Summer Reading – Blogger Reading Lists

Now that we are in full fledged summer, I figured it was time for the perennial reading lists. National Review Online has one up already. I figured now would be a good time to post one myself. But first, here are what some other bloggers are recommending or planning to read:
Orrin Judd has a long list of possibilities. His list, however, comes with some unique guidelines:

(1) It should be big. Five-hundred-pages-or-better big. You should be able to only take two books from the list and still have enough reading to get you through a week.
(2) It should be readable. No note-taking needed. Not a whole lot of names to remember. You should be able to pick it up and put it down again without having to reorient yourself. Most of all, you should enjoy it.
(3) Ideally it should be a book that you’ve been meaning to read but you’ve put off, probably because of its size. But now, when it’s the only one, or one of the only ones, you have with you, you’ll be “forced” to read it. At the same time, it should be good enough that you won’t regret having brought it. No experiments.

So if those sound like good ground rules check out the Brothers Judd list.

– John Hawkins over at Right Wing News reports that he plans on reading Ann Coulter’s Treason (see John’s interview with Ann here) & the Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Crusades while listening to the “New Prince” by Dick Morris

– Alley Writer Tom is in the middle of rereading “First Blood” by David Morrell. After that he is on to “Understanding Tolkien” by Ready, “JRR Tolkien” by Evans, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf by Miller and Mylroie, and “The Mind of Adolph Hitler” by Langer. If that is not enough he would like to go back and finish The Gulag Archipelago. If he gets that far he plans to abandon non-fiction for a while and finish (and I quote) two god awful pieces of crap, “Mein Kampf” and Ulysses. Sounds like heavy sledding to me!

– Paul Cella’s list is full of serious works as well. He includes works by G,K, Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Edmund Burke, Hilaire Belloc, John Henry Newman, and Orestes Brownson. Now you see why Paul’s blog is full of deep discussions of serious issues. You can’t tackle those subjects by flipping through Time magazine while in the doctor’s office.

– Bobby A-G, aka The Rattler, is on break from law school and currently engrossed in True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans.

– Eve Tushnet is no slouch when it comes to summer reading either. She has already read (* = recommended):
*Graham Greene, The Comedians; Mark Twain, “Letters from the Earth”
** Tim Powers, Declare (best thing so far this summer); Thomas Disch, The DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF: How Science Fiction Conquered the World; John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra; Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer (recommended for people looking for an intro-level look at Eastern Orthodoxy).

After all that she is planning to read:
Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory and maybe The Quiet American; Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines; Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon; Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers; Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading; and James Wood, The Book Against God: A Novel.

– Alex Knapp over at Heretical Ideas has posted his summer reading list which doesn’t include any massive tomes unless you count Harry Potter. But it does include an interesting mix of fiction genres and non-fiction.

– Daniel Drezner posted his reading list before heading off on vacation (blogspot links aren’t working so scroll down). It includes the book I am currently reading The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria as well as Harry Potter. I am not sure how much reading I would get done if I were taking a trip to Budapest! Now that is a dedicated reader.

It sounds like these bloggers have a lot of reading planned for the summer and not much beach reading at that! Latter I will give you my summer reading list.