Summer Reading

I'm just about to read Moonshine, by Alaya Johnson, an adult paranormal set in an alternate 1930s, with lots of interesting historical politics. Also in this vein is Holly Black's series debut, White Cat, a current-day alternate history in which Prohibition was the illegalization of magic. Can't wait to read two sequels: Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan and Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan.

From Sneed B. Collard III, author of Science Warriors: The Battle Against Invasive Species (Houghton Harcourt, 2008) and Double Eagle (Peachtree, 2009):

My seven-year-old dashed my top idea, which was a family read-aloud of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series. As soon as we brought the first book home, he began devouring it like a crocodile eviscerating a swimming wildebeest. Sigh.

With that option out, I visited Fact and Fiction, Missoula's [MT] downtown independent bookstore, and asked for recommendations. Here's what went on my VISA card: Colin Cotterill's Anarchy and Old Dogs, Attica Locke's Black Water Rising, and John McPhee's Silk Parachute.

I'm also looking forward to reading Larry Dane Brimner's Birmingham Sunday, Roland Smith's Cryptid Hunters, and Kelly Milner Hall and William Sumner's Saving the Baghdad Zoo. And maybe, just maybe, my wife and I will be able to finish reading aloud Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. Anyone know a good babysitter?

From Kimberly Willis Holt, author of The Water Seeker (Holt, 2010):

When I was an unpublished writer, I began to read short stories. I quickly fell in love with the form and so I hope to spend many summer hours settled in my backyard hammock reading anthologies. Some of my favorites are New Stories from the South (I own every edition) and The Best American Short Stories. When many of the writers I adore mentioned that they admired Alice Munro's work, I decided I better find out what all the fuss was about. Now I know and I've added her latest, Too Much Happiness: Stories to my pile.

I plan to read some novels, too. Kathi Appelt's Keeper will be among the first. 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass looks delightful enough to slip into my picnic basket. Elsa Hahne's You Are Where You Eat might be a cookbook, but the stories about New Orleans neighborhoods and the folks that live there add a dimension to my reading palate like a hefty dose of New Orleans hot sauce splashed on red beans and rice. And who knows? Maybe I'll take the book into the kitchen.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, author of The Wonder Book (HarperCollins, 2010):

Because I hope/plan/pray to finish my (first) novel this summer and worry about the influence of literary giants and their magnificent voices seeping into my easily distractible brain, I will (sadly) be trying NOT to read much this summer. This will be a first, and every fiber in my body will be aching to read, I assure you. Can you ask me this question again in September?

From Allen Zadoff, author of Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have (Egmont, 2009):

With a book due soon, I know better what I'll be writing this summer than what I'll be reading. But in my off hours I am looking forward to The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell. It's the kind of book I loved as a boy, a full-on supervillains vs. superheroes, sci-fi adventure. In adult literature I'm a fan of the war memoir, so Sebastian Junger's War is on the top of my list.

As for Andrew Zansky, the hero of my novel Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have, he'll be reading Born Round by Frank Bruni. Between laughter and tears he will think, "That's just like my story!"

From Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007):

Summer reading is my chance to relax, which means no teen literature for three whole months. (I can't stop analyzing it, which makes it feel like...shudder...homework.) Instead, I'll be kickin' back with the following:

Adult nonfiction: In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time by Peter Lovenheim; and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

New middle-grade fiction: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger, and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

Middle-grade fiction that I loved as a child and I'd like to see if I can understand why (it'll be depressing if I can't): Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald, and The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois.

Middle-grade fiction that I did not love as a child and I'd like to see if my tastes have changed (I doubt they have): Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.

Middle-grade fiction that I always wanted to read as a child but apparently never got around to (my inner-child will be pleased): James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, and The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

From Steve Jenkins, author of How to Clean a Hippopotamus: A Look at Unusual Animal Partnerships (Houghton Harcourt, 2010):

Life used to be so simple. Summer reading was that pile of books on the floor. No longer. "Summer Reading" now requires a four-part explanation. But don't worry, the parts are short.

1. Books made out of trees: These are titles I will read to and for myself, usually at night. They are all nonfiction: Silk Parachute by John McPhee (a favorite author); Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill; The Evolution of God by Robert Wright; and Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes.

