Summer Reading

A few posts back, I talked about "summer reading" books that were hitting the libraries and book stores.  While a few do look like they might be interesting, I don't really think any of them are going to make my list this year.

I am so close to wrapping up Dombey and Son, and then on to things I will actually enjoy.  I was going over my list of what I had read and actually enjoyed in 2025, and there wasn't that much.  The best books have been rereadings: A Month in the Country, America Fantastica and Lafcadio's Adventures (and the second and third had some fall-off in terms of my overall enjoyment from the first reading!).  I will need to reread Calvino's Invisible Cities, and that will likely also contribute to this finding that the new-to-me books just aren't cutting it right now.

I am reading (or rather rereading) Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City (NYRB), which curiously enough has many parallels to Zhu Wen's I Love Dollars: And Other Stories of China.  They both seem to feature extremely cynical, oversexed young men, which isn't exactly what I need to read at the moment.

I am going to make a real effort to read new books I actually will enjoy, so I'm going to turn to The Leopard soon and probably Lord Vishnu's Love Handles, and maybe Azuela's The Underdogs.  If there is time beyond that I was hoping to get to short stories by Mavis Gallant and perhaps Edna O'Brien.  Then I will likely turn to Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman and Dorfman's The Last Song of Manuel Sendero, though I do worry it will have turned to fall before I crack them open.  Maybe I should take one or two on the trip out to Montreal (which indeed I should book fairly soon before my calendar completely fills up...)  Maybe I could take St. Urbain's Horseman (which has connections to Montreal, even though set in London!) and Walden, which is calling out to be read.