Your incredibly absorbing summer reads: omnivore edition 2019
July 24, 2019 6:04 PM Subscribe
I'm again finding that I need to distract myself from the impending apocalypse, and after the success of this question two years ago, I'd like you all to hit me with your most mesmerizing reads of 2019.
I'm pretty much open to anything, but lean towards crime, psychology, and politics, both in fiction and otherwise. Not so into detailed family sagas or techno-heavy stuff. English and French both welcome, as are works in translation that have not necessarily reached the mainstream in North America.
I'm pretty much open to anything, but lean towards crime, psychology, and politics, both in fiction and otherwise. Not so into detailed family sagas or techno-heavy stuff. English and French both welcome, as are works in translation that have not necessarily reached the mainstream in North America.
Response by poster: Nope! Happy to read anything you're prepared to recommend right now, regardless of when it came out.
posted by rpfields at 8:01 PM on July 24, 2019
posted by rpfields at 8:01 PM on July 24, 2019
In the last two weeks I've binged all but the last (because I'm saving it) of the Mr. and Mrs. North murder mysteries. They're an odd blend of cozy and procedural, set in New York, starting in the mid-thirties and running through the early sixties. They're delightful and addictive, and I want Pam and Jerry's life. (or at least, their cocktails). And their cats.
posted by korej at 8:11 PM on July 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by korej at 8:11 PM on July 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
I have been reading and adoring the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 8:16 PM on July 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by easy, lucky, free at 8:16 PM on July 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Have you read The Dry by Jane Harper? Solid mystery.
posted by slidell at 8:26 PM on July 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by slidell at 8:26 PM on July 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Fred Vargas! Read in either French or English (I've only read the translations because my French is no longer that good, if it ever was). Extremely weird, lengthy, readable, history-heavy police procedurals, with delightful characters.
posted by huimangm at 8:41 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by huimangm at 8:41 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
The Confessions of Frannie Langton is my favorite book of the summer so far.
I was so jazzed today today to see My Sister the Serial Killer on the longlist for the Booker. Frannie should've been on there too, but oh well.
posted by BibiRose at 8:45 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
I was so jazzed today today to see My Sister the Serial Killer on the longlist for the Booker. Frannie should've been on there too, but oh well.
posted by BibiRose at 8:45 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
I just tore through The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. Has some themes with crime and psychology. And death. I found it very compelling.
posted by gnutron at 9:05 PM on July 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by gnutron at 9:05 PM on July 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Don Winslow writes crime novels, substantially ones set among drug cartels in Mexico/Central America, and the Americans that get tied up in them. I recently read "The Power of the Dog" and its first sequel "The Cartel." Together these two books are the best thrillers I've ever read, and I've read an assload of thrillers. They are deeply involved and intertwined with the real historical events starting in the end of Mexican drug production in the 1970s, when Mexico traded one resource, farmland, for another resource, a 2000 mile US border, as its contribution to the the vast organized crime of drug smuggling. It's amazing; at times it's so real as to be disheartening. Great characters in every part of the story: DEA cops, cartel leadership (men and women), assassins, CIA-trained mercs, etc. There's a third book, 2019's "The Border" which I have not read, and heard it's not quite as good, but the first two books set a high bar.
Anything by Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, will serve you well; "The Happiness Hypothesis," about what psychology has learned about the divide, and mutual influence, of the emotional mind vs. the rational mind, is good. It's followed by "The Righteous Mind," a terrific book about the cognitive nature of morality, which covers a wider array of topics than you might imagine. There's a strong political aspect to it because he describes 6 'flavors' of morality and demonstrates that left- and right-leaning individuals are sensitive to different flavors. Sometime in the last year he co-wrote (with First-Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff) a book called "The Coddling of the American Mind," which you can get at taste of in this article in The Atlantic.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:30 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Anything by Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, will serve you well; "The Happiness Hypothesis," about what psychology has learned about the divide, and mutual influence, of the emotional mind vs. the rational mind, is good. It's followed by "The Righteous Mind," a terrific book about the cognitive nature of morality, which covers a wider array of topics than you might imagine. There's a strong political aspect to it because he describes 6 'flavors' of morality and demonstrates that left- and right-leaning individuals are sensitive to different flavors. Sometime in the last year he co-wrote (with First-Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff) a book called "The Coddling of the American Mind," which you can get at taste of in this article in The Atlantic.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:30 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Just read all of Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky on an international flight and it absorbed me to the point where the hours flew by and I almost didn’t watch any of the in-flight movies.
