Since I learned to read, selecting a reading list for any occasion has been serious business. I’m famous in my marriage for not reading on an e-reader and choosing the heaviest times for long overseas trips, then posting them home. I packed David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest to read on a multi-city US adventure, for example. This habit has made me unpopular.
In recent years, attention spans have dwindled. Anne Helen Peterson writes about the issue artfully in this recent post. Was it repeated lockdowns that caused our collective decline in concentration, or the dizzying juggle of work and home lives, when nothing feels like it quite measures up? Caitlin Stanway tackles the topic of stillness and immersion in one’s thoughts in our latest issue of Dumbo Feather.
So, what to read this summer break? If a reading list is like a cheese board, where each taste must be satisfied, that means we should find one memoir, one business book, one volume of environmental reporting, one fiction and one history. Herewith, are some recommendations for nourishing, challenging recent reads.
Memoir: Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz. The New Yorker staff writer explores the twin narratives of losing her father and finding the love of her life in this exquisitely rendered account of a tumultuous period packed with unexpected gifts.
Business: Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations encourages companies large and small to adopt an entirely different framework for management principles, inspiring widespread change in businesses practices.
Environmental reporting: Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: an Unnatural History explores mass extinction events from Earth’s deep past, comparing them with the current rate of mass extinction happening today, catalysed by human activity.
Fiction: Jennifer Egan’s curious wander into the weirdness of crowd-sourced, internet-based personal information, The Candy House, also delves into family relationships that span multiple decades.
History: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin covers some of the biography of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, as well as the men who served in his cabinet in the critical years of 1861 to 1865, when Lincoln worked to abolish slavery. Three of Lincoln’s cabinet had run against him in the 1860 election and the book focuses on Lincoln’s efforts to work alongside personalities who didn’t always agree with him.
Whatever your preference, inspiring and challenging stories both old and new await for a long, well-spent summer of disappearing into other worlds and times. At Small Giants, we wish you a restorative rest and look forward to engaging anew in 2023.
