--- title: Summer Reading | TIME description: TIME asked a dozen authors to recommend books to read this summer. Lee Child, Ruth Reichl, Colson Whitehead and others offer their picks canonical: https://time.com/video/5arH1ZSd/ og:title: Summer Reading og:description: TIME asked a dozen authors to recommend books to read this summer. Lee Child, Ruth Reichl, Colson Whitehead and others offer their picks og:url: https://time.com/video/5arH1ZSd/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5arH1ZSd/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Summer Reading twitter:description: TIME asked a dozen authors to recommend books to read this summer. Lee Child, Ruth Reichl, Colson Whitehead and others offer their picks twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5arH1ZSd/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Summer Reading > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Summer Reading [Watch (HLS stream): Summer Reading](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5arH1ZSd.m3u8) (6:47)  _Published 2009-07-03. TIME asked a dozen authors to recommend books to read this summer. Lee Child, Ruth Reichl, Colson Whitehead and others offer their picks_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:11 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Colson Whitehead on Reading and Writing](/video/2mxG7ivn/) ### Colson Whitehead on Reading and Writing [Colson Whitehead on Summer Reading](/video/6l4aWhpr/) ### Colson Whitehead on Summer Reading [Ruth Reichl on Summer Reading](/video/atKURLZr/) ### Ruth Reichl on Summer Reading --- ## Transcript >> A summer book shouldn't be work. >> In every once in a while, I recommend just pick out something you've never heard of, and you've never heard anything about, and just try it. >> Well, I think back of some of my more enjoyable reading experiences in the summer. I think of like strange big books like 'Gravity's Rainbow', 'Ulysses', books that were sort of changed my idea about what it is to be a writer. >> You know, I mean in the winter you feel like there are books you shouldn't read, there is no should about a summer book. It should just be something that gives you pleasure. >> Writers come from readers so when TIME asked twelve authors to recommend a summer book, they were eager to talk about their summer favorites, and about their own books. Five authors sat down with me to talk about their summer reads. Some of their choices may surprise you. >> In the summertime I really want something that moves that sort of, you know, cools me off because there's a breeze from the prose. >> That's Kate Christensen, whose latest novel is 'Trouble', a story about two college co- eds who reunite in midlife for a getaway to Mexico. Her summer pick didn't strike us as breezy, but she insists that G. K. Chesterton's 1908 tone 'The Man Who Was Thursday', fits the bill. >> I love detective novels, and I love poetry, and I love anything sort of metaphysical that's told in amazing language and this is all, this is everything. It's about a poet turned detective to fight the forces of pessimism and chaos. >> Colson Whitehead also went for poetry this summer, choosing Anne Carson's the 'Autobiography of Red', a novel and verse that re- imagines the myth of Geryon and Herakles. Geryon, in the myth and also in Anne Carson's 'Autobiography of Red', is a red monster with wings and he walks around, he goes to school. But, he's a monster like we're all sort of monsters sometimes. >> Whitehead's latest novel, 'Sag Harbor', is inspired by his summers as a teenager in the black enclave of that famed Long Island beach community. He can see his own protagonist and his own teenage self in Carson's fantastical creature. >> The book is following him in his teenage years, his early twenties, and he is discovering what it is to be an individual in society, discovering romance, the disappointment of romance, and his own sort of artistic life. And, I think when if you go anyone who goes through adolescence has these struggles on different sorts of ways. >> Lee Child, author of the popular 'Jack Reacher' Series, will probably see copies of his own books on the beach this summer. His latest is 'Gone Tomorrow'. So, what does he read for escape? Well a 600- page family drama, of course. Philip Hensher's 'The Northern Clemency', was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and appeals to Child in part because it's set in Sheffield, England, where he went to college. >> I think it's always fun if the book takes place in a place you know because there's a-- there's a immediate personal connection right there. Plus, it's about a very influential seminal period of history. The seventies, eighties, and nineties, in Britain pretty everything changed. >> Child says that he keeps summer exciting by picking up books he's never heard of. >> It's about taking the risk, taking a chance. It might be terrible, I'd-- I don't know, but I'm hope, I think it's gonna be good, because the Man Booker Prize nomination is usually some kind of a recommendation. >> I think the winner thinks out pretty good. >> They think they do. And they-- and they don't always get it right, but it's a-- it's a good start. >> Talk about a good start. J. Courtney Sullivan's debut novel 'Commencement' is about four graduates of famed Smith College. Miss Sullivan went there herself as did protagonist of her summer read, 'The Wife' by Meg Wolitzer. >> Well, I love Meg Wolitzer in general, you know, I've just always looked to her, she's a great read because she is, it's sort of an easy read, and yet there's always depth to what she's speaking about particularly when it comes to the lives of women. >> Well, Sullivan's own novel opens with a wedding. 'The Wife' opens with a woman's decision to end her marriage of many years. >> In this book, you know, you're, she's capturing this marriage and she's, it's the lead character is in a really tough, painful position. Yet, typical of Meg Wolitzer, it's just completely hilarious and, you know, so well crafted. It's just amazing. 'The Wife' is a woman who is a brilliant writer, attending Smith in the mid- fifties, and it's such a different place completely. And, it's just amazing to see the contrast between these twenty- two year olds who are going off and getting Fulbright, and having adventures, and what it was to be a Smithie in the mid- fifties. >> Ruth Reichl's latest book also looks at how vastly the lives of women have changed. Only she does it by honing in on one woman, her mother. While she's written about her mother before, the Editor- in- chief of 'Gourmet Magazine' realized she had a new book when she discovered a secret stash of her mother's writings. 'Not Becoming My Mother', was the result. Her summer pick showcases another strong willed mother, not easy to live with, 'Olive Kitteridge' by Elizabeth Strout, is a character study that won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. You know when you first hear about this book, the life of a retired school teacher in a small town in Maine, c'mon it sounds like a tea cozy. >> I mean it does but it is anything but a tea cozy, I mean, one of the things that I love so much about this book, this is a difficult woman. She is not a-- she is not a likable character, but you end up really liking her. But, she is, she stomps through life. She makes people's lives miserable. >> Reichl is a food writer so it makes sense that she's found the perfect analogy for the books' style. >> One of the other things that makes it great for summer is you can, it, its linked short stories. And, so you can read each story, go to the beach, read one story, pack it up, and each one is very satisfying as a snack all by itself put together it makes an incredible meal. >> And, for those who don't make it to the beach, these reads are also promised to be perfect for a steamy subway commute. >> If you're reading it on your way home from work what I'm really trying to do is make you misuse stop, and suddenly realize that you're in Coney Island. >> There should be a phrase for it like a subway stop- misser or something like a page you remember. >> Yeah. >> A stop- misser. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Summer Reading","description":"TIME asked a dozen authors to recommend books to read this summer. 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