Bookmark: Readers have hot ideas about summer reading

Earlier in August, I asked readers to tell me their definition of a "summer book." That term is bandied about a lot, but its meaning seems to vary with each reader.

"I'm not certain there's such a thing," writes Douglas Mayo of Minneapolis, "though my wife thinks of them as somewhat mindless reads, such as romance novels or some mysteries."

Barbara Cartford of Minneapolis agrees that summer reads require little brainpower. (But then she lists the books she's read this summer and, believe me, they require plenty of brainpower.)

Pam Kearney of Edina thinks of summer as a time "to reset your soul with books that speak to your heart when you are relaxed and open." She suggests the two memoirs by Raynor Winn, "The Salt Path" and "The Wild Silence."

Rachel Coyne of Lindstrom, Minn., believes the perfect summer book is a cookbook.

"Cookbooks are easy summer reading; there's no plot to follow or beautiful metaphor you might miss by skimming," she says. "It is easy on the heart and brain."

Here are some titles other readers have been reading this summer. Good books, all:

Douglas Mayo just finished "Carrying Albert Home" by Homer Hickam, which he calls a "wonderful summer book. On one level it's a series of adventures, with a large dollop of whimsy thrown in; on another level the hero and heroine, Homer and Elsie, are each on a quest to find a reason to love the other."

Susie Jones of Minneapolis has spent much of her summer "under the spell of Arnold Bennett, one of the leading lights of Edwardian fiction whose masterpiece, 'The Old Wives' Tale,' dates to 1908 but still rings true. I followed that hefty novel with an exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting!) Bennett biography by English novelist Margaret Drabble. Her fond account of her subject increased my admiration for a writer who transported me to early 20th-century England."

Barbara Cartford's list is long but good: "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry," by Fredrik Backman. "Of Women and Salt," by Gabriela Garcia. "A Walk in the Woods," by Bill Bryson. And "The Night Watchman," by Louise Erdrich.

I can't give you the full list sent in by Barbara La Valleur of Edina because it's too long. But here are three, with her comments:

"Our Gay History in Fifty States" by Zaylore Stout. "Stout is a Black lawyer transplant from California now living in Minneapolis. This book would be great reading for all."

And her favorite of the bunch: "The Journalist," by Jerry A. Rose and Lucy Rose Fischer. "Almost by accident, Jerry Rose becomes a journalist covering Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Lucy Rose Fischer captures the essence of what it takes to write real-time war articles. It's a gripping read."

And Mary Wagner of Andover says, "I remember as a girl sitting on the porch, eating sunflower seeds and drinking lemonade and reading 'Heidi.' I don't think the book would have had quite the same wonderful memory if not for the memory of carefree summer days to go with it."

And that might be the essence of summer books, right there — that sense that you can read as much and as long as you like because there's nothing else pressing to do.