I read 19 books this summer (which I’m defining as June through August), and the publication dates ranged from 1858 to 2026. Five of the 19 were nonfiction (more than my typical annual total of nonfiction books); two were translated. Summer is usually my biggest reading time, but I’m not exactly sure why? Maybe it’s a mindset, leftover from my school days when I actually did have more time and freedom in the summer. Now my summers are indistinguishable from the rest of the year, except for the heat and mosquitos of Northern Virginia and, of course, the increased reading.

More nonfiction than usual

Of the five nonfiction books I read, four were parenting-related books that I read in an attempt to cope with my anxiety over my toddler starting preschool (part-time, his first exposure to non-family care) in the fall (three weeks in, it’s going great!). One was a reread of Hunt, Gather, Parent (5/5), another was the same author’s new book, Dopamine Kids (3/5, disappointing). Another was a very lackluster book called Montessori for Every Family. I’ve read much better books on the same topic.

A summer of series

I’m continuing to gut my way through Trollope’s The Chronicles of Barsetshire series, a whopping 6-book series published between 1855 and 1867. All of the books originally serialized, so you know they’re all overlong! I read The Warden last summer, considered it a huge achievement to have finished it, and figured I wouldn’t continue with the rest of the series. But I actually read the following four this summer, almost one after another. I’m currently (September, so not counting this one toward my summer total) about a third of the way through the final book of the series, The Last Chronicle of Barset. (And I still only have a hazy idea of the difference between Barset, Barsetshire, and Barchester!) I’m normally pretty anti-series, as I find it hard to stay interested with the same characters over the course of many (even two) books. Of course, there have been some notable exceptions, and I’m liking The Chronicles of Barsetshire because each book has a different protagonist, but the protagonist of one book will be a minor character in the subsequent book; you get little updates on their lives. It’s fun! Trollope’s narrators (or is it just him?) are rather opinionated, which is mostly fun and sometimes tiresome. I do tend to skim over the country politics sections because I just find it so mind-numbing, and of course the plots really do drag on because of all that serialization, but overall they are engaging reads. I’ve found I like reading these as secondary books that I almost exclusively read in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, or the early morning when I’m up before my toddler but don’t want to make any noise. They’re perfect for that: just dense enough to eventually make me sleepy, but engaging enough that I’ll actually read more than a page before going back to sleep. Usually when I get to the last 25% of the book I upgrade it to my primary book and finish it quickly.

Summer must be for series, because I also read all three books of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong trilogy. Loved the first two, found the third unbearably tiresome. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

Other books of note

Some other notable books of the summer: I finally, after multiple false starts over the years, finished García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (July). I probably wouldn’t have finished it again, but this time I was reading it with a friend (I almost never do this) and that was motivating. Still, I found the book almost unreadable. I know García Márquez is a giant of Latin American lit and magical realism and all that. I enjoyed parts of the book, but overall, I could not keep the characters straight (surely this is part of the point but I found it unendingly frustrating) and everything was just violent and pointless and I’m writing it off as a “man’s book” (derogatory). Right before I’d read Allende’s House of the Spirits (June), which I loved. I can totally see García Márquez’s influence, and House of the Spirits was violent and the characters odd and unlikeable too, but just so much better and easier to read, I thought. The miniseries, which I watched immediately after, was pretty good too.

What else? Main Characters by Bobby Palmer was structurally fun (rom-com through the perspectives of different people in their lives; one chapter is from the POV of a bus driver, another from the best friend of the guy, another from the woman’s roommate, etc). And I just love a British rom-com. Whistler by Ann Patchett was predictably great. I bought this new because I forgot to get on the library waitlist until it was hundreds of people long. Country People by Daniel Mason was excellent too, got it from the library after being on the waitlist for months, and read it in just a few days. (I raved about it so much that my neighbor is now reading it before it’s due back at the library.)

Books on deck

This fall, I’m looking forward to Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon, coming out in a couple of weeks. I preordered this. (The only time I’ve preordered a book was for Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You? which was a total flop, and I donated it after reading. Hoping for better luck this time around!) I’m reading Possession by Byatt right now as my primary book (secondary is The Last Chronicle of Barset, of course) and it’s overall good but the amount of multi-page poems is a bit of a slog. After that, want to read Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, another nonfiction book that I’ve been meaning to read for years. Feels like right after Possession (about Victorian authors) and Chronicles of Barchester would be a good time to read this!