summer reading list

I can’t decide if reading 13 books in one summer is a lot or a little. I also can’t believe that I’ve spent the summer reading about serial killers, disease, and maids.

“Genre” #1: Serial Killers

• Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris – I picked this up because Eliz had loaned it to me, saying she had read it multiple times and that she wanted to re-read it again. She’s my best friend and so I take her recommendations seriously (with the exception of Veronica Mars), but I was a little bit nervous because horror/crime/murder/gore isn’t really my thing. And because it’s not my things and because I’m a fool, I started to read it before going to sleep each night and would have nightmares… so I finished it by the light of day, and won’t be picking up any of the author’s other works.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson – I’ve already written about how I couldn’t stop reading this book. It’s true. I couldn’t stop. I also couldn’t stop marveling about how much coffee the characters drank and how many sandwiches they made and ate. Overall, I enjoyed the first book of the series and was anxious to move on to the next…
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Steig Larsson- I marched right out and over to Elliott Bay Books to purchase the second book in the series, and started reading it immediately. Slower than the first, but still exciting… and then I finished it and picked up Dana’s copy of…
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, by Steig Larsson – and I can’t even remember what happened, except that they ate a bunch more coffee and sandwiches and boxed pizzas and now the series is over and I’m kind of glad, because really – the story is quite ridiculous.
• And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts – this book is being included in the “serial killer” category because AIDS has killed an awful lot of people… and I’m going to be honest, I actually didn’t finish this book. It’s like, 700 pages long and after about page 250 and a whisper that the theories of Patient X being responsible for spreading the virus had since been disproved, I took matters into my own hands and did a bit of my own research instead. HOWEVER, I would recommend this book to everyone, because I think it’s important to get a sense of the scope of HIV/AIDS  in the United States, and what the toll on the gay community was- because it’s truly  astonishing.

I wish that had wrapped up the list of morbid tales, but unfortunately, it does not. We now move over to the second genre, but if I consider HIV/AIDS to be a serial killer, then I suppose The Plague should also be in that category…

“Genre” #2: Servitude (through the ages)

• Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks – boy oh boy do I not want to die of the Plague. That is all I have to say about that. Read it and see for yourself.
• Lady’s Maid, by Margaret Forster – this one is about the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, as told through her maid, who helped the couple to elope and then spent the rest of her life sacrificing her own life and family for the good of her employers, and then was turned out in the cold. Boy oh boy, I do NOT want to be a maid.
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett – I loved this book! Read it in a day. Loved it. It’s about two African-American women who work as maids for white families during the civil rights era in Mississippi, and one white woman who wants to find the maid who raised her. Need I say more? Jim Crow. The Terrible Awful. A baby named “Mae Mobley”. Just read it.

“Genre” 3: Miscellaneous

• L.A. Candy, by Lauren Conrad – uh, yeah. You can judge me, but then you’d also have to judge Kendall for purchasing it and Eliz for also reading it. Total fluff. Totally curious as to who is who in this book, though it’s pretty transparent. But wow, it’s cheesy. Even the names of the characters are ridiculous. Jane, the goody-tw0-shoes, and Scarlett, the badass? Come on.
• Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women, by Elizabeth Wurtzul – sent to me by my OTHER good friend Elizabeth, who declared that this book is her Bible, and it is now also mine. My favorite piece of wisdom? “Don’t get up to clear the dinner table unless the men do too.” Sound advice, wouldn’t you say?
• For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange– apparently people get assigned this book to read in high school and college. I’m surprised I managed to escape it- it’s really, quite good (although NOT my style whatsoever).
• The Egg & I, by Betty McDonald – yeah, so my roommate Heather is not allowed to read this book because Betty McDonald’s opinion of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest is… not very nice. But! she writes about her experience on a chicken farm in the PNW and it’s funny, so the rest of you should pick it up.
• Oxygen: A Novel, by Carol Cassella – this one comes recommended from Karyn. It’s a story of an anesthesiologist and a medical malpractice lawsuit and it’s based in Seattle, which is always neat. Not too much medi-jargon and it moves at a pleasant pace, though I can’t STAND that the protagonist is apparently one of those people who has a deep thought about every single person she lays eyes on. I mean, I certainly don’t think about the soul of every random person that passes me by… but then again, I’m selfish and nasty.

In conclusion, here are the major takeaways:

1. Do your best to avoid serial killers.
2. Swedish people eat too many sandwiches.
3. Stay healthy and pray that the Plague doesn’t make a comeback.
4. And on a personal note, my vocabulary has improved and I surprise myself by using words like “lackadaisical” in everyday conversation.