The Summer Reading series returns to Inside Illinois. Franne Davis, the assistant director of general books at the Illini Union Bookstore, takes a look at trends in summer reading and book publishing, and offers a few personal recommendations.
There are four publishing seasons for trade books, just as there are four physical seasons. Fall and spring are the primary publishing seasons, with fall being the busiest.
Trade books are introduced in the season that publishers guess will be best in terms of sales. Spring and summer new book releases are definitely geared toward leisure reading, including “beach reading,” and books that are derived from movie blockbusters and vice versa.
Illini Union Bookstore customers made F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” one of this bookstore’s bestsellers early in May, even before the debut of Baz Luhrmann’s latest movie version of the story. The film version of Max Brooks’ novel “World War Z” is due out in June. The book is already a cult pick here and the film will probably send even more out to buy the book. “Star Trek” books have been on the scene for almost 50 years and continue to sell. The books may get a boost from the new movie, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” based on the book by the same name.
Our customers come from all walks of campus and community life and we find that their summer reading tastes are diverse and varied. We take pride that we try to customize our general book title selections to fit as many identifiable needs and wants as possible, and consequently, we sell just one or two of a lot of titles on the second floor (where general books are housed). It’s therefore a bit hard to spot trends, but we do see a few.
With vacations and perhaps a slightly slower pace of living, some people tend to see reading as a seasonal luxury and many seem to equate literary indulgence with fiction. We definitely sell more fiction in summer, including books from our mystery and thriller shelves.
The book industry is excited about Dan Brown’s newest thriller, “Inferno: A Novel.” We’ve sold quite a few copies to date although we haven’t yet seen a sales spike in books by Dante, from whom Brown evidently draws source material. Perhaps that will come if those who read Brown’s “Inferno” want to dig deeper as they did with “The Da Vinci Code.” Other early- to mid-20th century works, such as mysteries by Agatha Christie, are perennial favorites. Sherlock Holmes always sells. The James Bond 60th celebration on this campus has brought readers to Raymond Benson and John Gardner.
Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” (1,088 pages) is due out as a summer television series but I have higher (sales) hopes for his slimmer detective novel called “Joyland” that was just released. Set in 1973, it’s about a college student whose summer job is at an amusement park. Its initial release will be in paperback only – no e-book by King’s request – because of his own nostalgia for summer reading through the paperback medium.
Although some have resisted its charms, I believe the e-book is here to stay. E-books are currently about 22 percent of book sales and climbing. The trouble is, no one yet agrees on the platform and there are many types of e-reader devices. The present reality in bookselling is the hybrid model: Many want e-books; some still enjoy the tactile experience of shopping for a book at a brick-and-mortar shop and then taking a print book home to read, shelve and collect; other consumers continue to want to do both.
Students here definitely resonate to the recent trend in the popularity of dystopian novels, and classics such as “1984,” “Animal Farm” and “Fahrenheit 451” always sell well here, summer included, and also newer works in that genre: “The Hunger Games” trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, and “Oryx and Crake,” by Margaret Atwood.
Among the new works of general fiction slated to be in demand this summer are “And the Mountains Echoed,” by Khaled Hosseini, author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” and Kevin Powers’ “The Yellow Birds,” set in wartime Iraq and just out in paperback.
Our Authors Corner, located in the southeast corner of the second floor, has comfortable seating and great views of the changing seasons and weather patterns. We stock it with books by campus authors and community publishers, including Ninth Letter, U. of I. Press, Dalkey Archive and a changing cross-section of campus and alumni authors. Local bestsellers here include Larry Kanfer’s books of photographs and the Moms Association cookbook, “Taste of Illini.”
I’ll always recommend faculty and alumni authors for summer reading. My favorites include anything by Jean Thompson, including her newest novel, “The Humanity Project.” (David Sedaris has been quoted as saying she’s one of the authors he most enjoys reading.) I also suggest a little gem of travel nonfiction by Philip Graham, “The Moon, Come to Earth” – a valentine of a biography on Lisbon and family.
