What is this stray weekend we find ourselves with between Memorial Day and June? A byproduct of this longest possible unofficial summer, a strange gift of a weekend between spring and the month in which summer officially begins.
A perfect weekend, I think, for determining our reading plans for this summer. I do this each year, decide which books will be inscribed indelibly into my memories: the novel I’ll read while lying on the grass in the sun; the short one I’ll finish in an afternoon under a blanket in the air-conditioning; the audiobook that’ll accompany me on a long drive, window down, spritzing the pollen off the windshield every few miles.
The road to absolutely not one book completed by Labor Day is paved with vague notions of wanting to read more, without much thought as to what will be read, or when. To actually manifest a season of reading, I’ve found, I need a plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated, or perfect, but it has to exist. May I present to you a lovely plan for getting a more-than-respectable amount of reading done this summer? It is the Summer Reading Bucket List, brought to you by my friends at The New York Times Book Review. If we all follow this list, we’ll expand our palates (“Read a book in a genre you don’t normally read”), travel without traveling (“Read a book in translation”), make use of a resource whose wonder we might have forgotten (“Check out and read a book from your local library”).
Once upon a time, I galloped through a book a week, thanks to a group challenge that prescribed 52 reading categories for the year. I got arrogant after completing two years of the challenge and thought I could go it alone, unyoked from the categories, which had started to feel like homework assignments. The next year I struggled to finish books, starting several at once and then casting them aside, tasting first chapters as if I were grazing at an all-you-can-eat buffet. As anyone who has filled their plate with a bit of Caesar salad, a dumpling, some cacio e pepe, two coins of roasted zucchini, maybe a little calamari knows, those buffets are a trap. You get a lot of interesting bites but you never feel satisfied.
A checklist for summer reading may seem a little uptight for those who imagine they’ll feast lavishly on the season’s bounty. But for those like me whose eyes are bigger than our attention spans, we benefit from a menu.
You could always create your own list if you prefer: 10 books you’ve been meaning to read. One book from each of the past 10 decades. Or you could enlist friends, family members, colleagues to work through the list with you — a group text keeps everyone accountable and is good for recommendations. (Be sure to check out the Book Review staff’s pointers: I didn’t know that Stockard Channing is the audiobook narrator for Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books! If I were taking a road trip with kids, we’d be listening to every one.)
Whatever books you select, do so knowing that you’re architecting the literary memories that you’ll associate with this summer for years to come. I remember the summer of 2015 not so much for what I did, but for how it felt to stretch out by the pool, the sun burning my legs, unwilling to move to the shade so engrossed was I in Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, “Blood, Bones and Butter.” “The Long Secret,” the Long Island–set sequel to “Harriet the Spy,” was, for most of my adolescence, as constant a summer stalwart as lemonade. I can still feel the humid subway platform where I stood in 2012, almost immune to the August heat, devouring Lauren Groff’s novel “Arcadia.”
So many of summer’s signatures (the sun, the sandals, the mosquitoes) stay the same year to year, but the books we read give the summer its character (and characters!), its unique complexion.
I’m almost done with “How to Rule the World,” by Theo Baker, reading it on Kindle and listening to the audiobook — my favorite double-barreled method for total immersion — so I could count it as an audiobook, or check off “Read a book published in the last year.” Next up: a book in a genre I don’t normally read. Is this the summer I get into romantasy? I’ll let you know.
- Credits: The New York Times
- By Melissa Kirsch
- Illustration: María Jesús Contreras
