I can tell you haven’t been pleasuring yourself lately. What’s that you say? Too much work, too tired, anxious, busy to spend that extra hour in the evening indulging in that one guilty something that sent you under the covers as a child with a flashlight? Whitman is supposed to have one of the happiest student bodies in the nation, but I see through those superficial smiles, those nimble frisbee-clad fingers out on Ankeny couldn’t form a thumbs-up sign that would convince me. Hell, Bon Appetit keeps us overfed, but when was the last time you satiated your mind with a nice, long, page-turner of a pleasure read? With summer just around the corner, give yourself the time you deserve to crack open a good book. Stop off at Powell’s Books before you catch your flight home and stock up. Just in case the prospect of choosing a winner to take with you for those summer months is too daunting for you to handle, I’ve made things simple. Here are some books, whose main commonality is that they are guaranteed to keep you occupied.
The Giving Tree
by Shel Silverstein
This book makes me cry a little every time I read it. Maybe you’re working as a nanny this summer, or perhaps you don’t believe the lie that the only books with substance are the ones without pictures. Like the famous spiritual text the Tao Te Ching, this quick, “easy” read could be read in half an hour, or it could take a lifetime. Confront life’s impermanence and our tremendous capacity to give, all in a wonderfully illustrated tale of a boy and his favorite tree.
Cradle to Cradle
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
In “Cradle to Cradle”, McDonough and Braungart propose a solution to the current industrial system, one that renders the inefficiencies and wastefulness things of the past. By mirroring natural cycles, they argue that things like household products, industrial systems and buildings can be revolutionized. This book is so inspiring. Oh, and this is the best part: the book itself is a physical manifestation of the new design theory. It isn’t made out of trees, but instead this new synthetic material that is both waterproof and durable. When you are done reading it, you can boil it in water so that the ink comes off, and then you can use it as a journal! Now that’s recycling.
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love is a disease. It is suffering, a trap, a plague. Oh, but it’s so good. This is the book to read if you are spending the summer apart from your significant other. Marquez’s tale is one of unrequited love, and is so beautiful, raw, and all-consuming you probably shouldn’t read it on the beach because you will neglect for hours to re-apply your sunscreen and burn to a crisp. Even if you do, it won’t matter to you, because you will be so utterly enveloped in this dense, emotional novel that you will cease to fret over life’s more trivial concerns. Here’s a favorite quote: “Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness, and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other moral trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.”
What is the What
by Dave Eggers
I haven’t actually read this yet, but if it is anything like “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” his earlier work, it promises to be epic. Eggers writes about Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee from the civil war in Sudan, who is now living in the United States. He merges the fictional realm with non-fiction elements told to him by Deng, creating a memoir that was described in New York Magazine’s book review as “a portrait of a character that forces us to examine our world and ourselves, and how our struggle for identity is more of a collective battle than we’re often willing to admit.”
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
You probably read Steinbeck’s other classic, “Grapes of Wrath,” in high school. Well, don’t find yourself bumbling into middle age without having known the depth of “East of Eden.” I could tell you what this book is about in one word. Ready? Life. The idiosyncrasies of the characters leave you wondering how one man, so very long ago, could have had so much figured out about human nature. If I were you I would listen to this novel as a book-on-tape while taking an epic road trip with people you love. Time will pass without asking permission. Just be careful if you’re driving not to get so caught up in things that you swerve into oncoming traffic.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J.K. Rowling
Our children are going to ask us some day, “Where were you when ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ came out?” Are you prepared to answer them? Granted, there is a lot of hype surrounding this series, but come on, there are no rules to summer reading. If you are that embarrassed, you can always swap book jackets. No one will give you an, “Aren’t you five years too old to be reading that?” look if they think it is Moby Dick or something. And hey, maybe Rowling saw Daniel Radcliffe’s play in London this year and was inspired to write a chapter involving Harry exposing himself to Ron and Hermione. In case you haven’t been keeping tabs, the official release date is July 21.
