Holidays are here! Hopefully you’re taking some vacay this summer to spend time with family, friends, dogs, cats, the beach, your own beautiful self. If you are, you’re going to need something to read. Did you know SoRo has read 76 books this year? That’s a lot. SoMo read 22, which is commendable and probably more achievable for us mere mortals as a yearly goal!!! Without further ado, here’s a mix of the fav books we read this year, as well as some we’ve loved over the years we definitely recommend seeking out. Read like the wind!
Our Summer Reading Special is brought to you by WellRead, an expertly curated book subscription service that will send you a handpicked book either every month, or every second month, accompanied by considered thought starter notes. WellRead also have a fantastic kid’s book subscription available too, to get those little ones excited about reading.
WellRead’s Best Read of 2019:
“Ann Patchett, the queen of intelligent family sagas, released The Dutch House this year and it totally blew our reading glasses off. Told with her impressive blend of compassion and wit, the novel spans five decades and tells a story of family, betrayal, success, greed, love, responsibility, sacrifice and, ultimately, forgiveness. Sounds like a daytime movie but reads like the most sophisticated and intimate examination of a flawed family. This is one of those books you don't realise has a complete hold of you until you're still awake after midnight finishing it.”
Visit wellread.com.au to order your book subscription now, the perfect Christmas gift (to yourself, or others).
Highly Enthused Faves from Season Two (plus some extras):
SM:
For a story of life in that late-twenties twilight time before life actually happens, and the fall-out when it does, read Expectation by Anna Hope
For a fluffy beach read, which titillates but doesn’t take up much brain space, read City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
The sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale is as gripping as the original, with lots of “how did this happen” info. Read, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
If you devoured Just Kids, dive into Patti’s musings on her 70th year in Year of the Monkey.
For dirty little stories which toe the line between uncomfortable and scorching, read Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman
Honestly, who wouldn’t want to read a book dedicated to the sensual act of sucking down bivalves? Read Consider the Oyster by M.F.K Fisher
The bush fire crisis is real this summer, and worse than ever. For a deep investigative dive into how the purposefully lit Black Saturday unfolded in Victoria in 2009, read The Arsonist, Mind on Fire by Chloe Hooper. Be safe out there this summer.
SR
It’s hot out there. While you’re lazing near a body of water, dive into At The Pond, edited by Esther Freud.
For a gender-fluid romp with some pretty steamy sex scenes read Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, by Andrea Lawlor
To find space in your life for delight and gratitude, you need Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
For a pithy, unflinching and human memoir, get into The Cost of Living, by Deborah Levy
Sometimes in summer all you want to do is eat hot chips and paddle pops and re-read classics you read as a teenager and feel all swoon-y. For re-living teenage, unrequited love, read I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
Like downing a glass of not-quite-cold enough Champagne in one gulp so you can get up and dance because your song is playing. Enjoy it because you only get to read The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy for the first time once.
For a book so brilliant and illuminating you’ll get mad that no-one made you study it in high school, try Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
A couple of books currently sitting our ‘To Read’ piles stacked next to our bed:
SM
I haven’t read any Meg Wolitzer yet, but I'm very keen to try The Wife. “A wise, sharp-eyed, compulsively readable story about a woman forced to confront the sacrifices she's made in order to achieve the life she thought she wanted.” It’s also now a film you can watch on Amazon Prime. Glenn Close, hello!
I’ve had Fleishman Is In Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner on my to-read list for ages and will finally get to it this summer! “A blistering satirical novel about marriage, divorce and modern love, by one of the most exciting new voices in American fiction,” say reviews. I have a type, I know.
Ok, cheeky inclusion because it’s not technically out yet, but you should pre-order it now! Molly taught a writing course I attended this year, and is one of my favourite writers on food and life. If you haven’t read A Homemade Life or Delancey yet, get onto those! Her third memoir (crazy that someone has three memoirs at aged 40, but she’s lived a very full life!) isn’t about food this time, but it covers her experience coming out as gay while married to her husband. From all early reports, it’s going to be fantastic: The Fixed Stars, Molly Wizenberg
SR
I’ve discovered what looks like the perfect summer holiday book - I Lost My Girlish Laughter, by Jane Allen. This is a recently reprinted, lost gem of 1930s Golden Age Hollywood! On set gossip! Thinly veiled true stories masquerading as fiction! A young, scrappy heroine in slightly over her head! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?
One of the great joys of reading is slipping into entirely different places, times and lives.Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval, by Saidiya Hartman is a genre-defying, non-fiction book examining the lives of African American women living at the beginning of the 20th century.
Brian Christian is a poet with degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science. The premise of this book is hard to summarise, but this is how he explains the title in an interview in the Paris Review:
“The Most Human Human is an award given out each year at the Loebner Prize...The event is what’s called a Turing test, in which a panel of judges conducts a series of five-minute-long chat conversations over a computer with a series of real people and with a series of computer programs pretending to be people by mimicking human responses… Each year, the program that does the best job of persuading the judges that it’s human wins the Most Human Computer award and a small research grant for its programmers. But there’s also an award…for the human who does the best job of swaying the judges: the Most Human Human award.
So, essentially, a book about what it means to be human. Sometimes it’s nice to take the big, open space of summer holidays to read things that make you think big, expansive thoughts. The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive, by Brian Christian
Too many to choose from? Visit wellread.com.au to sort out a book subscription for 2020, or for an excellent last-minute gift.
Wherever you are we hope you have a wonderful break, celebrating and relaxing with the people you love best (and that you have hours and hours of uninterrupted reading time).
Love ya!
Soph & Soph x