Read Me Away…

July is usually our month of “huzzahs!” for independence and gratitude for the lazy days of summer. In Julys past, we’ve spotlighted the virtue of leisure -- rest for the human spirit -- in all its forms: seaside escapes and lake shore adventures, hikes through mountain and forest trails, family picnics and barbecues, outdoor concerts and sidewalk art exhibits, fireworks under the stars. And always, always, always… reading—drinking in the words and lives of strangers.
This July, in a time of pandemic and social unrest, many of our favorite forms of summer leisure have slipped from our grasp. We probably won’t crowd the town green and spread out blankets, wait for the band to strike up a tune, while looking up at the night sky for fireworks. This July might find us on our own porches or decks or in our living rooms, looking out and wondering “how much longer?” BUT let us celebrate and cling to one restorative tonic that cannot be taken from us: we will always have reading!

American aphorist Mason Cooley put it well: “Reading gives us someplace to go, when we have to stay where we are.” Huzzah for magical transport. Could anything be more necessary at this time of enforced seclusion? Read me away. Books open windows to worlds we know nothing about, but could visit and learn from.

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Have you been to Nebraska in the late nineteenth century and met its German, Czech and Yankee settlers? Willa Cather’s My Antonia, paints the exquisite beauty and loneliness of the landscape, the power of its changing seasons, and the captivating resilience of Great Plains settlers who forged a life there. Have you wondered if you’d be tough enough to leave your warring homeland and begin somewhere else? Read Isabel Allende’s new triumph A Long Petal of the Sea, which chronicles a family fleeing Spain’s Civil War (1939) and making new lives in Chile. Are you curious about the Belgian Congo in the 1950s? (Aren’t we all?) Read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and when you finish, you may weep that this fine book had to end. Are you seeking a first-hand account of justice gone wrong and forgiveness extended? Read Anthony Hinton’s spellbinding The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row -- an eye-popping account of an innocent black man sentenced to death in Alabama, who endured thirty years in prison before lady-justice removed her blindfold.

If you just want some place new to go, and a fresh, funny take on it, try any of Bill Bryson’s travel books: I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Hanover NH), In a Sunburned Country (Australia) or A Walk in the Woods (Appalachian Trail). And, last of all, if you long for Christmas in July, don’t miss Gretchen Anthony’s hysterically funny and touching Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, in which Violet Baumgartner, type-A matriarch from a distinguished family, channels her family’s (mis)adventures through the annual holiday letter. You’ll end up loving her.

This summer, when so much of the news is dark and heavy and worrisome, take time to recharge and restore. Get above it. Read novels. Read poetry and more. And let Langston Hughes be your guide:

So since I’m still here livin’
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love --
But for livin’ I was born.

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry –
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine!    Fine as wine!    Life is fine!

P.S. Telling Our Stories is written for our adult readers, but if you’re looking for great reading for your kids, just peruse any of our month-related tabs and/or our chapter book section. See you in September….

Mary Beth Klee