It came in form of a link: The New York Times Summer Reading list. And they weren’t alone. Recommendations of romance novels, spy thrillers, and even the strange YA Books for Adults genre. Page turners in popsicle-colors – heavy on plot, light on everything else.
It started as a joke in the office: “We should create a Difficult Summer Beach Reads list.” We kept talking about it. So, we did. And I turned it into a radio show. For example, we have a Turkish Nobel laureate talking about his favorite book, “Anna Karenina” – how cool is that? If you have a week in an Adirondack chair with a view or a long weekend under an umbrella on the ocean why not read something more substantial? More challenging? Why not read something difficult?
To The Best Of Our Knowledge Difficult Summer Beach Reads
- "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
- "Conversations in the Cathedral" by Mario Vargas Llosa
- "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys
- "Dark Reflections" by Samuel R. Delany
- "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville
- "Labyrinths" by Jorge Luis Borges
- "The Sea, The Sea" by Iris Murdoch
- "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi
- "Middlemarch" by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)
- "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong
- "Annihilation," "Authority," and "Acceptance" by Jeff VanderMeer
- "Ashes To Ashes: The Songs Of David Bowie 1976-2016" by Chris O'Leary
- "The KLF: Chaos, Magic And The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds" by John Higgs
- "Love Medicine" by Louise Erdrich
- "Codex Seraphinianus" by Luigi Serafini
- "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk
Summer is easy but the reading shouldn’t be.
Let’s dive right in, shall we?
--Charles