Remember when I had that reading slump in February? Well, I’m having the opposite of that now. Nothing motivates me to stay indoors and read like the sticky heat of the South. In the month of May, I read 7 books, 4 of which I read while I was at the beach for a week. This is my roundabout way of telling you what to read this summer!
I’m not a huge fan of short stories but when I heard that Lauren Groff was coming out with a new book of them, I knew I had to read it. I finished Florida in one sitting; it was that good. Groff does a fantastic job of evoking the feeling of Florida; you know, the feeling when you’ve been standing out in 100% humidity for several hours and your clothes are clinging to you because they’re soaked through with sweat. “Dogs Go Wolf” tells the story of two young sisters who are abandoned on an island and go a bit feral in their fight for survival. A boy from the swamps of Florida is surrounded by snakes and loneliness in “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”. A woman brings her two boys to the hometown of her favorite French author only to find that France isn’t as romantic as she remembers from her youth in “Yport”.
While digging my toes in the sand, I read two page turning mysteries. A tarot reader in dire need of money is told that she has inherited a small fortune in Ruth Ware’s latest thriller, The Death of Mrs. Westaway. Harriet “Hal” Westaway is a struggling fortune teller who has some dangerous money lenders on her back. When she is trying to figure out what to do, she gets a letter saying that her grandmother, also named Westaway, has died and left her an inheritance. Hal, who is desperate for relief, decides that there is no harm in assuming the role of long lost granddaughter and heads to the Westaway estate to claim what is wrongfully hers. This was my first Ruth Ware book and now I’m kicking myself for not reading her other books already. I love a good English mystery, so this book was right up my alley. There is a twist at the end that I truly did not see coming; as I was reading, I felt very smug about thinking I had figured it out, only to be taken by surprise.
The Word is Murder features the author, Anthony Horowitz, as a character in his own book. Horowitz is the Watson to a grumpy, almost unlikable detective named Hawthorne. Hawthorne approaches Horowitz to write a book about his detective work. In order to do this, Horowitz follows Hawthorne around on a case involving a woman who plans her funeral on the same day she is murdered. The conflict arises when Horowitz’s dislike for Hawthorne bubbles up now and then; the detective tends to have a one track mind when it comes to cases, forcing the author to put his life on hold. I had fun reading this one. Horowitz is great at planting clues and dropping hints so that the reader can try to figure out whodunit before the end of the book. I’m a dunce, so I didn’t figure it out until it was written down on the page in front of me. If you were a fan of Magpie Murders, Horowitz’s previous book, then you will enjoy this one, too.
The only book I read in May that isn’t new, was The Martian by Andy Weir. I do not claim to be smart when it comes to science; in fact, the only test I’ve ever failed was in my high school chemistry class. There is a lot of science talk in The Martian, and I do mean a lot. But! It was all explained in a way that made me want to get a degree in rocket science. Mark Watney is an astronaut that was sent with a small team to live on Mars for about six weeks. The mission is quickly aborted only a few days in, though, when a storm blows in. Watney is injured and presumed dead, and is therefore left behind when the team leaves. He was the team botanist/engineer, so he has to use every bit of his knowledge in order to survive. I loved this book, and it took me by surprise just how much I loved it. Watney is hilarious, and stays positive throughout his entire fight for survival. I found myself laughing out loud, dismayed when something went wrong, and cheering when something went right.
I will lastly mention David Sedaris’ new book Calypso. Sedaris is in fine form with this one, and it reminded me a lot of my favorite of his books, Me Talk Pretty One Day. The overall theme I gathered from this book of essays is Sedaris’ own mortality. In “Stepping Out,” Sedaris is obsessed with his Fitbit and is continuously trying to outdo his last record of steps. He becomes a fixture around his neighborhood, taking long walks and picking up trash as he ambles. He and his partner buy a vacation beach house in North Carolina that they name the Sea Section. Several of the stories are based out of this beach house where he vacations with his siblings and their families. Sedaris has a tumor that he gets removed in a back alley operation, that he wants to feed to a snapping turtle that also has a tumor in the titular essay “Calypso”. (It’s a lot funnier than it sounds, trust me.) Calypso reminded me that David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors with a particular brand of humor that few people can get away with.
Summer reading is fun again, now that I can actually pick the books I want to read. Stop by Lemuria on your way to your vacation to pick up your summer books!
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