Summer: It's the perfect time for beach-going, golf, roller coasters, grilling and lots more activities set in the inviting outdoors. It's also not a bad time for an activity usually done indoors: reading. This time of year, fans of the printed (or pixilated) word find themselves in search of a holy grail, which takes the form of the perfect summer book.
Time magazine devotes a page in "The Answers Issue" to the question: "What is your ultimate summer read?" Among the recommendations: Toni Morrison's God Help the Child and Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive.
It might seem like an odd question. We don't make a big deal of finding specific volumes tailored to winter or spring. Why bother with books at all when there are so many other warm-weather options that beckon seductively?
One reason is that there's something special about diving deep into a novel while lying in a hammock or a pool chaise. Besides, some days in July and August are just too hot to even think about physical exertion.
Sure, it's a pleasure, when snow is falling on a frigid landscape, to snuggle into an easy chair by a roaring fire. But being able to occasionally put down the book to smell the flowers or dip a toe in the water is a luxury not to be missed. And it's easier to enjoy a good book when the driveway isn't in need of shoveling.
Much of the appeal of summer reading may trace back from long childhood school breaks, when the days stretched out forever and offered plenty of time for exploring the Mississippi with Huckleberry Finn or sleuthing with Nancy Drew. Many a devoted reader was spawned after the last school bell had rung. Even for modern kids and adults, summer is a time for vacations, when books you've been meaning to get around to provide a pleasant way to idle away abundant free time.
The perennial question is what sort of book best suits the season. Among the legends of the genre are Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (2012) and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), both of which came out conveniently in June. In a pinch, Stephen King, Anne Tyler and John Grisham are good bets.
The ideal books have a few basic elements: a gripping plot, memorable characters, and a high page count. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it's no virtue when you have a lazy afternoon and nothing that has to be done.
Summer reads don't have to be light fare: For some people, hefty biographies and Russian novels can be savored best from an Adirondack chair on the porch of a rustic lake cottage. Some lake cottages come nicely equipped with a shelf of fat paperbacks, dog-eared and water-warped, that have sustained previous vacationers on sunny afternoons--or rainy ones.
The best of these books are like the perfect summer: They last a long time, they provide one surprise and pleasure after another, and you hate to see them end.
Editorial on 08/12/2015