SUMMER READING
Like the proverbial “eyes bigger than her stomach,” I always have ambitious plans for how many and which books I will read over the summer. Several stacks of them in fact. They are a mix of novels, mysteries, biography, and general nonfiction. And I have aspirations of re-reading some classics like Austen’s Persuasion and the last three novels in Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga. Then I stock up on books in paper (can’t read everything on my Kindle, what fun is that?) and every year for the past several, I’ve posted a box of said books to our Maine address.
I also confess to getting carried away and purchasing bunches of bargain-priced novels for the Kindle. It’s far too easy to be seduced by the daily e-mails from BookBub, Bookperk, Harper Collins and Random House of titles one shouldn’t miss. Finally, I succumb and treat myself to one or two literary works from my ever growing Kindle Wish List. All in all, sufficient reading for many months, perhaps years!
What are your summer reading plans? You can comment below.
LATEST READING
The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques
While the details of the financial maneuvering and chicanery Madoff indulged in were beyond my understanding, I found this a chilling read. Made me want to re-check my own financial advisor’s credentials (subsequent conversation with said advisor was most reassuring!) Painstakingly detailed, the book gripped me and I read it quickly, mostly for the timeline and scenario of how his lying and scheming developed and who of his team was complicit. I would have liked more probing analysis of Madoff’s psyche and his early life. The book was made into a movie which I’ve not seen.
A House among the Trees by Julia Glass
I have read every one of Julia Glass’s previous five novels and enjoyed them all, some a bit more than others. And I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing her at a reading in a Bay Area bookstore several years ago. I found this new novel, A House among the Trees, equally satisfying. Her works are not heavily plot driven, and some readers might find the pacing slow as the characters are revealed through their conversation, their thoughts and their own writing.
Glass has a fondness for the theater and at least one earlier work had elements of the theater and performance in it. Here we have an award-winning aging children’s book author, Mort Lear, mostly keeping close a secret from his childhood, and a handsome boldface actor, Nicholas Greene, who will play Mort in an upcoming film. Both of these characters have well developed public faces, facades that protect who they really are. Linking these two is Tomasina Daulair, a middle-aged woman who has, in essence, given over the entirety of her adult life to serving Mort. She is coordinator of his daily life, protector of his privacy, negotiator with his publisher and fans and yet neither lover nor wife. When Mort dies before Nicholas gets to meet him, Tommy becomes the guide to Mort’s life. In the process, she and Nick learn new things about themselves as they deliberately or inadvertently shape Mort’s legacy along with their own futures. I like Glass’s writing a lot; to me it’s rich and juicy, full of yummy detail.
