Which is fine, if a pretty bad business model. These days, it can seem as though almost everyone who reads books is also a writer. There’s not much plot here, but somehow the voice Moshfegh has created is compelling enough to make you miss your subway stop-I did, twice-or, if you do take this novel to the beach, keep you resting and relaxing and turning pages obsessively until you’re burned to an absolute crisp. Like many of us, she thinks her life would be vastly improved if she could manage to chemically hibernate for a year. Even when she poops on the floor of an art gallery. It’s narrated by an arrogant, beautiful (we are constantly reminded) woman who is traditionally “unlikeable,” but is so completely out there that you can’t help but be charmed and delighted by her on every glorious deadpan page. Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Penguin Press, July 10)įirst things first: this book is very, very good. Finally, so as not to go too far off the rails, all of the books below were published this year, or will be published this summer (I wouldn’t leave those late vacationers hanging). No snobbery is meant this list is for people who want recommendations for recent books that will be engaging and exciting and readable on vacation but which have more literary value than the typical “beach read.” What does that mean, exactly? It’s like any kind of art-I know it when I see it. Luckily, there is a middle ground: great books with distinctive literary and artistic value that are also fit for the beach.īy the way: people on the internet love to caterwaul about the injustice of lists like this-the snobbery of suggesting there’s anything wrong with a regular beach read! The reverse snobbery of talking about how boring literary novels can be! The general insufficiency of book lists of any kind! Honestly, I am. As someone who has a hard time investing in a book if it doesn’t at least tick off a few literary boxes, I tend not to have much tolerance for the purely fun and easy-but I don’t want to bring Proust to the beach either. It’s sort of a ‘Don Quixote’ tale that is repurposed for the current moment.It’s already July, which means that by now you’ve probably gotten a million and one recommendations about which books you should bring to the beach (or lake or woods or park or air conditioned bedroom) this summer. But summer book recommendations in the literary and general fiction space tend to fall into two categories: Fun Easy Beach Reads!!!! and well, everything else. “It’s dealing a lot with that sort of what do we owe each other? How are we going to live next to each other when we are living cheek-to-jowl with other people’s anxieties and concerns and fears - especially when you have this big glass window where you can really see what’s going on in other people’s lives.” It’s getting in touch with her Mexican roots and her Mexican heritage.” It's not even really an autobiography as such.
“It's not a tell-all book about the music industry. “ takes Charles Dickens ‘David Copperfield’ story and transports it to Appalachia in the present day to kind of suggest that some of the issues that Dickens was writing about in the 1800s haven’t changed a whole lot.” “Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver “It's very much in keeping if you’re a fan of John Irving and you’re a fan of ‘The World According to Garp.’ There’s a lot of wrestling involved, and there’s a lot of coming of age.”
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