One Crazy Summer – Beachcomber Writers Look Back on Their Fave Reads

Breanne Boland: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Mieville is a younger writer than you would think if your impression of him were based on his accomplished prose and deceptively simple world building. Yes, this is fantasy, but it’s as far from elves as you can get—a sprawling city with corrupt government, inter-species conflict, and underground political movements. Add to this a dash of mad science and you have a brilliant, smart book that’s unpredictable in the best ways. It’s dense in details, but your problem won’t be remembering plotlines between reading sessions—it’ll be finding time for normal life when you can’t pull yourself away from the book.

The Now Habit by Neil Fiore, Ph.D. I admit that this is pure pop psychology, but it doesn’t promise to make you thin or give you the love you deserve. Instead it lays out smart, practical ways of overcoming procrastination. The book’s subtitle is “a strategic program for overcoming procrastination and enjoying guilt-free play.” If you’re a procrastinator like me, this will resonate—not only does pushing tasks off make life more difficult, it robs some of the joy from the rest of your life. Fiore explains the problem and his solutions in a caring, gentle way that stops well short of being touchy-feely.

Bruce Collier: John Adams by David McCullough has been out for some time, bagging its share of literary prizes and forming the basis of a recent miniseries. McCullough gives us the broad strokes, relying heavily on Adams' copious letters (God knows what the man would have done with email). Adams wrote to everyone—Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, and a host of American and European notables. There are also the letters to his wife Abigail, surely among the most moving and affectionate of all correspondences.

The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain, the highly opinionated chef and Indiana Jones of food travel, puts together a loosely related series of essays on old and new trends in cuisine, customer behavior, TV cooking shows, what real "fast food" ought to be, and celebrity chefs. He even throws in a little food-based fiction. You either love the guy or hate him, but there's a passionate, sometimes mawkishly sentimental side to Tony that keeps me reading—and watching—this quintessential New York smart aleck.

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler. I am in progress on this one. It's big—more than 600 pages, plus about 200 more of footnotes—and not a quick or breezy read. Gabler is deeply interested in American culture and media, with a special interest in Hollywood. Whatever you think of his empire, it must be conceded that Walt was one of the founding fathers of animation, an art form he practically made up.

Pepper James: Twelve Sharp, Lean Mean Thirteen and Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich. I enjoyed all two-and-a-half books (turned out I had already read “Twelve Sharp” so didn’t finish it), as I always do when delving into the life of Stephanie Plum, Bounty Hunter Extraordinaire. Stephanie, Lulu, her comical Grandma and all her other memorable and returning characters allow me to fantasize about living a life of danger, chasing down bad guys, being pursued by not one, but two gorgeous hunks, and in general, living a life I know nothing of. At least so far.

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner. Weiner’s Good in Bed was about an overweight woman who found and lost love and had a baby in the process. Certain Girls picks up the tale 13 years later, told through both her and her 13-year old daughter’s eyes. I loved the book and—unlike my sister—thought the “sad parts” were a necessary part of the story. I also loved it when I shared part of the story with my own teenager daughter, who responded, “I will always love you, Mom.” Thanks, Jennifer!

Christopher Manson: I love crime fiction, and two masters of the genre did not disappoint. Peter Abrahams’ Delusion, about a troubled police chief’s wife confronting her tragic past in the guise of a possibly innocent man she helped put behind bars, confirms the author’s reputation as one of the best suspense novelists alive. George Pelecanos crafted another gripping character study with The Turnaround—his use of music as part of the scenery is particularly impressive. This is a superb character study set in the Washington, D.C. area that has served the one-time writer for TV’s The Wire so well.

My favorite summer read was Joseph Wambaugh’s Hollywood Crows, the gritty and funny follow-up to his previous winner Hollywood Station. We know Wambaugh can write about cops, but his portraits of assorted criminals, street characters and crack heads are just as well informed.

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