“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”

June 27, 2015 5:10 AM

Summer Reading Guide [LA Times]

Another summer, another chance to draw up the perfect reading list to see you through those languid, sun-drenched days. Whether you’re stretched out by the pool or nestled in a coffee shop, clutching a hardcover, paperback or e-book, we’ve got more than enough titles to keep you reading through Labor Day.

- A Haphazard Summer Reading List For All of Your Summer Moods [Jezebel]
- CBC Books 2015 summer reading list. [CBC]
- The Best New Books Released This Summer: A Guide [Gawker]
- The Ultimate Guide To Summer Reading [Refinery 29]
- A Unique Summer Reading List — from college admissions deans and counselors. [Washington Post]
- Cool Books for Hot Summer Days [New York Times]
- The Millions : Most Anticipated: The Great 2015 Book Preview [The Millions]
- 7 Female-Driven Suspense Thrillers To Read On The Beach This Summer [Huffington Post]
- 10 Beach Books from J.P. Morgan’s Summer Reading List [Wall Street Journal]
- Summer Books 2015 [Financial Times]
- Best Novels to Read this Summer. [New York Post]
- Summer Reads: 35 Books You Won't Want to Miss. [Toronto Star]
- The Top 10 Summers in Fiction [The Guardian]
- The Best Summer Reads: 90 Books chosen by 40 Literary Luminaries [The Independent]
- 2015's Best Beach Reads [BBC]
- Amazon.com's Editors' Pick for Summer Reading [Amazon]
- Bugging Out: The Must-Read Insect Books of the Summer [Wired]
- 25 Must-read Books to Dive into This Summer [Mashable]
- The 15 Best LGBT Summer Reads [Advocate]
- 29 Books You Should Definitely Bring To The Beach This Summer [Buzzfeed]

posted by Fizz (46 comments total)

Happy reading!
posted by Fizz at 5:14 AM on June 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

I don't want to give up on Seveneves because I know it changes dramatically at certain points, but now I'm afraid I'm going to be slogging through it for weeks and missing all of these other books. Meanwhile I'll have to return my other two library books (Jonathan Strange (a reread) and The Wallcreeper).
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:52 AM on June 27, 2015

My current summer read: Ernest Cline's Armada and it's just as entertaining and delightful as Ready Player One.
posted by Fizz at 5:56 AM on June 27, 2015

Ok, now make a list that does not include the words "hot", "cool", or "beach".
posted by clvrmnky at 6:05 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Hey, Mainstream Venues! Your SF Summer Reading Guides are Boring. Here's 25 Rad Suggestions.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:22 AM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hey, Mainstream Venues! Your SF Summer Reading Guides are Boring. Here's 25 Rad Suggestions.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:22 AM on June 27 [−] [!]

Which is fairly accurate as the New York Times summer reading list I shared above was recently criticized for being too white.

Slate: The NYT’s Summer Reading List Is All Books From White Writers. That’s Not Its Only Problem.
posted by Fizz at 6:26 AM on June 27, 2015

> Ok, now make a list that does not include the words "hot", "cool", or "beach".

8 Great Books For Warm Summer Mornings Stuck On The Toilet
posted by ardgedee at 6:34 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Stuck on books for the morning? 8 Great Warm Summer Toilets
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:55 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Good lord, that college admissions deans and counselors list is grim. Dear kids: read whatever the fuck you want this summer. Do not read worthy books about how to study or the meaning of education, unless you happen to really enjoy reading that kind of worthy book. Do not go to any college whose dean tells you that your pleasure reading should be about anything but pleasure. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that summer reading should be drudgery, not fun.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:57 AM on June 27, 2015 [9 favorites]

Where's the Science Fiction and Fantasy, LA Times? Your lists don't interest me.

Well, not true, but just sayin
posted by ashbury at 7:00 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Where's the Science Fiction and Fantasy, LA Times? Your lists don't interest me.

ashbury, I have a number of blogs I follow that have some great recommendations but I was mostly sharing links from larger more mainstream media sources. If anyone does have any SFF specific lists, please share them.
posted by Fizz at 7:02 AM on June 27, 2015

My current summer read: Ernest Cline's Armada and it's just as entertaining and delightful as Ready Player One.

I'm totally going to read it, but... the plot is exactly The Last Starfighter. Just saying.

Oh, and reading a bit more in the Amazon description, it looks like that might be the point. Never mind, I'm there.
posted by Huck500 at 7:10 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Where's the Science Fiction and Fantasy, LA Times? Your lists don't interest me.

A little googling let me find these, it's a start.

