Summer Reading List

People like lists.  I do too.  At the beginning of summer, book lists emerge - suggestions what to read during those long months at the beach.  Well, some of us may not even see a beach during the summer, some of us perhaps can't take a vacation, some of us are just not able to get to that summer-y place.  But, even if we can't get to the beach, we can try to find a nice spot somewhere, settle in, and read.  

I began to make a list of books I'd like to share with everyone but it was quickly getting out of hand.  So, I narrowed it down to ten books.  I hope that at least one of them will speak to you and you would feel compelled to pick it up.  These are titles of the books, which have been floating in my mind lately.  

{The books are in no particular order}

1. Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy.  I have heard the name "Pat Conroy" mentioned by a few friends how much they've enjoyed his books.  And so, I happen to pick up his autobiography in which he explores his crazy, nutty, Irish, and hurtful past.  He reflects on his childhood and the volatility his father brought into the lives of his mother and siblings, on his mother's stoicism and avoidance, on his brother's suicide.  Conroy writes with honesty and authenticity.  

2. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson.  Most of the biographies (however short or long) focus too much on Plath's relationship with Ted Hughes.  Often times, these reflections are offered in terms of feminist criticism putting complete blame on Hughes for Plath's suicide.  One can never truly know what happened but one thing is for sure: Plath suffered from many existential and mental maladies way before she met Hughes.  By focusing on her early life, Wilson provides an opening into a mind on fire, forever captured by her own being, an overly self-conscious girl wanting desperately to be freed from the burden of being.  

3. The Selected Letters of Willa Cather edited by Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout.  I bought this collection reluctantly simply because Cather made it quite clear that she did not want any of her letters published.  How Jewell and Stout got around this is still a mystery to me - some legal mumbo jumbo I am sure.  Add to the whole mix Cather's relationship with women, and you got yourself some mysteries that really have no bearing that much on her art.  In any case, if you're a fan of Cather's novels like me, then you will appreciate these letters very much.  The selection is divided thematically, rather than chronologically (e.g., Cather becoming a writer, Cather as a teacher, etc.), which makes it much better to move around the book.  

4. Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky.  This is Paretsky's debut crime novel featuring the detective V.I. Warshawski.  I love this book!  It is not easy to be original and authentic when it comes to mystery novels, particularly those that take place in Chicago, have a noir flavor to them, and have a woman detective who also happens to be best buds with booze.  But Paretsky really does a great job, I guarantee you that you will enjoy it. 

5. One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty.  In this book, Welty remembers her childhood and how it formed her vision as a writer.  She describes lovingly her family and how much both her father and mother meant to her.  She is connected to the landscape as well as the objects that surround her and the vividness of those memories take us into the interior aspect of what kind of writer she is.  Welty also speaks of her love of photography and how ventures into the picture taking informed her relationship to the written word.  This is slim but very powerful volume from one of the dialogic writers of American literature.

6. The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph B. Soloveitchik.  This is another one of those small volumes that contains within it multitude of meaning in asking the question of what it means to be a human being.  This was first published in 1965 as an essay in a magazine.  Soloveitchik begins by speaking about Adam and Eve in order to really get into the center of what it means to be alone, lonely, and alienated.  A combination of Kierkegaardian existentialism and dread and despair, and faith in Judaism.

7. Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing by Thomas Merton, edited by Robert Inchausti.  This collection brings together elements of Merton as a writer and the wholeness of his spiritual life.  A writer is rarely divorced from his spiritual life and these meditations on writing taken from many of Merton's works (including letters) are wonderful to read whether you are a writer or not.  

8. Letter to Olga by Vaclav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson. Havel is truly an inspiring figure.  I have a strong connection to his writings, partly because of his insistence of pointing out the pain of the oppressed and the importance of freedom, and partly because I was a refugee in the Czech republic and had an opportunity to experience this culture from within (a foundation started by Olga Havlova gave refuge to people like me).  These letters speak of love, anger, freedom, imprisonment, bodily ailments, daily life in prison, and even Levinas's philosophy of the Other!  

9. The Time of the Angels by Iris Murdoch.  Murdoch is one of my favorite writers, and this novel was either my introduction to Murdoch or I read it shortly after.  Murdoch is not for everyone: she can be opaque but I think the mystery of her characters as well as her writing speaks through the thick veils that she lifts throughout the story.  This novel is a kind of Murdoch's take on a particularly British gothic but it is never forced.  Instead, characters' vices emerge out of the fog.  The central figure is an Anglican vicar who is more guilty than we would suspect.  This is a gothic novel tinged with theological and philosophical eroticism, which surprisingly reveals a lot about human desires.

10. The Mosque: the Heart of Submission by Rusmir Mahmutcehajic.  This is a philosophical meditation on what it means to be a Muslim.  Mahmutcehajic is one of the leading Bosnian philosophers, theologians, and intellectuals.  He takes a phenomenological approach to a reality of being a Muslim and how both the actual space "mosque" and the symbolism of it functions in a relation to the Self and Other.  The book is barely 100 pages long but the short sections in which Mahmutcehajic explores the meaning of surrender to God offer a possibility to meditate on one's own faith, whether it be Islam or something else.

So, there it is!  The list could be longer but I thought ten books is plenty to choose from.  I tried to pick something for everyone and I did not include exclusively scholarly books.  Sometimes, the simplest and shortest and most obvious things said about who we are can be thousand times more helpful than dense tomes (not that I have anything against huge volumes of deep thought!).  Hope you enjoy these and I hope they give you some pleasure, something to think about, but most importantly, I hope that they unveil some aspects of yourself and your fellow human being to you.

{In case you would like to buy some of these books, I have included Amazon links in the title}