June 20, 2013
Deborah Stevenson
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CHILDREN’S BOOKS
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
Having a job reviewing literature for young people means that my year-round reading is a lot like some people’s summer reading! Summer is particularly enjoyable, though, because we start work on our best-of-the-year list, so I get to read books that other reviewers strongly recommended earlier in the year. Additionally, publication lead times mean that the autumn heavy hitters are coming into our office now, so we’ve got some big juicy galleys (advance reviewer copies) that I’m just waiting to pounce on.
Without a question, the book that’s most eagerly awaited for summer reading here is Maggie Stiefvater’s “The Dream Thieves,” the second book in the trilogy that began with “The Raven Boys,” the best fantasy we saw here last year. Adults who have enjoyed YA (young adult) fiction in the past should definitely check it out. I’m also excited to dive into Elizabeth Wein’s “Rose Under Fire,” a companion volume to her heart-rending “Code Name Verity,” which was the tale of the close friendship of two young women, one a pilot and one a translator, in World War II Europe.
It’s largely when I travel that I read books just for pleasure, loading up on nonfiction in paperback. (I e-read on my MacBookAir – and even my iPod – sometimes, but I like the freedom from battery drain when I travel). I love reading on airplanes. I feel like I’m covering ground mentally and physically at the same time. It’s also a wonderfully indulgent treat to get several titles and pick and choose as my mood takes me, and I already have a pile of books that are waiting for my June conference. I’ve been enjoying a lot of the recent work on probability and behavioral economics and would like to get a better grip on statistics, so I’ve got Nassim Taleb’s “The Black Swan,” Leonard Mlodinow’s “The Drunkard’s Walk” and Nate Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise” all ready to go.
Beth Watkins
EDUCATION AND PUBLICATIONS COORDINATOR, SPURLOCK MUSEUM
Many of the books I’m reading this summer reflect back on my winter travels. I went to India in February and returned with an armful of things to read. I’ve been writing about Indian cinema for years, but I’m much less familiar with Indian literature. Works by the film director Satyajit Ray are at the top of my reading list right now, both his essays on cinema and some of his stories about the detective Feluda. I’ve just been sent a review copy of “100 Films to See Before You Die,” by one of India’s most respected film journalists, Anupama Chopra, so I look forward to digging into that and thinking about how and why certain films can speak to us across time and cultures.
I also picked up a newer novel called “Turbulence,” by Samit Basu. It’s about a group of ordinary people who are turned into superheroes. I very rarely read speculative fiction and only knew the author from his nonfiction work, but he made a mark a decade ago as being the first Indian author to write fantasy in English. I loved the big questions in it – “Do we believe in heroes because they exist, or do they exist because we believe?” or “How do you maintain humanity in the face of exaggerated times and in an exaggerated self?” – and its details, like pop culture references and wry observations on contemporary society. There’s a sort of wave-like, curlicue kind of feel to the pace of action and information, and it doesn’t simply jet along in a boring straight line, just as the title implies.
Closer to home, a colleague at the Spurlock Museum and I decided to start up a book group with some friends when we discovered that neither of us had read Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” but really wanted to do so while also challenging ourselves to think about it as literature and its place in feminist writing in the mid-20th century.
July 5, 2013
Joyce Tolliver
PROFESSOR OF SPANISH, OF TRANSLATION STUDIES, AND OF GENDER AND WOMEN’S STUDIES
From the time I was a child, summer has meant books for me. The weekly trip to the bookmobile was as heady an experience as walking to Wally’s Drugstore or Polito’s Groceries for penny candy, and the pleasure lasted much longer. Now that I’m a literature professor, my summer reading is taken up mostly by my research and preparation for classes, but I still reserve time every summer for fun reading. This always includes a hefty dose of detective fiction as well as a few other books from my “catch-up” list.
Right now, I’m reading P.D. James’ “Death Comes to Pemberley.” P.D. James is, to my mind, the greatest living writer of detective fiction in English. In this novel, she tries her hand at writing a sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” and, naturally, a murder occurs. James ventriloquizing Jane Austen produces an unexpected but delicious combination, like top-drawer scotch sipped with a nice dark chocolate. I can’t predict how it will end, but I do know that that scoundrel, Wickham, must be involved.
