B oo k s h e l f
Pure Escape
The pleasures of a great summer read
By Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally
In June it seems like everyone just escapes.
Some escape through books, some have hard-won vacation plans, and some have constant access to a leisurely getaway in the form of a second home or vacation house. The latter are the friends one might want to have.
Maintaining a constant invitation with these friends is its own kind of work. It requires good guest behavior — chiefly cleaning up after yourself and everyone else — especially in the kitchen; also leaving your canine companion at home; supplying extra libations; and the most thoughtful gift — ideally an entertaining book that carries everyone through the weekend and beyond. In imagining these people on their vacation, I like to envision a man in a hammock with a stack of books on a small stool next to him. In his hands is The Hunter Killers: The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, The Band of Maverick Aviators who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War, by Dan Hampton. On top of the stool next to him are three new reads he just picked up for the trip: The Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War, by Jeff Shaara, Truth or Die, by James Patterson, Finders Keepers, by Stephen King and The President’s Shadow, by Brad Meltzer — with a sweating iced tea melting into a cocktail napkin with a timelessly crude saying from the 1980s sitting on top. Across the porch overlooking the ocean, his wife is laughing out loud because she is reading The Primates of Park Avenue, by Wednesday Martin. This is a book that is so smart, so clever, so dead on, so funny because it is so true. The author marries into the upper echelons of Manhattan society and is befuddled by the tribe until she realizes that the behavior she witnesses is not totally unrecognizable. She has seen it before in her anthropological studies. The rituals of the ever-exclusive Playground Partners Luncheon are actually very understandable when compared with the grooming rituals of the female papio cynocephalus (savannah baboon). Martin’s memoir smartly ruminates on these social comparisons and allows women everywhere to feel connected, ridiculous and somehow justified all at the same time.
I imagine that the husband, slightly jealous of his wife’s laughter, walks into the house to pick up Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, by Judd Apatow. It is a book he bought for his adult son, a big fan of Apatow’s movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and This is 40. The book is a collection of Apatow’s interviews with comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Jon Stewart, Louis CK, Spike Jonze, Lena Dunham and Chris Rock. They also picked up Love May Fail, by Matthew Quick, excited to know that the author of The Silver Linings Playbook has written another inventive and intelligent novel appealing to both genders — they thought that their daughter-in-law might like it. It is about a woman who leaves her pornographer husband and life of luxury for South Jersey to search for the goodness and inspiration she knew through her beloved high school English teacher. Assisted by a sassy nun, ex-heroin addict, metalhead boy and her hoarder mother, Love May Fail somehow gets to the core of life: the highs and lows and the hope that sustains us. This couple of my imagination that vacations with friends in June is totally content because not only have they brought great literary fiction: Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper, and The Girls From Corona Del Mar, by Rufi Thorpe (both now in paperback), but because they have also brought great thank you gifts for their hosts. Shuffle and Deal: 50 Classic Card Games for Any Number of Players, by Tara Gallagher, is beautiful and educational. It includes directions for games like Rummy, Spit, Cribbage, Crazy Eights, Canasta, Cucumber, Egyptian Rat screw, Cheat, Betrayal, Scat, 9-hole golf, Hearts, Ghost. Accompanying the gift with a new deck of cards, it was certain that the next two generations below them would enjoy it as well. Also a gift for their hostess, a great fan of Audrey Hepburn, is the cookbook by Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti: Audrey at Home: Memories of My Mother’s Kitchen. It is full of casual photos from home and quotes about dishes and Hepburn’s intense love of pasta. It is an intimate insight into the world of an icon. Many of the pictures are being published for the first time. The imaginary couple is perfectly equipped for their vacation. But if you vacation in the real world, whether it be your backyard, or at a friend’s, or in a land far, far away — there are plenty of June books to inform, delight and entertain you. The hammock is optional.
PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015
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