- Mind-Blowing Science Fiction And Fantasy Books To Watch Out For In 2015 [Tor]
- Summer reading list 2015: 15 fantasy and sci-fi books [Swide]
- The 25 Most Anticipated Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2015 [geekritiqued]
- Most Anticipated Fantasy Novels of 2015: Publisher's Choice [Fantasy Faction]
posted by Fizz at 7:18 AM on June 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

I read Metafilter on my Ipad rather than books when I am at the beach or local pool...It is free and full of surprises.
posted by Postroad at 7:25 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Re: Fantasy, both the Lady Business and Tor lists suggest Naomi Novik's Uprooted, and I'll vouch for it as a solid beach read. It's not going to expand your mind or inspire a new fandom or whatever, but I read all 435 pages almost non-stop and in just a few hours--pretty good book
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:27 AM on June 27, 2015

I too would love it if the people who create summer reading lists would stop assuming I will be at a beach reading books. I will be indoors in the cool air, lying on a large couch, fending off cat affection as I try to read.

That said, I already have a massive queue that I am going through as well as picking up stuff that interests me at my library. Dammit, so many books, so little time!
posted by Kitteh at 7:35 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

Where's the Science Fiction and Fantasy, LA Times?

Click on "Page-turners" and scroll down past the "Mystery/Thriller" section.
posted by turaho at 7:37 AM on June 27, 2015

That summer reading list from college admissions counselors and deans is, um... well, I find it interesting that they've chosen Primates of Park Avenue as one of their picks for parents.
posted by palomar at 7:40 AM on June 27, 2015

I'm always mystified about the concept of summer reading lists. It seems predicated on the notion that people magically have weeks and weeks of empty time once summer arrives, in which to consume dozens of books. My free time for reading is no different, be it summer, winter, spring, fall. That is to say, scant. And what is this "beach" everyone speaks of?
/jealous rant
posted by Thorzdad at 7:54 AM on June 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

The 15 Best Fiction of 2015 So Far (Flavorwire)
The 15 Best Nonfiction Booksof 2015 So Far (Flavorwire)
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:55 AM on June 27, 2015

Languid, sun-drenched days. That would be so awesome. Maybe I should learn French and move there because I get 2 weeks of vacation a year and I already used one week visiting my grandma who was sick and it was winter in Iowa.
posted by chaz at 7:57 AM on June 27, 2015

An unfortunate consequence of becoming an adult is they stop giving you free pizza for your summer reading accomplishments.

But now you can just order pizza yourself, so maybe it evens out in the end.
posted by curious nu at 8:19 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

I actually tried to crowdsource my reading list (I wanted to have someone shake me out of habits) but only a couple people bit. I may consult these to round the rest out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:32 AM on June 27, 2015

An unfortunate consequence of becoming an adult is they stop giving you free pizza for your summer reading accomplishments.

Visit your local library, sign-up, and wait for the stickers and pencils to start rolling in.
posted by Fizz at 8:33 AM on June 27, 2015

An unfortunate consequence of becoming an adult is they stop giving you free pizza for your summer reading accomplishments.

My local library totally has a summer reading program for grownups. I was telling two of my colleagues about it and how ridiculous I thought it was, and they were both like "Dude, you can totally win an iPad for doing something you would do anyway! You should sign up." So anyway, I'm still not doing the adult summer reading program, because it is ridiculous, but I understand their logic.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:37 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yes, time to retire the word "beach" in connection with reading. Sand and sunscreen and the seductive powers of the vast ocean itself render the idea of reading a book rather moot. Give me a reading chair, or, even better, if you don't mind falling asleep part way through your book, a hammock in the shade with birdsong in the background.

Thanks for all those lists--excepting that "unique" (another word to retire) list from college deans and counsellors, of course.
posted by kozad at 8:43 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I actually tried to crowdsource my reading list (I wanted to have someone shake me out of habits) but only a couple people bit.

To be fair, people would first need to know what your habits are before they can shake you out of them...

Thanks to the ongoing Hugo kerfuffle I've been taking a better look than usual at the more critically acclaimed of last year's SFF novels, also to find new authors.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:45 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

To be fair, people would first need to know what your habits are before they can shake you out of them...

My bad, that was an awkward word choice - what I meant was, if I turn it over to other people they'll recommend things I'd never have heard of otherwise.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:05 AM on June 27, 2015

Thank you for these lists. Now, can you please convince my employer to give me the rest of the summer off?
posted by Asparagus at 9:10 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Funnily enough, each day of summer you actually have less light to read by. The amount of sunlight is at a maximum on the first day of summer and declines throughout.
posted by GregorWill at 10:04 AM on June 27, 2015

I came in to say thanks, I just bought one of the books recommended in the FPP for my kindle to read on my holiday, by the fjord rather than the beach. This also allows me to challenge GregorWill to some extent, sun may be a little lower but it's still 24 hours a day.
posted by biffa at 10:25 AM on June 27, 2015

I'm always mystified about the concept of summer reading lists. It seems predicated on the notion that people magically have weeks and weeks of empty time once summer arrives, in which to consume dozens of books. My free time for reading is no different, be it summer, winter, spring, fall. That is to say, scant.