I’m also reading a fascinating study written by a graduate of my own department: Sandra Cypess’ “Un/Civil Wars.” Cypess discusses two Mexican writers – the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz and his first wife, Elena Garro – and the very different ways in which their works, and their public figures, were received by the public. Both of them were highly influential, and they were both deeply affected by their experiences in Spain during the Civil War. After their divorce in the 1950s, though, Garro was rather shunted aside, while Paz was lionized. I’m learning about how that happened.
I have a large stack waiting when I finish those two, including J.M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace” and R. Zamora Linmark’s “Leche,” about a Filipino-American in Manila. I’ll also return to Lindsey Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco series, which is set in ancient Rome and features a hard-boiled detective who works with his brilliant, gutsy wife. The next Davis is out, and it features Falco’s daughter, who was still an adolescent in the last novel I read. I’ve got to catch up!
Phyllis M. Wise
CHANCELLOR
I’ll come right out and admit it. When I agreed to be one of the Inside Illinois summer reading contributors, I had big plans. I’d write about the whole list of books I had completed and all those I intended to finish before August rolled around. Now, as July is underway, I have to face reality – I’m going to be lucky to finish the first three on my list by the time the demands of the new semester take over my leisure-reading time. So, here they are.
With all the campus events around the sesquicentennials of both the Morrill Act and the Emancipation Proclamation last year, and with these renewed discussions about Abraham Lincoln, I was intrigued by the premise of “The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage,” by Daniel Mark Epstein. The writing is beautiful and the story of this complex and historically and politically important union is very revealing of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.
The second book I’m working through is quite a departure – “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.” This is written by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, offering her thoughts on the challenges women face in taking leadership roles in today’s workplace. And it has been a topic of great media attention since it came out. Having some experience in that particular area in my own career, I was interested to read what a leader of this generation has to say on the subject.
My third ongoing read is certainly the most fun, and currently, the one with which I can most closely identify. “Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog” is the story of a family’s comical experiences with a less-than-well-behaved Labrador retriever. This winter we brought home a new Bernese Mountain puppy. She makes Marley look easy. We are on our sixth Berner: Rosie (before we got onto the music theme), Bravo, Melody, Encore, Maestro and now Jazz. And Jazz may be the death of us – eating wine boxes, eating wall board and kitchen cabinets, turning on the stove, climbing onto the top of the stove. Jazz was my inspiration for reading this one.
July 18, 2013
EllenSue Cameron
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGER AND ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR
CAMPUS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
I am a “townie,” and when I was a little girl the Champaign Public Library was located in the Burnham Athenaeum (1894) on West Church Street. I remember climbing the wide marble stairs to the children’s section on the second floor. I gravitated to books with “house” in the title or a house on the cover. I developed a strong liking for mysteries early on and decided this summer to return to my reading roots.
In “The Beach House,” by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge, Jack Mullen is about to graduate from Columbia Law School when his brother’s body is found washed up on a private beach. This book has a compelling story, is attention grabbing and contains interesting lessons in justice.
Next, in “No Place Like Home,” by Mary Higgins Clark, Celia Nolan’s husband surprises her with a birthday gift of a beautiful home although he doesn’t know it’s where she killed her mother some 20 years earlier. Clark’s mystery and suspense books keep you guessing while drawing out the tension and moving swiftly.
“The House on Tradd Street,” by Karen White, is part of her Tradd Street series with the fourth and final book of the series to be published in January. Realtor Melanie Middleton inherits a mansion in Charleston, S.C., – complete with ghosts and other touches of the paranormal – from a virtual stranger. The book is filled with passion, dark secrets, heartache and a study of relationships.
Next I read “If This House Could Talk,” by Elizabeth Smith Brownstein, about many different houses. Along with well-chosen artwork and examples of architecture, the book explores major themes in American history using the selected houses as metaphors. Brownstein makes the reader feel you are with her as she travels through these extraordinary Americans lives and homes.
I’m currently about halfway through Brownstein’s “Lincoln’s Other White House” and am enjoying the historical aspects of Lincoln that are usually ignored as it goes beyond the familiar Lincolnalia.
