books that stands out in my mind, even though I read it 11 years ago. And it won the Booker Prize, so it can't be that bad. :)

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo
Okay, this one is a children's book, but I loved it so much and so did the two classes of 5th graders I read it to. The main characters: a poor little mouse named Despereaux, a princess named Pea, Roscouro the evil rat, and Miggery Sow, the poor servant girl. The coolest thing about this book is that the author refers to the Reader throughout the story. ("Reader, can you imagine your own father not voting against your being sent to a dragon full of rats?"..."Reader, as the teller of this tale, it is my duty from time to time to utter some hard and rather disagreeable truths. In the spirit of honesty, then, I must inform you that Mig was the tiniest bit lazy. And that she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer." It's funny and it has adorable illustrations too.