Prisoners, Nuns and Mockingbirds: a Summer Reading List

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Summer is for slackers. And non-fiction is for suckers. I stick by that, and in that vein, my summer reading list is usually ALL fiction. But this year, I’m going to diverge from that just a little bit. Like many white people in America, I’m realizing more every day that I don’t know the first thing about race, or racism, as it lives and breathes in the soil of my own country.  I heard a challenge recently: to make a commitment to read only books by people of color for a whole year. I’m working on that reading list, and hope to share it in the fall… in the meantime, we can all start with:  

The New Jim Crow. An important conversation about mass incarceration and the systems that still keep some of us living in pre-Civil Rights America. And if you want more where that came from, check out Goodreads’ list of 264 Books White People Need to Read. That should keep you busy at least through the end of June.

Moving on… not that it’s much lighter reading, but at least it’s fiction: settle into the poetry, the heartache and the stunning beauty of All the Light We Cannot See. It is this year’s Goldfinch (which was on last year’s list). Just gorgeous, all the way through. It doesn’t end how you want it to… but war never does. It’s still worth your time. I read the whole thing on vacation! Now I’m ready for

Amy Poelher’s Yes, Please. I’ve heard that if you loved Bossypants (and if you didn’t then I am unfriending you), YP delivers a similar dose of humor, girl power, and life goodness. And then, for some life badness, I’ll switch over to

Revival. Nope, not the latest from Franklin Graham (speaking of badness), but the newest Stephen King—who I’d given up on in the long dry desert of all the terrible things that came after the Dark Tower series, but then 11/22/63 rekindled my obsession, and I cannot wait to read this one now. Which, I understand, features a clergy character who’s gone to the darkside. (yes!)

As for this clergy person, the dark side of temptation is: going to get your book off the library hold shelf, and noticing that RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR BOOK, The Girl on the Train waits on hold… for someone else. No, I didn’t steal it. But dang, I’ve heard nothing but “I read straight through it in 8 hours!” kinds of reports about this one. High on my list. Though apparently on everybody else’s, too.

Feeling icky about the prospect of Go Set a Watchman being published under questionable circumstances? Get your Harper Lee fix with The Mockingbird Next Door, by Marja Mills. This is the memoir of a young reporter from Chicago who was granted the rare, elusive interview with the Lee sisters… and it turns out, they like her so much, she winds up moving into the house next door to them for over a year. She writes about life in Monroeville, Alabama–the small town that inspired the (not so fictional) Maycomb. Ultimately, the book turned out to be more about the author’s process, and her health issues, than it is about the Lee sisters. But if you love all things Mockingbird, it’s still worth the read. I especially love this passage:

“The following day, my phone rang at the Best Western. ‘Hello?’ 
‘Miss Mills?’ 
‘Yes, this is Marja.’
‘This is Harper Lee. You’ve made quite an impression on [my sister.] I wondered if we might meet.’ ”  

AHHHH! Would you not just lay right down and die on the spot? Pretty sure I would. (if it’s all true. which some say it isn’t. good grief). Still, don’t keel over yet, because you’ve still got to read

The Invention of Wings – because I love me some good Southern chic lit. And this is not nearly so racially-oblivious as The Help.

But if you really want to talk about significant issues, let’s all read Call the Midwife – I am binge watching the whole series on Netflix, and I’m blown away every episode by the social and theological conscience of this show. You want to talk about patriarchy, women’s rights, vocation, forgiveness, access to healthcare, human suffering, poverty and pretty much all the other things that matter in the world—this show has it. And it’s all based on a trilogy of memoirs that I’m fixing to blow through. As soon as I can turn off the t.v. It’s not looking good.

And while we’re binge watching… I’m also going to read (the real) Piper Kirman’s memoir, “Orange is the New Black.” Unless all y’all tell me that it is too different from the show and will ruin the whole thing for me, in which case, I will put it down because I love the shows.

Also on my to-download queue –the rest of the Lonesome Dove Chronicles. EVEN THOUGH the last chapter of Lonesome Dove was the worst thing to happen to literature ever, I still loved the rest of it enough to power through the series. And also, because I need me a good cowboy fix in the summer.

And then, when those last days of August creep up on my calendar, I’m going to pre-order Furiously Happy –the new memoir coming out in September by Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess!) Because summer deserves to go out with a laugh, ultimately.

Ok, we’re in the last half of June, so get to reading! Toes in sand, beverage in hand… and a little world-changing in the spaces between these long, lazy days.