Right? I've always been confused about regular activities/events that take a hiatus in the summer because "people go away". Who are these people? Where are they going? And most importantly, how?

I sort of hate the classism inherent even just in the OP pullquote that assumes summer is when you have buckets of leisure time that you have to figure out what to do with instead of, like, continuing to work three different low-wage jobs or caregiving for a chronically ill relative or whatever.
posted by threeants at 10:57 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

threeants, just wanted to tell you that the quote is from the writer Jeannette Walls, specifically a family memoir:

“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

I haven't read the book so I cannot know for certain what particular class or life she is writing from. But you are correct, to have the leisure to read a book on a beach is definitely a marker and sign of some privilege. I have to sneak books between working full time and going to school.
posted by Fizz at 11:43 AM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, The Glass Castle is a memoir about growing up in extreme poverty and family dysfunction. I think the implication of that quote was that they had more time to read in the summer because there was more daylight, and Walls's family didn't have reliable electricity. And that probably doesn't have a lot to do with the seasonal reading habits of most Americans, whatever their social class.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:59 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I have read 90 books so far this year (I'm super-bored, yo), and among my frequent recommendations to others, that I read for the first time this year (so not counting "old friends"):

Light:
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (gentle British romance)
Elizabeth the First Wife (chick lit about Shakespeare and movie stars and stuff)
Ten Cents a Dance (YA about taxi dancers in Chicago during the Depression)

Mediumweight:
Americanah (just charming)
I, Claudius (HOW DID NO ONE EVER MAKE ME READ THIS BEFORE?)
The Martian (just go, just read it)

Heavy:
Team of Rivals (Abe Lincoln's cabinet, I KNOW I'M LATE TO THE PARTY, I cried at the end)
Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:10 PM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I, Claudius (HOW DID NO ONE EVER MAKE ME READ THIS BEFORE?)

I know, right??? I read it for the first time this year, too, and I only picked it up because last year I read Goodbye to All That and was intrigued. It seems like the perfect Great Books type thing that college freshmen usually have forced on them (and I was an English major, too!), so how come I had barely ever heard of it?

Anyway, so good.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 1:00 PM on June 27, 2015

If we're talking about great works of 20thC. literature that I should have read in college but never actually knew about until my late twenties, let's not forget to mention Fifth Business. Actually, Google suggested "fifth business sparknotes", so clearly some student somewhere is reading it. Why not me??
posted by lollymccatburglar at 1:04 PM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I feel like The Guardian is always suggesting I, Claudius or The Go-Between - not going to to click on their list, but I assume one of those will be on it.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:15 PM on June 27, 2015

Fuck. My to-read queue is huge already and it seems like every other day someone on Metafilter recommends seven more books that make me want to read them. Stop that now you people.
posted by chavenet at 1:38 PM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I may have brought Anna Karenina to the beach this year, which I guess means it's a beach read?

Thanks, Fizz, for the many lists to peruse, and for letting me know Ernest Cline has a new book out! (I liked Ready Player One so much I got it for my Quonsee one year.)
posted by ferret branca at 9:00 PM on June 27, 2015

But you are correct, to have the leisure to read a book on a beach is definitely a marker and sign of some privilege.

Or living on a civilised continent, like Europe, where the Big Summer Holiday is very much a thing. Half of France is on holiday in August; the rest is catering to the rest of Europe on holiday there...
posted by MartinWisse at 2:29 AM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, let's call it like it is: these lists assume a level of social capital necessary to support a European level of middle class.

Let that sink in. Even Canada splits the difference here.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:50 AM on June 28, 2015

The time & leisure to read uninterrupted is certainly a marker of privilege. Hopefully though you live in a country where your government can at least provide access to books through a public library system.
posted by Fizz at 9:19 AM on June 28, 2015

Here in the midwest of the USA, summer feels like a vacation because you're not having to spend an hour or so a day, average, dealing with the weather and fallout from such.

That said, the only book I've read so far that really feels like summer is China Rick Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan. Total fluff and Kevin Kwan feels like a friend I'd love to have.
posted by BibiRose at 10:05 AM on June 28, 2015

Right? I've always been confused about regular activities/events that take a hiatus in the summer because "people go away". Who are these people? Where are they going? And most importantly, how?

To be fair, if you're in school or teaching school, those people "go away."
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:38 AM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just started Ghost Fleet on the train this morning. Only a dozen or so pages in but so far it's very Clancy-/Chrichton-esque. First real page-turner I've read in a while.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:41 PM on June 29, 2015