even out of college and in the working world there is something extra leisurely about summertime. it seems like there is always an occasion in the summer where you have to try to deliberately relax. at the moment steve and i have so much going on, i am fantasizing about the minute we actually get a chance to open books again. if you find yourself looking for a read this summer here are a few titles i'm meaning to check out!
on my list:
i get pretty loyal to my authors. i kind of have a thing for real physical books (versus kindle) and so when i buy one i want to make sure it's going to be worth reading. i don't really want to pay for a $20 paperweight. chuck palahniuk is one of those authors i will always trust to produce brilliant work. he's insanely creative, he's dark, he's funny, he's fairly perverted, and he's really really good at writing characters. right now this one's top of my list.
official synopsis:
“Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison,” declares the whip-tongued eleven-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk’s subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a marijuana overdose—and the next thing she knows, she’s in Hell. Madison shares her cell with a motley crew of young sinners that is almost too good to be true: a cheerleader, a jock, a nerd, and a punk rocker, united by fate to form the six-feet-under version of everyone’s favorite detention movie. Madison and her pals trek across the Dandruff Desert and climb the treacherous Mountain of Toenail Clippings to confront Satan in his citadel. All the popcorn balls and wax lips that serve as the currency of Hell won’t buy them off.
This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.
This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.
fantasy is a fun genre. it's definitely not my favorite, but having outgrown my semi-unhealthy obsession with harry potter, i do like to have some kind of wizard close to my heart at any given time. when steve and i finally finished watching all five seasons of the BBC show merlin, you may remember i stumbled upon the cancelled abc show legend of the seeker, which is based on terry goodkind's sword of truth series. with only two seasons of the television show, i definitely did not get enough, so i picked up a copy of the first book in the series when i was last at barnes and noble.
official synopsis:
In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help . . . and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.
In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them--for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.
In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword--to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.
This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.
In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them--for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.
In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword--to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.
This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.
vladimir nabokov is the greatest writer i have ever been exposed to. i've read at least one of his books each summer for the past few years now and frankly it is a bit difficult to describe how subtle, exquisite, and genius his writing his. his language is as beautiful as any painting i have ever seen, and his completely unimitable ability to capture the sublime reasoning of madness in his pro/antagonists is perfection. like i said, i get pretty loyal to my favorite writers.
official synopsis:
Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude." an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers. an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws. who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills his executioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.
another one of my favorite authors... i'm pretty sure i've never read anything from a narrator whose thoughts are as relatable to me as scarlett thomas's our tragic universe. thomas is a brilliant contemporary author who blends verbose, jargon-heavy intellectualist dialogue with mind-bending science-fiction and stark, in your face realism. having read two of thomas's novels already i am completely stoked to check out a third.
official synopsis:
| PopCo tells the story of Alice Butler-a subversively smart girl in our commercial-soaked world who grows from recluse orphan to burgeoning vigilante, buttressed by mystery, codes, math, and the sense her grandparents gave her that she could change the world. Alice-slight introvert, crossword compositor- works at PopCo, a globally successful and slightly sinister toy company. Lured by their CEO to a Thought Camp out on the moors, PopCo's creatives must invent the ultimate product for teenage girls. Meanwhile, Alice receives bizarre, encrypted messages she suspects relate to her grandfather's decoding of a centuries-old manuscript that many-including her long-disappeared father-believe leads to buried treasure. Its key, she's sure, is engraved on the necklace she's been wearing since she was ten. Using the skills she learned from her grandparents and teaching us aspects of cryptanalysis, Alice discovers the source of these creepy codes. Will this lead her to the mysterious treasure or another, even more carefully guarded secret? |
with everybody going ga-ga over the great gatsby lately i have been craving a decent period soap opera. my mother had to read this for a class last year and i've been meaning to crack the spine for ages.
synopsis:
Women in Love begins one blossoming spring day in England and ends with a terrible catastrophe in the snow of the Alps. Ursula and Gudrun are very different sisters who become entangled with two friends, Rupert and Gerald, who live in their hometown. The bonds between the couples quickly become intense and passionate, but whether this passion is creative or destructive is unclear. In this astonishing novel, widely considered to be D.H. Lawrence's best work, he explores what it means to be human in an age of conflict and confusion.
those are the titles that top my to-read list! what are you trying to read this summer?
