Books: a Challenge

by Jeff Oaks

Books summer 15

What else to do in the summer but read, remember that? We were so bored we read. We read until we were caught up and couldn’t help but want to ride again the mysterious rollercoasters inside letters, typing, paper.

So my version of Oliver de la Paz’s Summer Reading Challenge is inflected by the upcoming Scotland trip.

1. Leslie Jameson’s The Empathy Exams

2. How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

3. Edgelands by by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley

4. The Other Walk by Sven Birkerts

5. Sightlines by Kathleen Jaime

6. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

7. Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

8. The Beauty by Jane Hirschfield

9. Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

10. The Pen and the Bell by Brenda Miller and Holly Hughes

11. The New Testament by Jericho Brown

12. King Me by Roger Reeves

13. No One’s Rose by Paul Celan translated by David Young

14. On Immunity by Eula Biss

15. (not pictured) The Glory Gets by Honoree Jeffers

I’m taking the Birkerts, Herman, Jaime, McCarthy, and Macfarlane with me to Scotland. Most of the poetry I’ll keep for July. Biss, Jameson, and Nelson for August. Or at least that’s the plan. Because I have no idea what I’ll find in Edinburgh, with its beautiful bookstores.

Here’s my friend Liz Ahl’s List and friend Ron Mohring’s List, if you want some more ideas for reading.

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