William Gillespie
communications coordinator, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Your invitation to contribute to the Summer Reading series arrived at an awkward time. Since having a baby seven months ago, I haven't read much. So I've invited my baby, Heather Rose Gillespie, to tell you about the books being read to her this summer. - William Gillespie
To Dads' credit, when he was given the advice to read aloud the same children's book every night while I was in the womb, he instead read me adult books. That was fine with me - it's hard to hear in there, and I got more from Moms' enjoyment than I would've gotten from a book targeted at 4-year-olds. Plus, Dads has outstanding taste. I love the whimsy combined with rigorous meter of Lewis Carroll's epic "The Hunting of the Snark" and T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." Imagine my delight when, upon being born, I got to see the illustrations. "The Hunting of the Snark" never gets old, and there are so many illustrators to choose from, from Mahendra Singh to Henry Holiday's original plates. And Dads went all out with the hardback "Old Possum" with Edward Gorey's drawings. I can't wait to read more T.S. Eliot, though Dads says that his other books don't have kitties. Bah. Well, now I can see the words and pictures, but I still like a good beat. Which brings me to another great master of English verse - Dr. Seuss. Like Lewis and T., Dr. Seuss could also turn a line and knew his way around an iamb!
Moms and Dads are Generation X nostalgia junkies and loaded up my bookshelf with favorites from their own childhoods, including Beverly Cleary's books with the original Louis Darling illustrations. Apparently the eBay market for tattered old kids books is pretty vicious, so, while I appreciate the trouble, come on, guys, how about some new stuff?! The Ys had Harry Potter, but who's going to be the defining children's author of Generation Z? With these two dinosaurs in charge, I may never find out!
Please email Dads and Moms your suggestions at gillespi@illinois.edu or cdg@illinois.edu. -HRG
Aug. 1, 2013
Mulu Ferede
senior associate director, Illini Union
In high school, my extensive, required reading list was dominated by Shakespeare. For me as a non-native English speaker that was a bit too much, but that was the nature of attending a private English boarding school in Ethiopia. I loved my school but I hated Shakespeare. (There, I said it.) Thankfully, my passion for reading appears not to have suffered. I loved Agatha Christie, Perry Mason mystery novels, Rudyard Kipling (I know what you are thinking about Kipling, but consider the context) and Leon Uris adventures.
As a parent of two daughters, ages 11 and 16, my approach to reading has evolved not only in subject matter and genre, but also in my general philosophy. In our house, it is not so much about what you read, just that you are reading. Fortunately, both my daughters have come to love reading just as much as I do. It is a weekly ritual for us to make a trip to the Champaign Public Library to check out books or visit the used book sale. As they grow older, I enjoy sharing reading experiences with them by either reading the same titles or by talking about what we are reading.
The best time of day for me to read is either early in the morning before I catch my bus to work or after dinner when the girls are doing homework. Unlike the rest of my family who tend to start and finish a single book, I usually go through multiple books at a time in no particular order. I just finished "Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations," by Alex and Brett Harris, two teenage brothers, and I am approaching the final chapter of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," by Carol Dweck. On deck for the rest of the summer is "My Beloved World," by Sonia Sotomayor, and "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
I still have an attachment to physical books and the move to the e-format has not come naturally, although lately, most of my reading on the subject of management and the technical fields has made an easier transition to the e-book format.
Elizabeth A. Rockman
associate director, Campus Honors Program
Summer has always meant reading for me. I find that my enjoyment of free time is increased by fitting in the time to read my favorites (especially when I'm in the airport or on a plane).
I love mysteries most and will read anything by Tana French for her deft touch with human weaknesses; Dennis Lehane for his gritty Boston detective novels; Andrew Vachss, best known for his stark Burke series; James Lee Burke's beautiful and often painful series set in the bayou country; Lawrence Block (his whimsical series about a gentleman burglar, his weightier Matthew Scudder series or his existential Keller books); Lee Child's Jack Reacher books; and, until his passing, Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. (I still miss Hawk!) Recently, a friend introduced me to the Walt Longmire mysteries, which are so good I've been saving them so I'll continue to have them to look forward to.
Lately I've finished a number of dark forays into human complexity (that also deal with a mystery at the core of each), including Kimberly McCreight's "Reconstructing Amelia," Tami Hoag's "The 9th Girl," Elizabeth Silver's "The Execution of Noa P. Singleton" and "Gone Girl," by Gillian Flynn. I currently have books waiting at the library that include "The Woman Upstairs," by Clarie Messud, Meg Wolitzer's "The Interestings" and Dan Brown's "Inferno."
