And the reading is easy … in summertime, a good book is king of leisure pursuits - Summer Escapes - Cover Story

Black Issues Book Review, July-August, 2003 by Kim McLarin

For some of us the pattern was set in childhood, when the school year was for reading whatever the teacher assigned to us. This was reading for education, not edification, though some of it was surprisingly edifying--like the moment our brains cut through all that Elizabethan English and got Romeo and Juliet.

But summertime was different. When the days stretched out and the school bell rang a final time setting us free, we could read whatever we wanted. We hurried down to the corner store for comic books, we went to the library for chilling mysteries and thrilling adventure yarns and girly, girly romance. At the library, we also went for books that would turn out to be important to us but weren't always found on our official school reading lists.

I was sixteen the summer I stumbled upon black protest literature and stayed up until dawn reading Soul on Ice, The Fire Next Time, The Autobiography of Malcolm X--which proves summertime reading need not all be of the lightweight variety. For some people, summer is the time to break into that stack of meaning-to-get-to books that had gathered dust by the bedside all winter long. It's also the time to swing by the bookstore on the way to the country on Friday afternoon and pick up that novel everyone's been talking about since fall.

Summer is a great time to slow down and catch up. It is the time when a book, often seen as the plain-Jane of entertainment, comes back into its own. Summer television shows are dopey. Summer movies are flashy, loud and overrun. Summer Internet surfing may be diverting, but who wants to lug his or her laptop all the way to the beach? Well, okay, Derrick Bell does. (See page 19.)

In summertime the book is king. Portable, browsable, lendable and still cheap enough that if it disappears from your towel while you're frolicking in the sand, you won't be crushed. For people who love reading, summer is feasting season. All they need is a good book, a cozy chair, and an icy drink by their side. What's better than that?

BIBR asked a number of well-known African Americans about their seasonal plans and the books they most wanted to dive into this summer.

Valerie Wilson Wesley, whose latest novel is Always True to You in My Fashion (William Morrow, November 2002, ISBN 0-060-18883-9) says, "I'm wrapping my mind around Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd. Zora has always been one of my favorite writers and I'm curious about her life."

Wilson Wesley is deep into writing a new Tamara Hayle mystery and looks forward to feeding her creative spirit by revisiting some Walter Mosley favorites and catching up with the latest Easy Rawlins. "I can't wait to get into Bad Boy Brawley Brown, the latest in the series," she says. And she adds, "Sexual Healing, Jill Nelson's first novel, is a best bet for adding some serious, sexy heat to a long, hot summer."

Ilyasah Shabazz, author of the intimate memoir Growing Up X (One World, April 2002, ISBN 0-345-44495-7) had plans to travel to Jordan this summer. But with war in the Middle East and pressing commitments at home, she's dreaming instead of renting a car and making a long, slow drive south to the gracious cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.

"These are absolutely two of my favorite places in the States," says Shabazz. "These cities remind me of my childhood, because both are full of life, of gospel music, the sound of birds singing, children laughing and the wind blowing, along with the roar of the ocean and the aroma of homemade cooking." In her bag, Shabazz will pack Randall Robinson's The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. She'll also be toting two thought-provoking books of psychology: Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman and The New Personality Self-Portrait: Why You Think, Work, Love, and Act the Way You Do by John M. Oldham and Lois B. Morris.

The entrepreneur and rap impresario Russell Simmons is an avid reader with eclectic tastes. Simmons, cofounder of Def Jam Records as well as the creative and motivating force behind HBO's Def Comedy Jam and Broadway's Def Poetry Jam, is checking out The Common Good by Noam Chomsky, Stupid White Men by Michael Moore and The Food Revolution by John Robbins and Dean Ornish, M.D.

"Michael Moore is passionate about the direction of this country, and you don't have to agree with him to respect his patriotism," Simmons says. Simmons also plans to dip into The Envy of the World by Ellis Cose and Dog Town: The Legend of the Z-Boys by Craig Stecyk.

The celebrated photographer Anthony Barboza likes to take his summer vacations near the water. During the beach season this year, he plans to carry along John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead. Barboza read Whitehead's debut novel, The Intuitionist, a few years back and loved it, and so he has high expectations of this one. "Colson Whitehead is great," he says. "He is the most phenomenal writer of the decade."

Barboza also plans to get into White Teeth by Zadie Smith, a book he liked so much the first time through he wants to resample it. "I love novels, I love literature," he points out. "When I go to the beach, I always take books along."