A Challenging Summer Reading Challenge

You'll thank me for encouraging you

It’s finally summer, with the solstice behind us and a 100 degree day facing us here in New England. What better time to engage with one of my favorite summertime activities, a reading challenge. Many local libraries sponsor such a challenge, some enticing you with goodies like tote bags, ice cream gift certificates, and even free books. For some people, summertime is when they look to steer away from more demanding reads and instead seek out a thriller, romance or mystery. For others (like me!), long indoor air-conditioned reading sessions are perfect for tackling more challenging fare.

To straddle the difference between Elin Hilderbrand and James Joyce, here’s a reading challenge for you. See if you can read a book from each of the following five categories. I’ll have a suggestion or two, but would encourage you to go your own way.

1. Tackle That Classic You’ve Always Meant to Read

Everyone has that unread classic; sometimes it’s even right on their bookshelf. For me, it would either be Crime and Punishment (I gave away my unread copy, but any decent used bookstore should have it) or Remembrance of Things Past (but not all seven volumes; since I’ve read Swann’s Way multiple times, this time I’ll start with Within a Budding Grove). I’ll share the strategy I’ve used to successfully and happily read the two fairly mammoth classics pictured below:

With both Moby-Dick (135 chapters) and Middlemarch (86 chapters), I set a daily goal to read 20 pages every day, plus finish the chapter I was in the middle of after the 20 pages. I vowed never to skip a day, so that I could maintain my momentum, as well as my grasp of the story. What I found to my delight is that when I put the book down each day at the end of my session, I actually wanted to read more. Sometimes I would cheat and read an extra chapter, but usually I deferred my pleasure until the next day. One excellent by-product of this strategy is that it leaves plenty of time for you to read something else at the same time. Often the biggest impediment to finishing War and Peace is that it is keeping you away from other reading fare. This way though, you can balance Tolstoy with Stephen King to the mutual benefit of both.

2. Enrich That Classic With Another Book That Comes At It From Another Angle

I know, I know, if you’re going to spend so much of your summer reading Moby-Dick, why would you possibly want to read about Moby-Dick too? The simple answer is, your immersion in a classic will absolutely increase your appreciation for learning more about that world or that author. Here’s some of the books I read along with or shortly after finishing with Melville:

Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick, by George Cotkin - A look at the cultural reach of Melville’s novel, including literature, film, and art

Moby-Dick: Ishmael’s Mighty Book, by Kerry McSweeney - This title is part of the Twayne’s Masterwork series, the place to go for a more scholarly context

Herman Melville, by Elizabeth Hardwick - A short biography of one celebrated author by another

Why Read Moby-Dick? By Nathaniel Philbrick - Self-explanatory

Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick: Words and Shapes, by Robert K. Wallace - Like Ahab, Frank Stella was obsessed with the white whale

Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page, by Matt Kish - Self-explanatory again

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick - Philbrick again, this time with the riveting true story of the whaling expedition that inspired Melville’s novel

Marines, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World He Lived In, by C.L.R. James - I’ve recently posted about James’s cricket classic, Beyond a Boundary. This book also combines an appreciation with political theory, positing the Pequod as an infernal factory of overworked minions, all led to their doom

Ahab’s Wife: or the Star-Gazer - by Sena Jeter Naslund - a dazzling and adventurous fictional look at the woman barely touched upon in Moby-Dick

Dayswork, by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel - During the Covid pandemic, a woman digs into fact and fiction surrounding Herman Melville, which leads to some questions about her marriage

I hope I’ve proven to you that there truly is a wide range of options when you choose to go beyond your reading of a classic.

3. Read a Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel

When I decided at age 52 to change careers from bank technology officer to middle school English teacher, a key deciding factor for me was the incredible quality of the novels for young people that I had to read during my masters program. Since then, I’ve read for my own pleasure countless novels for readers ranging in age from 8 to 17. A particular favorite is M.T. Anderson, whose Feed, written over 20 years ago, is a dystopian look at a society in which the majority of Americans have a device implanted in their brains which connects them to other people, virtual reality environments, and corporate overlords, and Landscape With Invisible Hand, where alien beings known as the vuvv endow humankind with various advanced technologies (what could go wrong?). Try either book, or better yet, visit the teen librarian at your local library and ask for suggestions. You will make their day.

4. Read a Book of Poetry

For some of you, this will hardly be a challenge. For others, with no idea where to turn and little positive experience with poetry behind you, here’s the plan. Go borrow from your library any poetry anthology (Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz’s An Invitation to Poetry would work fine), as long as it covers a wide range of poets, eras, and styles. Skip around until you find a poem that appeals to you. Then seek out a book by the writer of that poem. Don’t necessarily go for their collected poems; a nice slim volume will often travel a journey carefully constructed by that poet for maximum intellectual and emotional impact. Or you could just read Atlantis by Mark Doty, like I am, following his appearance this week at the New York Public Library reading his contribution to Stephanie Burt’s collection of Super Gay Poems:

5. Find a book at a Little Free Library

I would estimate that I’ve read between 75-100 books that I’ve found in a Little Free Library, some that I’d wanted to read, some that I’d never heard of before. I’m currently reading Good Dirt, by Charmaine Wiklkerson. I loved her Black Cake, but was unaware that she had a new book out until I found it waiting for me in my Little Free Library. Check out the Little Free Library World Map, which will guide you to LFLs in your neighborhood. If my summer reading challenge to you has been light on classic summer genres like mystery and thriller, you are bound to find many choices in those genres to lighten your reading palette. I love the serendipitous reading experiences that emerge from trusting a Little Free Library to drop just the right book into your lap.

If you take me up on the challenge, note down the five books you read and then revisit this post, which you can find in my archive, and tell us in the comment section at the bottom of the post what you read. Happy reading!