I also enjoy reading books that address time periods in our country that we'd perhaps rather forget or that many of us rarely talk about. I recently finished "Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," by Jamie Ford, which is set in Seattle and deals with Japanese-American families being sent to internment camps during World War II. When I visited Seattle a couple weeks later, I had a greater appreciation for the history of Pioneer Square and the International District. I tend to seek out novels that deal with civil rights of any kind, and I'm trying out some biographies here and there. And I always fit in some "brain candy" for trips. Summer wouldn't be the same without that.
Aug. 15, 2013
Celia Mathews Elliott
director of external affairs and special projects, department of physics
I'm the old lady sitting in Intermezzo or a campus restaurant at a late lunch, eating a salad and engrossed in a book. Several years ago, I decided for the sake of the few remaining shreds of my sanity that I was no longer going to eat lunch at my desk - I owed it to myself to get away from the physicists for an hour a day. And since I like reading as much as eating, what to do on my new-found lunch hour was obvious.
I read all the time - 80 books a year on average. As soon as I finish one book, I start the next one. I watch television only when my husband is available; turning on the "entertainment system" at our house requires four remotes, operated in precisely the correct sequence - way more trouble than it's worth. I read the old-fashioned way, too - no e-reader for me. I've read two books on an e-reader ("Redfield Farm" and "The Pecan Man" - both excellent) but found it curiously unsatisfying.
I read history, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and whodunits. Highlights of this summer's reading were Anne Applebaum's "Gulag," Siegfried Lenz's "The German Lesson," Daniel James Brown's "The Boys in the Boat," Bernard Cornwell's "The Fort" and Lawrence Norfolk's "John Saturnall's Feast." I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of the new Dave Robicheaux novel from James Lee Burke and the new Gabriel Allon book from Daniel Silva. Also on the to-be-read pile are "Three Day Road" (Joseph Boyden), "Paul Revere's Ride" (David Hackett Fischer), "The World Until Yesterday" (Jared Diamond) and "Conscience" (Louisa Thomas).
I re-read some books every few years ("The Name of the Rose"; Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series - I wish I could invite Uhtred to dinner; Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style"; Dick Francis; Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series). Some I've never had the courage to re-read because they were so perfect the first time ("Lord Jim," "Watership Down," "For a Sack of Bones," Tom Sawyer.)
The next time you see me reading at Intermezzo, interrupt me to talk about books. But be prepared for a long conversation.
Willis Regier
director, U. of I. Press
I get to read marvelous manuscripts before they become books and to read the excellent books that my colleagues acquire. Those aside, I've enjoyed Claudia Johnson's engaging "Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures" and two superb biographies, Christoph Irmscher's "Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science" and Jeremy Adelman's "Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman." But most of my summer has been devoted to reading the works of Desiderius Erasmus in the Amsterdam edition of his "Opera Omnia," with plenty of cribbing from the English translations in Toronto's "Collected Works of Erasmus."
Why spend a summer with Erasmus? Many reasons. First of all, he was an astounding scholar. He wrote brilliantly, writing foundational texts on pedagogy, pacifism and textual criticism. He edited works by Cicero and Seneca and multivolume sets of St. Augustine, St. Jerome and other church fathers. He translated Galen, Lucian, Plutarch and the Greek New Testament. He liked beef, beer and burgundy, especially with learned friends.
His contemporaries called him "the most learned man on earth," "the best of teachers" and "without doubt the greatest scholar of our time." He could have rested on his fame and lived on a king's pension but chose to continue working until his last days, when, at the age of 70, he commended his soul to God and died.
What attracts me most of all to Erasmus are his faith and his conduct in it. He was a devoted Catholic and I'm a hardened skeptic, but he softens me a little. His Christianity is patient, tolerant, eager for knowledge, willing to admit what he could not know, and laboring mightily to combat ignorance of all kinds. He dared to argue that priests should be free to marry. He wanted women to be educated. He hated mercenaries. He was horrified by what zealous Christians would do to each other in the name of religion.
I'm glad to have read the other books, but Erasmus has been most rewarding. His "Praise of Folly" is where most readers meet him first.