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One of the pleasures of summer vacations is a visit
to the bookstore or library to pick out those special volumes you plan to
take to the cottage or the beach. Pretending that I was about to embark, I
did just that, and these are the ones that caught my eye. While perusing
the new books, I had a thought: Wouldn’t it also be great to revisit
those writers I loved from long ago? I thought so, and after the new books
I’ve included a few “classics” for your consideration.
You’ll have to provide your own lemonade. Happy summer reading!
NEW RELEASES
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
By Elizabeth Berg (Random House, 288 pp., $24.95) Irish sisters Kitty, Louise, and Tish form their
Chicago family’s home front during World War II. The letters they
write to their faraway lovers and the replies they receive chronicle this
story’s tragedy and triumph. Reading them is like untying a packet
from the past and realizing that a family’s love is among
life’s greatest gifts.
The Blackest Bird
By Joel Rose (W.W. Norton, 464 pp., $24.95) This murder mystery will be knocking at your chamber
door in the wee hours, insisting that you keep turning its pages. Set in
19th-century New York, it features Manhattan’s first detective,
69-year-old Jacob Hays. In the summer of 1841 he faces three high-profile
murder cases, the clues to which are not forensic but poetic — found
in the lines of none other than Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.
Summer People
By Brian Groh (Ecco, 304 pp., $24.95)
Nathan Empson is a fish out of water, but he still
enjoys the ocean view. Hired for the summer as caretaker for the eccentric
matriarch of Brightonfield Cove, Maine, the college dropout finds time to
fall for the Episcopal priest’s nanny. This glimpse of a rarefied
society through the eyes of a young man wiser than he knows, and an author
wittier than most, makes the novel both humorous and satisfying.
The Sea Lady
By Margaret Drabble (Harcourt, 352 pages, $24)
Perhaps no contemporary novelist captures the essence
of relationships quite as acutely as Drabble can. Two childhood friends, a
marine biologist and a celebrity feminist, return to the North Sea country
30 years after they first met and find, surprisingly, in flashbacks of
their separate lives, how closely they’ve been linked all along.
Coal Black Horse
By Robert Olmstead (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 224 pp., $23.95) Fourteen-year-old Robey Childs is an unlikely Civil
War hero. Compelled by his mother’s premonition, Robey sets out to
find his soldier father and discovers instead what it means to be the best,
and worst, man he can be. This fable can be compared to such classics as The Red Badge of Courage.
District & Circle
By Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 96 pp.,
$13) This book by Ireland’s reigning poet won the
T.S. Eliot Prize in 2006. One critic says that Heaney writes things
“an ordinary person might actually say,” high praise for
poetry. “Contrary, unflowery/ sky-whisk and bristle, more/ twig-fret
than fruit-fort,/ crabbed/ as crabbed could be-/ that was the tree/ I
remembered.”
CLASSICS
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
By P.G. Wodehouse (Penguin, 250 pp., $9) Do yourself a favor. If you’ve never read Mr.
Wodehouse, don’t let another summer slip by without meeting the zany
likes of Bertie Wooster (once played on TV by Dr. Greg House, a.k.a. Hugh
Laurie) and his butler, Jeeves. These 1920s British farces include my
favorite Wodehousian romp, Uncle Fred in the
Springtime. In it, Bertie’s uncle Lord
Emsworth faces the dilemma of losing his prize pig, the Empress of
Blandings. Smashing good fun.
Master and Commander
By Patrick O’Brian (Norton, 412 pp., $13.95) The great thing about this classic swashbuckler
(besides imagining Russell Crowe in an open-necked blouse) is that if you
like it there are 19 more in the series. Set it the early 19th century,
when England ruled the seas, it has been called the greatest sea adventure
ever written. Bon voyage!
A Coffin for Dimitrios
By Eric Ambler (Vintage, 304 pp., $12.95) Le Carré and Ludlum fans, make way for the
master. Written in 1939, this thriller takes us to Istanbul, where Charles
Latimer, a successful mystery writer, stumbles into a world of espionage,
drugs, and treachery that spans the Balkans. It’s realistic and
original.
Sometimes a Great Notion
By Ken Kesey (Penguin, 628 pp., $14.95)
Kesey’s best-known book is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but in my opinion Sometimes a Great
Notion is Kesey’s masterpiece. The
Stampers, a logging clan in Oregon (Henry Fonda and Paul Newman played
father and son in the 1971 film), buck a lumber strike and each other in
this tale of mythic proportions.
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
By Franz Kafka (Barnes & Noble Classics, 184 pp.,
$6.95) Think you’re having a bad day? Try waking up as
a giant cockroach. Find out where the term “Kafkaesque” comes
from in this series of anxious, alienated, yet surprisingly humorous tales.
Travels with Charley in Search of America
By John Steinbeck (Penguin, 288 pp., $9)
Just a guy, his truck and his . . . poodle? In 1960, Grapes of Wrath author
Steinbeck set out with what he calls “the virus of
restlessness” to find the real America. From San Francisco to the New
Jersey Turnpike, it’s fascinating to discover, 60 years later, what
has and hasn’t changed in between.
Springfield writer and poet Corrine Frisch is a
regular contributor to Illinois Times.
This article appears in May 24-30, 2007.
