Why are people so into summer reading? It seems to me that if there were a season to not read anything, between the four of them it would probably be summer. After all, Summer is when people spend the most time outside: at the beach, at the park, at movies and concerts and picnics. Biking, hiking, and road trips. Vacations and sightseeing. (Beach reading, although a nice idea, is totally overrated. My tan always ends up lopsided.) Reading is solitary and often done indoors where there is sufficient light and no threat of rain crinkling pages. It might be safe to say, in fact, that summer is the least conducive season to summer reading. Winter–cold, indoors, and solitary–is when we need that reading list.
I suppose the idea of summer reading originates in grade school when teachers leave students on the last day with a list of books to read before the fall. But as children generally dislike extra work during vacation, this seems only one more reason to resist such ideas. Summer, though, is hot and exciting. And like New Year’s, at the start the season it appears expansive and promising. But summer reading ventures should be looked at like New Year’s resolutions: too ambitious and prone to failure. The Book Bench has begun a feature called “Books, Interrupted: an ongoing series on failed summer summer-reading projects.”
For some readers, summer is the season of pleasure-seeking, the season when you don’t have to apologize for that trashy mystery novel (or bodice-ripper or vampire thriller). For others, summer represents a block of time in which to digest all the Serious and Important titles you’ve been putting off for years. The pressure to say goodbye to human society, buy the collected works of Trollope, and lock yourself in a cabana until you’ve completed your mission can be crippling.
Last summer, I think I decided to read….everything. Literally, all the books I own. The problem occurs not when we stock up on indulgent genre novels to read in the airport or on the train, but rather when we make wild plans to read the entire Forsyte Saga or the “newest” translation of War and Peace that’s been sitting by the bed for so long that it is no longer the “new translation of War and Peace.” And like New Year’s resolutions, the best way to avoid summer reading failure is to make a rational plan and stick to it. It doesn’t seem very summery to give yourself reading assignments, but as long as you’re enjoying yourself it shouldn’t matter. So for the love of cool summer nights, don’t decide to read six Dickens novels if you can’t stand Victorian literature or participate in Infinite Summer only because you feel guilty for never having read any DFW.
I’ll let you know how it goes with War and Peace.