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An exploration of New York City’s past. A beloved novel about a group of women in the publishing industry in the 1950s. An oral history of an indie rock band’s “iconic” third album.
No summer is complete without a scintillating read. And who better to ask for recommendations than The New York Times Book Review team? To kick off the summer, Times Insider asked writers, editors and other members of the Book Review to choose the reads they’ll take to the beach, barbecue and every place in between. Below are their responses, which have been edited for clarity.
Joumana Khatib, editor and writer of the Books newsletter
What book are you reading this summer?
“After Julius,” by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Why do you love it?
I’m enjoying it so much that I am planning to graduate to Howard’s “The Cazalet Chronicles,” the multibook series for which she is best known. I stumbled upon Howard only recently — criminally recently — and admire her ruthless social observations and wit. I think she captures the experience of precarity, whether emotional, financial, social, in incredibly fine detail.
Who do you recommend it for?
Anyone who appreciates the dramatic potential of a weekend in the countryside.
Jennifer Harlan, service editor
What book are you reading this summer?
“The Best of Everything,” by Rona Jaffe
Why do you love it? This novel had been in my to-read stack for years but moved to the top when both Jennifer Egan and Candace Bushnell sang its praises for our Read Your Way Through New York City project. The book was published in 1958, and there are plenty of fun midcentury details — the fashion, the luncheonettes, the shockingly cheap apartments — but it also feels remarkably modern.
You follow five young women who meet while working at a publishing house, and the ways they navigate love and sex and bad dates and heartbreak and awkward office parties all feel totally at home in this century. It’s moving and very funny, and perfectly captures what it feels like to be a young woman making a life for herself in the city.
Who do you recommend it for?
New Yorkers. Visitors to New York. Fans of “Mad Men,” “Sex and the City” or the tragically short-lived “Good Girls Revolt.” Anyone navigating the summer tango between the stiflingly hot outdoors and an Arctic office.
Sadie Stein, preview editor
What book are you reading this summer?
“Pavement’s Wowee Zowee (33 ⅓),” by Bryan Charles and “Perfect Sound Forever,” by Rob Jovanovic
Why do you love it?
After seeing Alex Ross Perry’s genre-bending “Pavements,” I went down a rabbit hole. In addition to obsessively playing all of Pavement’s albums, I read Bryan Charles’s book (bought at Film Forum) on the making of the iconic 1995 album “Wowee Zowee” and then, wanting more, ordered a copy of Rob Jovanovic’s more comprehensive story of the band’s brief, epic, weird career. It’s always bittersweet to immerse yourself in something that was defining for the teenage version of yourself — even the great things — but as escapism goes, I can’t recommend this multimedia experience more!
Who do you recommend it for?
Anyone who’s already a Pavement fan, obviously! But I think anyone will fall in love with the band after reading about their stints as security guards at the Whitney Museum.
Laura Thompson, fact-checker
What book are you reading this summer?
“Pulphead,” by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Why do you love it?
Maybe this is sacrilege, but I think a summer read should be easily put-down-able — something engrossing but digestible in bite-size pieces. I want to be able to drop my book if, say, a swell rolls in at the beach or my neighbors throw together an impromptu cookout. So I gravitate toward essay and short story collections this time of year. Sullivan’s essays, in particular, are clever yet heartfelt dispatches from American landscapes and cultures that feel like a road trip in book form. Imagine visiting Christian rock festivals, post-Katrina New Orleans and the dark zones of Mississippian caves with your funniest friend riding shotgun.
Who do you recommend it for?
Southerners. Your niece or nephew starting journalism school in the fall. Fans of Joseph Mitchell’s “Up in the Old Hotel” and David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”
J. D. Biersdorfer, editor and writer of the Book Review Quiz Bowl
What book are you reading this summer?
“Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America,” by Russell Shorto
Why do you love it?
I’ve read tons of New York City history books, but Shorto’s vivid writing and deep research into the lives of people often left out of Manhattan’s familiar 17th-century origin story (including women, enslaved people and Native Americans) are illuminating. And after reading a few chapters, I can take the N.Y.C. ferry down to the Seaport and explore that same area of the city myself.
Who do you recommend it for?
N.Y.C. buffs, especially those who liked “The Island at the Center of the World,” Shorto’s 2004 book on Dutch-era Manhattan. Readers interested in the cultural and political DNA of the U.S.A. may also find it absorbing.
Alexandra Jacobs, book critic
What book are you reading this summer?
I picked up a $10 first edition of “Conversations With Capote” by the longtime Playboy interviewer Lawrence Grobel (with a foreword by James A. Michener!) at Dogtown Books in Gloucester, Mass., which my family visits every summer.
Why do you love it?
It’s such a tantalizing slice of its subject’s curdled worldview that I’m going back for the Gerald Clarke biography.
Who do you recommend it for?
Required reading if you enjoyed Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.” Truman has, in recent years, been too often reduced to a line drawing — though the one of him looking reptilian by David Levine on the cover here is a bonus.
Jennifer Szalai, book critic
What book are you reading this summer?
“The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann
Why do you love it?
I knew next to nothing about the Austrian director G.W. Pabst before picking up Kehlmann’s new novel, a fictionalized account of the filmmaker’s slide into complicity with the Nazi regime. Kehlmann brilliantly conveys how fascism turns intimate, with cruelty trickling down into the most ordinary interactions. I’m about halfway through the book and am completely absorbed.
Who do you recommend it for?
If you’re looking for total escapism, this book is … not it. But it’s wry, intelligent, nimbly written — and undeniably entertaining, too.
The post The Best Summer Reads, as Recommended by the Book Review appeared first on New York Times.
