I know that right now summer seems like an eternity away. You still have a giant barricade of final tests, papers and projects to get through before you can even begin to remember what relaxation feels like. Still, I find that the best way to get through difficult tasks is to take ten minutes to just sit back and think about all the fun things you’ll be able to do once you finish them! In the midst of finals, I like to go to my happy place: sitting in my backyard, my beagle (okay, mutt) at my feet, engrossed in a book. If your happy place is as literary as mine, here’s a list of some perfectly light summer reads to take your mind off finals.
Gone Girl
DUH. If you never got around to reading it back in the summer of 2012, now’s the perfect time. It’s a beautifully constructed thriller that you truly won’t be able to put down.
Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison
Everyone loves the Netflix adaptation of Piper Kerman’s original memoir, but not as many people have read the original. It’s not quite as uproarious as the show, but it’s still interesting to see how the facts were changed for TV.
Essay collections are perfect for summer reading. You get through them much faster because there’s never the chance of getting bored on page 400; every 40 pages is a new adventure. Joan Didion’s 1968 collection is a classic, and a great way to get introduced to the genre.
Franny and Zooey
Another perfect type of book for light summer reading: the novella. One of J.D. Salinger’s forays into the life of the Glass family, Franny and Zooey is a great way to read something from the “serious” literary canon that won’t just leave you bored and confused on a hot summer day.
Ariel
Poetry is also great for the summer. The light, airy language won’t weigh you down as much a lot of more verbose forms of literature. Ariel is the poetry collection Sylvia Plath was working on at the time of her death, and it’s a great peek into a troubled, brilliant mind. I recommend picking up the later editions of the book that restore Plath’s original selection and arrangement.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
This 600+ page Pulitzer Prize winner may seem like a ridiculous summer reading suggestion, but hear me out. Some people like commitment. So, if you want to just focus on one book all summer, reading a chapter or two a day, Kavalier and Clay is perfect. It may be long, but the story is so engrossing and the characters are so fascinating that you won’t even mind.
Hark! A Vagrant
If you’re a comics fan, there’s nothing funnier to flip through on a lazy summer afternoon than Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant. Beaton lovingly mocks everything from Edgar Allen Poe to the French Revolution in this collection of her cartoons.
Naked
Another short story collection that I just have to recommend: David Sedaris’ first book, Naked. Actually, I highly recommend all of Sedaris’ books, but this is probably my personal favorite. Sedaris has an unparalleled eye for the comic absurdity of every day life. My only piece of advice: don’t read it in public, or everyone will think you’re insane as you laugh hysterically at every line.
Mrs. Dalloway
Another compactly structured short novel, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is perfect for a bit of existentialism on a beautiful summer day. Plus, the entire plot takes place in the course of day, so it’s not the type of novel where you get bored as the story drags on.
The Opposite of Loneliness
If you ever wanted inspiration for living life to its fullest, look no further. The Opposite of Loneliness is a compilation of the work of Marina Keegan, a brilliant young writer who died in a car accident only five days after graduating magna cum laude from Yale. Her own story may be tragic, but her writing is anything but. All of her poems and stories are that perfect kind of writing, the kind that makes you sit back and reassess your whole life for a while when you’ve finished. The title essay is also a perfect manifesto for any college student.
Now that you have the perfect reading list, there’s no excuse for not cracking open a book all summer!