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The Workman Summer Reading List, Just in Time for August

It’s that time again… the point in summer when you realize that you’d better haul the family out to the beach one last weekend, lest all the pleasant days of flip flops, sundresses, and grills escape you… that moment after the 30 SPF is securely stashed in your tote when you realize… I need a book to read! Where’s my summer reading list?

So, if you’re going on vacation, or if you’re just desperately in need of a spine to crack, we’ve brought you a taste of the tomes we’re taking everywhere this summer. They’re perfect for a spell in the rocking chair on your back porch, a quiet night in a mountain cabin, or a scorching day in the sand and surf (although I suppose you should try to keep the books and/or your e-reading device dry…). Enjoy!

Here are a few words about the pages we’ve been turning:

A recent vacation to Chicago, with its Art Deco skyscrapers and ghosts of Al Capone-era gangsters, put me in the mood for some noir. So I headed to Myopic Books in Wicker Park (a bastion of literary wish-fulfillment) and picked up Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. It features everything I love about Prohibition—dashing gentlemen; feisty, quick-thinking women; shadowy speakeasies; and nefarious henchmen. And in this case, the magnetic couple at the center of it all is married and rich. The action is thrilling and the romance is retro. –Erin

After forcing my way through The Paris Wife, Paula McLain’s fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage, I’ve picked up The Sun Also Rises to get the other side of the story— this time directly from the man himself. Interestingly, Ernest’s first wife Hadley is completely absent from the novel (a largely autobiographical work written during their marriage). The same can’t be said of his rumored mistress, Lady Duff Twysden, who shows up as the heroine. –Justin

Good to a Fault, by Marina Endicott. It was recommended by a blogger, who said she couldn’t put a finger on her blue mood, until she realized she was just missing this book’s characters after she’d finished… I immediately bought the book. And she was right. Delicious—and all the more so for being a book no one else I know had even heard about. Just another example of the power of the blogosphere.

I’m now reading Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan. Complex family drama (but it’s fun, since it’s not my family). Every time I pick up the book it’s a bit like escaping to the coast of Maine in July. –Page

I’m loving the complex and fascinating The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell. –Margot

I’ve just finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I’ve seen the title on the bestseller lists for so long—and I’ve always felt drawn to its title and cover design—but only got to the book this past Saturday. When I did so, I was pulled in from the first sentence into the mind of the refugee girl at the heart of the novel, and read the book in two sittings over the weekend, finishing it very late Sunday night. Like A Thousand Splendid Suns, or (shameless plug) When She Woke, coming from Algonquin this fall, this is a book that moves you not only because of your intense engagement with its characters, but also because of the larger social issues those characters dramatize so well. –Bob

I’m well into Matterhorn, the novel that took Karl Marlantes 30 years to write about his experience fighting in the Vietnam War. At first, I thought I couldn’t stay with it, too many sad and angry memories came rushing back from tumultuous years in college, from protests against the war.

It’s not a book “I can’t put down,” but nonetheless I savor it each time I pick it up. The vivid jungle scenes with leeches, darkness, rain, hunger, back breaking work, and fear and anticipation are spellbinding. I’m hooked on the open and honest access into the lives of Bravo Company and Lt. Mellas and empathize with these men in that difficult and seemingly futile situation. Matterhorn takes you into the psychological complexities of young men being tested in war. As I slowly read through, I wonder how it will end. Is there an ending? I’m into the life of Bravo Company—one day at a time. –Janet V.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez. The story of the Buendía family is told through beautiful stream-of-thought writing and whimsical magical realism, which make this book feel more like an oral telling than print. There isn’t a character that isn’t interesting, and though it sometimes takes a map to remember who’s who, the lives of the Buendías are so engrossing that the story will keep burning at the back of your mind all day. –Maren

I’d been meaning to watch the movie Wonder Boys, about an errant college writing professor struggling to complete his novel, for a long time. A few weeks ago I finally did, then immediately ran out and picked up a copy of Michael Chabon’s book by the same name. I highly recommend both: The story is hilarious and dark but also somehow tender, and, despite painting a less-than-idealistic picture of academics, makes me miss my New England college writing classes. –Avery

Here’s the unadulterated list:

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

The Sea, John Banville

Running the Rift, Naomi Benaron

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender

Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon

Little Bee, Chris Cleave

The Hunger Games Trilogy, Suzanne Collins

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

Good to a Fault, Marina Endicott

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett