A Reader Responds...

Lindi has written about darkening her days of summer with heavy books, and makes a good case to pick these up when the sun arrives early to erase any dark thoughts caused by reading about violence and grief. But for me, summer reading remains more indulgent. While propped uncomfortably in a tent, trying to get the headlamp to illuminate the words, nothing but a lurid mystery will do. When faced with a weekend with the extended family, several generations talking all at once in the same space, then a YA novel with urgent plot lines and breathy incomplete sentences is the only thing I can focus on. And when the nights turn sticky and the open windows bring no relief, well, then it is time to turn on the TV and hope for the best.

Winter, on the other hand, is the time for sturdier stuff. Well researched historical fictions in which characters scheme and drink flagons of white mead take my mind off car pool rotations, homework supervision and menu planning. Three part Victorian tomes fill the long nights, stretched on the couch, nearly napping. Chapters of award winning novels fill the minutes of waiting in a pick-up line. Reading about polar explorers stuck on the ice in fierce blizzards put my own struggles to drive up the slightly snowy hill into perspective. I’m looking forward to all of that. Winter is coming!

Of course, the best books are those that have no season, those that are well written and memorable as well as being entertaining. I read two this summer that stand out among the rest: Longbourn by Jo Baker and Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

It would be easy to say that Longbourn is the downstairs to the upstairs of Pride and Prejudice, but that summary misses that point of this original and fully imagined novel. Think of a household with 5 daughters in the days before maxi-pads. Guess who had to wash the rags! When Elizabeth Bennett famously sets off to Netherfield in the mud, Sarah the housemaid knows the pink Persian silk dress will be ruined. When Mr. Collins arrives at short notice for his twelve day stay, Mrs. Hill the housekeeper knows there is no time to properly air and buff the guest chamber and so makes do with a spray of evergreen and berries in a vase and goes off to roast a hen with parsnips. James grooms the horses and takes the family to the balls and dinner parties. But the book is not merely about cold mornings and chilblains and cooked chicken. The characters are all fully realized with secrets of their own. The writing is a dream to read and the plot pulls you along. While it probably helps to have read Pride and Prejudice, this novel stands on its own. Rest assured the story of Sarah and James is as romantic as anything Jane Austen can pen.

Mr. Penumbra is also a romance of sorts, illuminating the way old books and high tech can mingle and support each other. The plot is a bit farfetched - employees of the titular bookstore race across the country to discover secret reading rooms, arcane book societies, hunt down type punches (the literal printing fonts) and make book scanners out of cardboard and computer chips. Somehow the goose chase of a plot doesn’t matter because it is such fun to read about the discoveries. Written with wit and imbued with creative ideas, this book zips along breezily, until the final emotional punch at the end. Unlike The Circle by Dave Eggers which is a heavy handed screed against Google, Mr. Penumbra enthusiastically embraces all kinds of reading. So, if a heady combination of topics as unrelated as Aldus Manutius, rock climbing, fantasy fiction, secret societies, research, type fonts, 3-D models, and tall ladders hold any interest, this is a book for you.

Today it is warm, but rainy. The days are getting shorter, but it is definitely still summer. Back to my mystery.