Summer reading for 2025

I have Yuval Noah Harari's [italic]Sapiens[/italic] scheduled for this summer. Despite the glowing reviews, I'm concerned it might be bit too intellectual?

Definitely not intellectual will be Gareth Russell's [italic]Do Let's Have Another Drink[/italic], bio of the Queen Mother.

Also on the schedule, Gill Hornby's [italic]Miss Austen[/italic], featuring an older Cassandra looking back at her life, and of course Jane's. A bit leery as a reviewer described it as 'dark'.

No, the other thread is just fine and has not filled up yet.

DUPLICATE THREAD.

With Love, Mommie Dearest - The behind-the-scenes look at the making of Mommie Dearest. Very entertaining

Once I finish Nostromo and Victory, I want to see if I can get beyond Swann’s Way—which I first read as a freshman in French Literature (we actually just read Swann in Love, but I went back and read the whole volume on my own). Every time I start again (approximately once a decade), I make the mistake of feeling I have to start with volume 1 and get bogged down. Since I know about the narrator’s night dears, the madeleine, and Swann and Odette, and the sonata, I think I’ll begin with volume 2 this time.

I also read a Louise Penny while I’m reading something more weighty. The formulaic quality is soothing in its own way.

I can't find the other thread you mention. Maybe I blocked the OP.

I'm reading "Big Meg," a nice if somewhat routine pop paleontological about Megalodon. I gave up on "Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, With Eels" when it turned out to be a Bruce Chatwin style grab bag of whatever random material on eels the author could scrape together to pad out its length. Patrik Svensson's "The Book of Eels" was so much better.

"Disco Witches Of Fire Island" comes out Tuesday, May 6th.

Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness, Martha Grimes's The Red Queen (long live Richard Jury and Melrose Plant), John Lahr's Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrim of the Flesh, Stephen King's Never Flinch, and Joyce Carol Oates's Fox: A Novel.

And if I have the strength Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes . . .

I just picked up One Hundred years of Solitude. I've meant to read it for years.

R3…bless your heart

R7. I loved Under Western Eyes! Lord Jim and The Secret Agent are still my favorite Conrads, but UWE was well worth reading.

I'm reading Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie for the first time since junior high school.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

On my "totally random" May/June reading list:

"Fatelessness" by Imre Kertész. Long dreaded and long overdue. The only major work of holocaust fiction I haven't read

"Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar" by Cynthia Carr. My interest was piqued after reading her David Wojnarowicz biography, "Fire in the Belly" last year

"Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist." I have a weakness for Spotify, which has introduced me to so much new music in recent years. I suspect that reading this will make me want to permanently delete my account

"The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public-School Ethos" by Peter Parker. Older (1980s) book by the author of the "Some Men in London" gay anthology. His research is meticulous and I admire him and would like to support him

"Falconer" by John Cheever -- always wanted to read this

Demian by Hermann Hesse

After Edmund White's death, I figured I would read his whole trilogy because I'd tried the first book in college in the 80s and never made it all the way through. It's actually good summer reading because it has tons of sex, and it's kind of aimless. It's enjoyable reading about someone who was drifting through life as much as he was when he was young. He was often poor when he was a young man (I was surprised to learn how many jobs he did that involved significant manual labor). But because of his social capital (as the well-educated son of rich people in the Midwest) he never seems unprivileged, and he's sometimes taken in by wealthier men who pay his way but use him for sex.

The strangest thing about it is that there are so many portraits of friends and lovers, and they all seem so coldly observed. No one ever seems endearing to him--they seem like odd distant caricatures, although they're often very finely detailed. His narrator is very self-obsessed mostly because his parents and his sister never accept him for what he is, and so he has tons of impersonal sexual encounters to make up for the profound alienation. But you understand why he never overcomes his narcissism (which is so evident in the writing of the books themselves).

I finished [italic]See What I Have Done[/italic]. A bit twee at times, but I was okay with the style overall. Interesting take on the idea that there might have been an "outsider" involved; for a while they looked at Andrew's alleged dastardly (who turned out not to be his after all). Moreover, that plays into the 1905 final split between Lizzie and Emma. The ending was odd, impossible to believe given the historical facts. Recommended for Lizzie-ites as an interesting premise, if not perfectly executed.

One more thing about [italic]The Beautiful Room is Empty[/italic]--several of the characters talk in that dense pre-Stonewall gay slang where all men (gay or straight) are referred to as "she" or "her," all young men are referred to as "chicken," and all women are referred to as "fish." You still see these terms used every so often among some Dataloungers and some other older gay men, but most of it has died out. It was used, as most kinds of in-group slang are, to distinguish subculture insiders from outsiders.

My “Summer Weekly Reader.” Everything’s in color!!!