ZEITGUIDE TO SUMMER READING

What’s on your summer reading list this year?
Relaxing with a good book when the sun comes out is an age-old tradition that dates back as far as the 19th century and the rise of the American vacation. Today, this seasonal pastime is more prevalent than ever, with seemingly every publication offering helpful suggestions for what to read this summer.
For its summer book list, The New Yorker surveyed authors such as Junot Diaz about their choices. Diaz likes My Documents by Alejandro Zambra, a collection of short stories from the celebrated Chilean writer. The New York Times summer reading list includes a Wright Brothers biography by David McCullough and Disclaimer, the debut thriller from Renée Knight.
Of course, the definition of a good summer read depends on whom you ask.
For investors and executives, Business Insider assembled their summer book list by asking the smartest people on Wall Street what they are reading. It features market guru Peter Lynch’s One Up On Wall Street and Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans, which details the sudden decline of Merrill Lynch. Meanwhile, popular feminist blog Jezebel has offered a “Haphazard Summer Reading List” to fit “all your summer moods.” Among its varied choices are Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which follows a traveling group of actors and musicians on a journey across a post-apocalyptic landscape and Romantic Outlaws, a dual biography by Charlotte Gordon on early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley, who is best known as the author of Frankenstein.
Our CEO Brad Grossman is reading The Misfit Economy by Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips about how we can learn a thing or two about creativity and ingenuity from outsider entrepreneurs like Somali pirates and Chinese counterfeiters. Brad also just got back from Greece and noted that he saw everyone reading Primates of Park Avenue, the so-called “anthropological memoir” about motherhood in Manhattan’s Upper East Side by Dr. Wednesday Martin. He also caught numerous people delving into the Hitchcockian thriller The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which many are calling this year’s Gone Girl.
Indeed, the choices are manifold, but according to Publishers Weekly, the competition to be this summer’s hottest book is really between two very different titles: the continuation of E. L. James’s 50 Shades saga with Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, who is most famous for penning the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The book trade magazine noted that such big name titles are expected to boost sales for independent bookstores.
This year, even non-readers can get into the action as a number of best sellers are hitting the silver screen. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Paper Towns, The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials were all popular books turned into flicks slated for summer release this year.
And for those who can no longer focus on a full-length book, we love Jason Sperling’s idea to post a page of his new illustrated and animated book Look At Me When I’m Talking To You each day on Instagram.
Remember though, the best thing about summer is being given the ability to unplug, with or without a book.