More on Summer Reading

As I've talked to students this week about my plans for the summer (basically trips to Nashville to visit Avery and Stuart and a big stack of books), some have asked me for suggestions. Ariel said she wanted a book to read on the beach but that she didn't really like to read. I am always torn when asked for this kind of advice.

For example, I know how much hundreds of girls--and grown women--devour the Nicholas Sparks books. We've had a raging controversy for years in the North Carolina English Teachers Association. Some members of the board would like to bring in Sparks (a Tarheel) to speak at our conference, while others turn up their noses. He is, after all, a confessed author of formula books. He studies what makes women read (or cry) and he writes just that.

Am I doing a disservice to the cause of great literature when I recommend James Patterson or John Grisham, authors who write engaging page turners, but who will probably never win the Pulitzer Prize? I am a confessed book snob, so I am always on a quest for the next great American (or international) novel, but does an appreciation for fine cuisine keep me out of the Whoppers and French fries? (Well, actually yes.)

I can share some books I found impossible to put down: Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, Yann Marterl's Life of Pi, Markos Zusak's The Book Thief. I haven't read anything yet by Jodi Piccoult, but she comes highly recommended. Do I pass along an untested tip?

For those who haven't read them, I suggest the books that every human being should read:

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird heads my lists for students who somehow made it through middle and high school without reading that wonderful, timeless classic. I haven't read Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca in many years, but I loved it so much that I read everything else on that shelf in the library growing up. I kept going back to see if perhaps she had written something new. I mentioned Richard Adams' Watership Down in an earlier post. I stand by that recommendatin. One book I could read over and over is T. H. White's Once and Future King. I love the Arthurian legend, but this is absolutely the most moving, the most readable. He has little sections I go back and read again and again (the sons of Margawse killing the unicorn, hoping to gain their mother's approval--or at least attention). I love Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as a summer read. (I suggest a recent discovery, his From the Dust Returned, for Halloween season.)

I'll post some reading lists--mine and those of others as well--before summer officially arrives. I am always eager for others' suggestions as well.

More on Summer Reading