Reviews & Views: Cool reads for hot days
I’ve forgotten how hard it is to read when your brain is frying. Then I turn to an audiobook.
Summer is for taking it easy, and when it’s very hot, that becomes a necessity.
June was lovely, and I was greedy with taking as much as nature could provide: fresh fruit and veggies in abundance, ice cream and flowers, that first visit to the beach to feel the ocean and get sand in the car. I read a little less, because I was outside so much, but I vowed I’d tackle my stacks with all the extra daylight we enjoy at this time of year.
Then the first heat wave strikes, and I’ve forgotten how hard it is to read when your brain is frying. The stacks seem higher than ever. Then I remember that I can still hear, and I turn to an audiobook. When opening the mail seems like too much of a chore, you can still listen to a story. How lucky we are to have Hoopla and Libby available through the Acton Free Public Library, so we have extensive choices of books to listen to for free. There’s also Audible, a worthwhile monthly subscription if you must have that new title straight away.
This year for my annual big summer read, I’m listening to Colson Whitehead’s “Harlem Trilogy” (Doubleday). These are canon now, featuring one of the immortal American characters, Ray Carney, furniture store owner and stolen goods fence, who keeps getting entangled in his neighborhood’s troubles. All three books are narrated by Dion Graham, and his smooth, nuanced reading takes you to New York in the 1960s-’80s. The final book, “Cool Machine,” (Random) is fresh out so get on the waitlist now.
Why do I always forget about Ann Patchett? Case in point, “Whistler” (Harper) is her latest well-reviewed book, but I’ve been lazy about picking it up. I read Patchett’s first novel “The Patron Saint of Liars” without much enthusiasm, but “Bel Canto” was very good. I do love Patchett’s recommendations on social media for her bookshop, Parnassus Books in Nashville. You can watch them on YouTube and appreciate what a kind, smart, friendly person she appears to be. Catch the one on “Harlem Trilogy,” which inspired me to finally tackle this series.
“The Emerson Circle: The Acton Radicals Who Reinvented the World” by Bruce Nichols (Simon & Schuster) is a gossipy account about our old friends’ doings that left such a mark. There isn’t anything a devotee of local history won’t already know, but it’s always illuminating to hear just how remarkable this bunch of locals were.
If I actually manage to crack open a book, then a mystery should do nicely. I have a weakness for the wonderful Poisoned Pen crime series, edited by Martin Edwards featuring Golden Age mysteries with those sumptuous covers. “Cyanide in the Sun: And Other Stories of Summertime Crime” edited by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen) is perfect for this time of year. “The Chowder House Murder” by Lee Hollis (Kensington) is a Maine mystery about a family teaming up to solve a crime and keep their restaurant from being ruined by the scandal. A different sort of procedural is in motion with “The Silent House of Sleep” by Allen Gaw (Polygon/Mysterious Press), a moody noir set in 1920s London. A shell-shocked Scottish pathologist solves a particularly nasty set of murders seemingly inspired by an incident in Virgil’s great epic poem “The Aeneid.” You can feel the fog creeping and cooling down your spine as Allen Shah’s narration (on Audible) ushers you in.
If you want to listen to something new and homegrown, try “The Emilys” by Heather Abel (Random) as residents fall ill with a mysterious illness in Western Massachusetts, and a woman attempts to solve the mystery of this new “Emily’s disease” — is it climate, virus, 21st-century ennui, or the curse of the Dickinsons?
“Lost Lambs” by Madeline Cash (MacMillan) is one of the funniest books this year; a quirky family tale of Chekhovian preoccupations clashing with American desires as three very different sisters embody the contradictions of our times. For the beach-read crowd — and who wouldn’t want to be part of that group — “Just For the Summer” by Abby Jimenez (Forever) or “Valley of the Moms” by Hannah Selinger (Little, Brown) should fill the bill.
The sound of jubilation from West Acton you heard in a forgotten cool spring was me hooting for my family’s favorite soccer team winning the Premier League. They are featured in “The Arsenal Stadium Mystery” by Leonard R. Gribble (Poisoned Pen Press), a murder puzzle featuring actual players from the 1939 Arsenal Squad. Great to read after this World Cup, when I could only marvel at the players’ and fans’ spirit and athleticism from the comfort of my couch, welcoming the break from other news. For those who don’t care for the beautiful game but are happy to be distracted from other events, “13 Little Love Stories: An Anthology Inspired by Taylor Swift Songs” by Various (Putnam) is for the Swifty in your house. Each author reads a unique story; each tale is different, and how much fun is it to be introduced to new authors?
For kids staying inside to avoid the oppressive heat, a good story read aloud might make everyone’s day better. Both “Rialto” by Kate Milford (Recorded Books), an epic tale of children discovering a lost amusement park, and “Impossible Creatures” by Katherine Rundell (Listening Library) are brilliant “listen-tos,” as we called them in our house. Flopping down to read a book to a younger child can be a respite for both of you. “Heronry” by Barbara Herkert, illustrated by Gordy Wright, (Tilbury House) is a lovely picture book that features a nest of heron chicks and their journey to adulthood. “Wide Open Spaces” by Robyn McGrath, illustrated by Polina Gortman, (Blue Dot Kids Press) is about the importance of getting outside and exploring nature. But if it’s too hot, our local bookstores and libraries are welcoming, entertaining, and legitimate cooling spaces, with chairs and books to spare.
Views are the author’s.