2. More books made out of trees: These are the novels that I will read to my 11-year-old son, Jamie, before he falls asleep: Xenocide by Orson Scott Card (we've started it, but won't finish it until summer is here); then, maybe, The Chosen by Chaim Potok; and, of course, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins when it comes out in August.

3. Audio books the family listens to on road trips or while driving to and from soccer games: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (we've started this one, we just need another trip to finish it); Lord Sunday by Garth Nix (the conclusion to the "Keys to the Kingdom" series); and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. (We listened to Huckleberry Finn last summer.)

4. Audio books to listen to in the studio when I'm working on illustration: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan; and The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe by Steven Weinberg.

Jeez, sounds like a lot of words to fit into three short months. And what if I get an iPad?

From Peter Brown, author of The Curious Garden (Little, Brown, 2009):

Reading is an essential part of my creative process, and so I wake up every day and read for about an hour and a half. I'm always working on at least two books: one fiction and one nonfiction. That way I get creative stimulation from real-world information as well as admirable imaginations.

This summer my list includes The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and World War Z by Max Brooks, because I can't help loving sci-fi and dystopian thrillers. I'm also trying to cross some modern classics off the list, so I hope to (finally) get around to Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.

On the nonfiction side, I plan on reading Future Evolution, a look at Earth's dismal future as predicted by Peter Ward, and on the lighter side, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan.

That said, I never seem to make it out of my local library without checking out something unexpected, so who knows what I'll end up borrowing by summer's end?

From Gordon Korman, author of Pop (HarperCollins, 2009):

I've been immersed in research for a series about the Titanic for the better part of a year now, so I'm hoping to devote my summer to books on any other topic.

In my nightstand stack you'll find: Me and Orson Welles by Robert Kaplow; The Cellist of Sarajevo by Canadian author Steven Galloway; Going Bovine by my buddy Libba Bray; and Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman, a hero of mine by virtue of the fact that he somehow manages to be a regular dad without forsaking cool music.

Wait a minute! Does an ocean liner sink in any of those? If so, then I'll have to change my picks.

From Malinda Lo, author of Ash (Little, Brown, 2009):

I have a very long list of books I'd like to read, but tend to pick from it entirely at random, motivated by mood. There are a few books I'm reserving for this summer, though, because they seem to suit the season.

I recently enjoyed Rosemary Clement-Moore's The Splendor Falls (I love a wise-cracking mystery/romance), so I'm hoping to start Highway to Hell, part of her girl vs. evil series. In a similar paranormal vein, I'm looking forward to Meg Cabot's new adult novel, Insatiable, which she describes as a modern sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Perfect for afternoons on the deck with a cold drink!

Also, I'm planning on diving into Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. Vastly different, yes, but they'll both fill some of my fiction gaps. Last but not least, I'm pretty sure I'm going to reread Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and Catching Fire to prepare for Mockingjay. I can't wait!

From Carolyn Mackler, author of Tangled (HarperCollins, 2010):

This summer, I plan to eat lots of ice cream, take long bike rides, swim in lakes, cuddle my two children, hang out with my husband and--yes!--I have delirious visions of myself, swaying in a hammock (somewhere) tucked into a great novel.

Here's what will be in the hammock with me: Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, First Light by Rebecca Stead, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, and any amazing-looking books that I get my hands on at the American Library Association Conference. Yes, it's all young adult literature all the time around here. Actually, to mix it up, I may read American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. And Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. Then it's off for another ice cream cone.

From Lois Lowry, author of The Birthday Ball (Houghton Harcourt, 2010):

Along with half the humans in the universe, I'll be reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in order to get one more glimpse of sullen and fascinating Lisbeth Salander.

I also have Solar on my list, despite its reviews, because Ian McEwan has always been a favorite of mine.

Tinkers by Paul Harding, for sure.

Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk.

Finally, two books by Tim Matson: The Country Pond Maker's Guide to Building, Maintenance and Restoration and Landscaping Earth Ponds: The Complete Guide. I'll be consulting these a little nervously, and with the sound of the backhoe as an accompaniment.

Megan Whalen Turner, author of A Conspiracy of Kings (HarperCollins, 2010):

My summer reading is going to be on audiobook this year. I am looking at a road trip this summer that is 3,763 miles long. That's 59 hours in the car and almost everyone in my immediate family is bigger than I am. There are obvious downsides to this (the car is not that big), but at least we no longer have to listen to jolly children's music all the way across the country. I might get to listen to Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, but I think our summer listening list looks something like this . . .

