Open Thread: Your Summer Reading?

What’s on Your List for the Sultry Months? Here’s a Look at Mine

The entire literary world was treated to an unexpected bit of schadenfreudean glee when not one, but two(!), U.S. newspapers published a summer reading list that contained imaginary books. As you no-doubt guessed, generative AI was used to generate the list and did what generative AI does: generated hallucinations. Don’t we know this?!

An important question, shared with double irony.

I’m pro-AI in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of uses—to the annoyance of some of you. But we all know the best reading lists are personal, not algorithmic. I want to know what actual books actual humans are actually reading. And with that in mind, here’s a look at what I’m planning to hoover up with my eyes this summer. I want to hear what’s on your list, too; tell me below.

Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash

Just the Facts, Ma’am

For me, let’s start with the nonfiction. I’m looking forward to several titles right now:

• Alissa Wilkinson
  ’s We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. It’s out right now, but I’ve been fighting through a thicket to get to it.

• The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025 by

  Dwarkesh Patel
  . You can get the Kindle edition now, but wait; the print comes in July. I just started a PDF from the publisher, and the typeset pages are far superior to the Kindle; the print edition will be primo. I’ve read far enough to know that fake summer reading lists are rookie mistakes (“People who work with [generative AI] know to constantly doubt its output,” says Patel. Again: Don’t we know this?!)

• Glenn Loury
  ’s Self-Censorship. Also out in July. C’mon, it’s Glenn.

• The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness by crime novelist

  Andrew Klavan
  . Already out! Klavan looks at several murders and the literature they inspired—including a pair we’ve covered before.

• Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s On Character: Choices that Define a Life (which my friend

  Jeff Goins
  helped midwife). Out now as well.

• Johan Norberg
  ’s Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages. Also out. I’ve loved Norberg’s prior books, especially Progress and Open.

Also on my radar: Tim Minshall’s How Things Are Made: A Journey Through the Hidden World of Manufacturing; Ian Kumekawa’s Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge; Neil D. Lawrence’s The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI; Emily Falk’s What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change; Nathan Mastnjak’s Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library; Michael Edwards’s The Bible and Poetry; Sy Montgomery’s What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird; and

Amy Stewart

’s The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession (which seems utterly delightful at first glance).

Stranger than Fact?

But man cannot live on facts alone, at least not this one. I crave fiction, especially the classic stuff. Some of you will recall, but I determined several of these titles earlier as part of my classic novel goal for the year:

June

• Henry James, The Ambassadors—thanks to a tip from

  Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)

• Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

July

• Ernest J. Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men

• Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

August

• Honoré de Balzac, Eugénie Grandet (suggested by one of you, lovely readers, though I can’t recall who!)

• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (thanks to the nudge from

  Ruth Gaskovski
  )

Along with these six classics, I’m also planning on at least two other novels: Joan Didion’s Run River and

Denise S. Robbins

’s The Unmapping, which comes out this June (it looks fantastic). And I’m sure one or two others will swerve into view as the summer wears on.

Ah, But Here’s the Real Fun

Finally—and what I’m actually looking forward to most of all—is the summer TBR stack my six-year-old Naomi and I have been working on. Here’s what’s in store for the two of us, more or less:

• A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (thanks to the suggestion of

  Tsh Oxenreider
  )

• Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie (we just finished Little House in the Big Woods a few weeks ago and loved it)

• Grace Lin’s When the Sea Turned to Silver (we recently read Lin’s When the Mountain Meets the Moon; excellent)

• Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows

To this list we’re adding what will undoubtedly be a Roald Dahl spree, a bender, a binge, a sprint, a romp, a tear, a whirl, a splurge, a shriek. We recently read George’s Marvelous Medicine and finished James and the Giant Peach last week. We started Charlie and the Chocolate Factory minutes later. In the near future I’m seeing at least that, plus Great Glass Elevator, BFG, Matilda, and Mr. Fox. Can you imagine the fun we’re going to have?

If, by the way, you’re looking for great kids’ lit recommendations, an Open Thread last year yielded a couple hundred winning suggestions.

What About the Math?

Are my eyes bigger than my schedule? Possibly. I always set out to read more than I actually can. Then again, I do read between seventy and eighty books a year, and the summer is as good a time as any to squeeze them in. And with my own book coming out this fall(!) I’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.

Just a reminder: If you’re concerned about the society-wide decline in reading, as I am, the best response is to read more and encourage the same in our kids. Is there a better time for that than summer?

Now’s the time to share your own summer reading plans. I want lists: real or speculative, earnest or fanciful. I’d prefer the real you, but if you can’t refrain from the impish thrill of tossing in a list from ChatGPT, just let us know.

What do you want to read this summer?

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