Bostonist's Summer Reading List 2006

While we don’t long for the days of having a required summer reading list, Bostonist has been feeling a bit inspired to pick up a book and actually start reading something not on a computer screen. Since we’re going to be “vacationing” in the city this year, we might as well read some books that are set here in our fair state. Here are some of our Bostonist staff picks for your reading enjoyment.

History is Cool Again
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
While the first Thanksgiving has been sugarcoated into a lovely little dinner party with the Wampanoag Indians, there is another story of what the Pilgrims endured during their years at Plymouth Colony. Following in the steps of other historical books like Devil in the White City, John Adams, and Philbrick’s first novel In the Heart of the Sea, this N.Y. Times Bestseller will keep you enthralled as you read about the tough (often gruesome) times at the Puritan settlement.

March by Geraldine Brooks
If you want to continue with the historical accounts, this book explores the father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. While Peter March is a vague character in Alcott’s novel, Brook’s explores the story of this man, who leaves his family in Concord, Mass. to enlist in the Civil War as a Union Chaplain. The book definitely examines the brutality of the Civil War yet it remains more than just a war tale; with Little Women as a backdrop, you start off already having a connection with the characters.

A Little Catholic Guilt
Vows by Peter Manseau
Manseau grew up here in the Bay State, attended UMass Amherst, and co-edited a book called Killing The Buddha. His dad was (and technically still is) a Catholic priest, while his mom was a nun; his memoir discusses his growing up Catholic and it pretty much tops anyone else's Catholic angst.

Travelling to the Magical Land of Cambridge
Central Square by George Packer
In his novel set along the Red Line in the neighborhood between Inman Square and Cambridgport, the Boston-based Packer, "an American Martin Amis," explores issues of identity, race, class, community, relationships, and longing through the lens of things distinctly Cantabrigian (a multi-cultural urban center, a grassroots community organization, etc.)

Grabbing Cold Ones Across New England
The Good Beer Guide To New England by Andy Crouch
Obviously not a fiction piece, this book caters to the beer dork looking for a beach read. It covers all the breweries and beer-oriented establishments in Boston as well as the suburbs, Western Mass and the rest of New England. The descriptions are detailed and accurate for not only the beer menus but also the atmosphere and surroundings of the places. For example, the Moan and Dove in Amherst is often named “The Best Beer Bar In The Whole Damn Country”; their selection is wonderful but we’re happy to see that the guide mentions its "attitude" as well.

Hip-Hop 101
Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop by Joe Schloss
Schloss, who teaches ethnomusicology at Tufts, has written about hip-hop and b-boying for numerous publications and brought hip-hop journalist/scholar Jeff Chang to Boston in March. In this book, he writes about the theory and praxis of beat making, focusing on underground DJs and hip hop producers like the late, great J Dilla, Pete Rock, Prince Paul, DJ Premier, Marley Marl, and Domino of Hieroglyphics. With interviews and an exhaustive bibliography, "Making Beats" is part journalism, part academic study.

Interpreting Short Stories
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Not a new book, but a good one, especially because short stories make for such satisfying beach reading. Jumping from one person’s viewpoint to another, Lahiri writes mostly about people from India, yet her characters are of all cultures and ages. With the book bouncing from Cambridge to India back to the East Coast, the different viewpoints keeps it interesting.

Longing for that 1,000+ Page Book?
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The sprawling narrative is centered around a fictional tennis academy and nearby halfway house in Boston in the not too distant future when time itself is subject to corporate sponsorship (e.g. the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment). The Jest involves an "entertainment cartridge" containing a film that is so addictive, viewers invariably die of dehydration, glued to the screen, unable to extricate themselves to so much as eat, sleep, or relieve themselves. At 1088 pages with more than 400 footnotes, it's not light beach reading, but a very worthwhile summer reading project.

Thank you Josh, Christine, Matt, Charles, and Jon for your literary suggestions