Lamb by Christopher Moore

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Or maybe, we'll just put Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson in the CD player. At 43 hours and 53 minutes it would get us almost all the way home.

From Ingrid Law, author of Savvy (2008) and the forthcoming sequel, Scumble (August, 2010, both Dial):

Looking forward to three solid months at home for the first time in a long, long while, I can't wait to dig into the stacks of books I've been longing to read rather than trip over.

A dear friend just gave me a collection of stories by Anton Chekhov, for a change of pace. And a mysterious stranger recently recommended The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. I say "mysterious" and "stranger" because (with sincerest apologies if it was you) I cannot remember who told me about it, and all my friends claim innocence.

I'm also looking forward to Watt Key's companion to Alabama Moon, Dirt Road Home; and Frances O'Roark Dowell's latest, Falling In. The buzz about Matched by Ally Condie has me both curious and excited (not to mention giddy to have an advance copy).

In audio--because stories make housework so much better--I've been listening to the first book in Jonathan Stroud's "Bartimaeus Trilogy," The Amulet of Samarkand, and hope to listen to the other two titles while I catch up on some belated spring cleaning.

From Daniel Pinkwater, author of Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl (Houghton Harcourt, 2010):

I was a nightmare of a student--or I would have been if any of my teachers cared to notice. I was mistrustful, suspicious, and resistant. I made a point of never reading assigned books, and I kept this up all the way through college. "Did you read the assignment?" "No, but I found this other book."

As soon as school was over, every summer became a marathon of reading my own choices--at least a book a day. Later, when I became a writer, I discovered a trick: If I didn't read, I would be compelled to write, just to get my fiction fix. The more I wrote, and the more projects I had in hand, the less I would read in order to keep myself going, until I did no reading at all, except for little vacations from writing, when I would gobble up books in the old way. Summer, which for the first half of my life had been the great reading season, also turns out to be a great writing season.

This summer I expect to be working on a novel, so my summer reading list is as follows: nothing at all, if possible. Unless the novel gets stuck, in which case I might read [Miguel De Cervantes's] Don Quixote, The New Knowledge of Dog Behavior by Clarence Pfaffenberger, the complete works of Thomas Berger, I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb, The Meaning of Modern Sculpture by R. H. Wilenski, or, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick...there are plenty of books lying around.

From Margarita Engle, author of The Firefly Letters (Holt, 2010):

I love Ray Bradbury's advice from Zen in the Art of Writing: "Read poetry every day of your life." It is not an accident that book covers are door-shaped, so at dawn I plan to enter the portal of Psalms, followed by The Whole Island (Mark Weiss, ed.), a bilingual anthology of modern Cuban poetry. After a walk and a few hours of work on my own poetry, I'll open Borrowed Names by Jeannine Atkins, and The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli.

Siesta hour gives me the choice of an outdoor or indoor hammock (depending on the weather). Swaying in midair, I hope to relax and enter international fiction via The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de Robertis, A Free Life by Ha Jin, and How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique.

Nonfiction gates will take me sailing on The Last Voyage of Columbus by Martin Dugard, and trekking through Fordlandia by Greg Grandin. In the evenings, magical entryways will send me time-traveling back to children's classics, beginning with anything by E. Nesbit.

From Fred Bowen, author of the "Fred Bowen Sports Story" series including the forthcoming Throwing Heat (Peachtree, July 2010):

Right now, I'm reading Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. It's a fascinating novel inspired by a true story of German resistance to the Nazis. It was written after World War II [in 1947] but only recently translated into english.

Because I enjoy American history, I thought I would read Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood. His book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, was terrific.

Several summers ago, I read Under a War-Torn Sky, a wonderful young adult novel about World War II by my friend, L.M. (Laura) Elliott. She has written a sequel, A Troubled Peace, which I'm planning on picking up.

And because I am a sports guy, I'm also thinking about some sports titles. I loved The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever by Mark Frost, so I might try his book, Game Six, about the famous 1975 World Series involving (my) Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, or one of his golf titles: Grand Slam, or, The Greatest Game Ever Played.