(My) Summer Reading

When I was not falling awkwardly asleep in hammocks this summer, I found some time to read books. Some were novels that I had been wanting to read for a very long time, others were given to me or recommended by friends, and still others were picked up on a whim. Below are some of my thoughts on the standouts.

David Rakofff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable is a collection of New Journalistic essays that could be cleverly shelved between Klosterman (but without all the references to metal bands that you cannot imagine anyone listening to and enjoying unironically) and Hunter S. Thompson (but without all the drugs).

King Dork was fun and made me think about my soon-to-be juniors reading The Catcher and the Rye for their summer reading (this image seems like it would make a perfect Norman Rockwell painting), and wondering if they will like Holden or end up hating him—in my experience, there is very little indifferent middle ground. Check out my review of King Dork, where I set a bad example by exceeding my own word count limit for the assignment.

It also made me reflect on my own summer reading when I was a wee high school student many moons ago. As incoming seniors, we were assigned one book that I unfortunately waited until the last week of summer to begin: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In all honesty, I cannot think of a more unfortunate selection for a summer reading experience, especially if you have to average 100 pages a day in order to finish before the first day of school. But I digress.

I also tackled Eggers book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius this summer, which is a very, very good memoir—I have a feeling that I might want to review this one as well, primarily because in the last couple of years I have been thinking a lot about non-fiction texts with my students, specifically what constitutes one and why, as a nation, we have become obsessed with the “true story.” Last year I experimented with non-fiction film by studying documentary films with some of my classes, and we played around with the idea of the “construction of reality,” which I found enjoyable and very interesting, and I think a lot of my students did as well. But I think making a creative yet pastiche-ish title for my review of Eggers book will be the best part of writing it, and almost reason enough to write one, however I assume that this has been done by many a publication already, with more successful results. So far I have in mind “A Painstaking Memoir of Self-Conscious Reality,” but I have a hunch that there are too many syllables. The book takes place primarily in Berkley and San Francisco, which is where Eggers set up his uber-cool non-profit organization at 826 Valencia St.

My first time to 826 Valencia, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had heard that it had a maritime, pirate influence, and that it was at this address where non-profit work with kids and writing took place, however I did not realize that it was, in fact, a retail store specifically targeting pirates and people who want to dress like pirates. As I walked in to what felt like the hull of ship—dark wood with exposed beams, old barrels and unmarked drawers with brass handles—a few people were mingling about (all non-pirates, as far as I could tell), and one guy was discussing the eye-patch selection and trying on different colors and styles with a very nice salesperson. Every once in a while, a youngster would sneak in from the back room for inspiration (I learned later that when they purchased the space, it was zoned for retail, so they had to think of something to sell—thus the pirate paraphernalia). I walked around and peered through the partitioned off section to get a glimpse of the extent of the non-profitness: the ratio of volunteers to kids was about 1: 2, and it seemed like a lot of the kids were actually writing. It also turned out that the store was small compared to the rest of the place. This was even more surprising since it was summer, and therefore summer break, and therefore unlimited TV time for millions of America’s youth. In fact, I think Eggers and his crew have created programs that remove a lot of the bad connotations associated with writing—body paragraphs, double-spacing, thesis statements, textual evidence—and instead encourage creativity and freedom in an environment that is fun, low-key, and built with these young, potential readers and writers in mind.

After looking at and playing with hooks, flags, hats, treasure and rubber eyeballs (one of the unmarked, mystery drawers contained them), I ended up buying a couple back issues of The Believer (a monthly magazine published independently by McSweeny Press) that looked interesting, as well as a book of research and profiles of teachers sarcastically titled English Teacher’s Have it Easy. After dealing with the eye-patch sale, the retailer commented on one of The Believers I had selected: “Oooh, that one’s good.” Apparently selling pirate gear was not her only interest.

Currently I am keeping my non-fiction streak alive by slowly reading and enjoying John Muir’s writing; I’m starting with “My First Summer in the Sierras,” although the edition I have includes all of his writing, which is extensive. But his ideas and experiences as he explores the Sierras for the first time with a herd of sheep and their herders is captivating, and I fall into a trance trying to imagine what it would be like to explore a pristine California that is so wild and so unspoiled.