Summer reading lists

Right now I'm
reading In the Garden of Beasts, by
master storyteller Erik Larson. It is the captivating story of William E. Dodd,
U.S. ambassador to Germany during Hitler's rise to power. Dodd's young adult
daughter Martha, a socialite who had affairs with the head of the Gestapo and a
Russian spy, steals the show. Next I plan to read Stephen Ozment's sweeping
survey A Mighty Fortress: A New History
of the German People.

A Discovery of Witches, by
Deborah Harkness. I'm a fan of the Twilight series and early Anne Rice. This
promises to be a good read in the same vein. For some reason, the title brings
to mind a murder
of crows.

The Chatelet Apprentice, by Jean-François Parot.
I've been re-invigorating my French with the mystery novels of  French diplomat Jean-François Parot.
(Several titles are available in English.) As police commissioner Nicolas Le
Floch works to solves crimes in 18^th-century Paris, author Parot expands the plot
with descriptions of the era's culture, political intrigues and haute cuisine.

Woody Guthrie: American Radical, by Will Kaufman. I love musician
biographies; Humphrey Carpenter’s of Benjamin Britten is the most
fascinating book I’ve read in years. I also love Guthrie’s music--he’s
so much funnier and sharper-edged than the earnest troubadours who
mimicked him in the 60s--and I’ll read anything about politics.

The term "summer reading"
conjures up leisurely days immersed in fiction. I have a few items in that
pile.

Up until
now, my ideas about summer reading were driven largely by guilt. My bookshelf
is packed to the gills with books that I "should" read:  books people have given me and I need
to return, or books that have been sitting there so long, I have given myself
ultimatums--either read this or get rid of it.

Musicophilia, by Oliver
Sacks. This promises to be a fascinating, in-depth account of the
physiological/psychological/emotive effects music has on us.

The Little Way of
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Into the Arms of Love, by John Nelson.
Therese--who died of tuberculosis at age 24 and was canonized less than 30
years later--was an unassuming woman who found great joy in her littleness.
This volume promises to be refreshing spiritual nourishment.

Gary Dorrien's spring Century
article, which argued for economic as well as political democracy, whetted
my appetite for the book that part of it was adapted from: Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice.

I have two major reading projects that I'll be continuing in tandem this summer. They may sound like polar opposites, but I find them to be quite similar.