Pat Taub
It’s that time of the year again when I share my selections for summer reading.
Seeking to combat the stress from daily life dominated by wars, global warming and economic hardships, I’ve selected books that offer an escape into worlds that will make you laugh, be deeply moved, and think in new ways.
Most of my choices are short story collections, so if you’re on vacation or involved in a summer project and can only read in snippets, a short story does the trick.
Not to deny our current reality, I’ve included two books on Palestine, shedding light on daily life in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli occupation.
The Progress of Love and Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
Alice Munro is hands down one of the best fiction writers of the last century, known for her flawless collections of short stories. (I’ve listed two here, but they’re all brilliant.) When Munro died this past May at 92, she had won just about every literary prize including the Nobel. Munro, a Canadian, sets her stories in Canada, featuring women whose rather ordinary lives take unexpected turns. Read and re-read her. Her stories never get old.
Alice Munro near her home in Ontario, Canada, in 2013 (The NYT)
After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley
Another brilliant short story writer who, like Munro, is a master of plot twists. In this collection Hadley explores unlikely family relationships, exposing their psychological undercurrents.
Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri, a celebrated Indian writer, moved to Rome in 2012, the setting for these stories which describe life among different classes of Indians living in Rome, detailing the challenges of living as an “outsider.”
Jhumpa Lahiri (The Guardian)
Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson
This beloved English writer has penned an amusing, fanciful collection that had me laughing aloud over and over. If you’re feeling blue, Atkinson’s stories will raise your spirits.
Table for Two by Amor Towles
Towles is the author of the bestseller, “A Gentleman in Moscow,” which has a beautiful film adaptation on Amazon Prime. This collection is set in Manhattan and Los Angeles and spans the 20th century. The Manhattan-based stories evoke its romantic pre-Internet era.
In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom writes with honesty and compassion about her deceased husband’s Alzheimer’s and how they made the wrenching decision to travel to Zurich, Switzerland for ‘companion assisted suicide,” rather than endure the humiliation of late-stage Alzheimer’s. Because we’re all going to die eventually, this couple’s courageous journey in facing death heads-on is instructive for everyone.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
The debut novel by the author of “Little Fires” and “Our Missing Hearts,” is the story of a mixed-race Chinese American family whose parents put so much pressure on their bright, favored daughter that life becomes intolerable for her. It’s gripping plot will keep you glued to the page.
The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright
Enright, a popular, award-winning Irish author, spins a story about three generations of Irish women who struggle to deal with the legacy of their famous, charismatic poet husband, father and grandfather. The youngest woman, like her grandfather, a writer, heroically makes peace with her troubling family history marked by violence.
Ann Enright
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall
The 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction written by a Jewish-American journalist based in Jerusalem relates the suspenseful story of a bus accident that killed the Palestinian protagonist’s young son. Thrall uses the accident and key events in his characters’ lives as a springboard to highlight the struggles of day-to-day life in the West Bank under the Israelis.
Goliath by Max Blumenthal
Published in 2014, this book continues to be an essential primer for understanding the evolution of Israel’s right-wing governments’ racist policies towards Gaza and the West Bank, which account for the severe restrictions on Palestinian daily life. To write this book Blumenthal lived in Gaza and interviewed Israeli and Palestinian leaders and average citizens.