It’s part of a crime/mystery series, but really could function perfectly well as a stand alone.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:19 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
It’s part of a crime/mystery series, but really could function perfectly well as a stand alone.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:19 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck is an amazing German novel about the refugee crisis there. I read the English translation. I don’t know if it’s available in French.
posted by FencingGal at 5:15 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 5:15 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Do you want an amazing travelogue? Do you want to learn more about the history of the Balkans than you thought possible? Look no further than Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West.
posted by jquinby at 6:41 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jquinby at 6:41 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde - we are discussing it on Fanfare - but be warned there are no published sequels at this point. There have been promises, but nothing yet.
posted by soelo at 7:33 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by soelo at 7:33 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm reading the fascinating The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth right now - it's about Linda Taylor, the woman demonized as the "welfare queen" on the campaign trail by Reagan. It definitely lands on all three of your wants: crime, psychology, politics.
posted by jocelmeow at 8:50 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jocelmeow at 8:50 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm reading Severance by Ling Ma, which is conveniently about living before and after a major world catastrophe. It's, like, half post-apocalyptic and half-office life. It's not really a great escape from the impending apocalypse insofar as you're continually reminded of it, but it's pretty interesting to reflect upon the ways in which people justify going to work and dealing with everyday minutiae while the world starts to burn around them. (And here's the New Yorker review if you're interested).
posted by thebots at 12:35 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by thebots at 12:35 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think that The Wide, Carnivorous Sky is the best book I've read this year. Horror genre, but feels very contemporary.
posted by Dmenet at 1:59 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Dmenet at 1:59 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm just about to finish Normal People by Sally Rooney and I'm kinda mad I have to be at work instead of doing that! It's a very intense psychological portrait of two Irish teenagers and their friendship/romance/whatever as they go from secondary school thru college.
Fair warning: it's very sad, and there are some disturbing parts. I can't vouch for the ending being happy or not but so far I can't put it down.
posted by exceptinsects at 2:45 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Fair warning: it's very sad, and there are some disturbing parts. I can't vouch for the ending being happy or not but so far I can't put it down.
posted by exceptinsects at 2:45 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
If you like feminist psychological thrillers, I just devoured Whisper Network by Chandler Baker. It's about a group of women who are determined to bring down their boss, a serial sexual harasser, before he gets appointed CEO. There are...complications.
posted by zeusianfog at 4:36 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by zeusianfog at 4:36 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
You might like The Feather Thief by Kirk Johnson. It's non-fiction and about a crime (theft of hundreds of bird specimens from the Tring Museum in the U.K.), but not in the true crime genre. There's some history of science, some psychology, a black market, and a healthy dose of information about fishing flies. (I have no interest in fly fishing and still found the fly-tying parts interesting.)
posted by Nerdy Spice at 12:28 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Nerdy Spice at 12:28 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
OK, if you can read French, this might be too obvious, but if I were you, I would spend the summer mesmerized by re-reading Les Miserables.
posted by athirstforsalt at 1:48 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by athirstforsalt at 1:48 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everybody! This should keep me busy for a while. The only ones I've already read, and can vouch for the wonderfulness of, are the Tales of the City books, The Righteous Mind, and The Happiness Hypothesis.
If anyone comes to this at any point, additional suggestion are always welcome.
posted by rpfields at 10:09 AM on July 28, 2019
If anyone comes to this at any point, additional suggestion are always welcome.
posted by rpfields at 10:09 AM on July 28, 2019
Seconding The Immortalists - I absolutely loved it. I am now reading All The Light We Cannot See and I am going to be so sad when it's over. It's very beautiful.
Other favorites from this year so far:
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Made For Love by Alissa Nutting
Vacationland by John Hodgman
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
posted by GoldenEel at 3:34 PM on July 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
Other favorites from this year so far:
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Made For Love by Alissa Nutting
Vacationland by John Hodgman
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
posted by GoldenEel at 3:34 PM on July 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
I read 250 pages of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo on Sunday - just could not put it down!
posted by elvissa at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by elvissa at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:12 PM on July 24, 2019