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July
2, 2003, 9:45 a.m.
Beach
Reads
The well-read
share their summer-reading faves.
An NRO Symposium
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EDITOR’S
NOTE: We asked a few familiar faces and for the a book or two they
could be seen reading this summer.
Denis Boyles
I'd re-read Harry Stein's How
I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner
Peace), because as a tale of redemption-against-all-odds, it's
much funnier than the Bible and not nearly as long as Crime and Punishment
— and thus perfect for a sun-soaked holiday. Plus, open it up and
put it on your head, and presto! Stein saves you from sunstroke. That's
a practical book.
— Denis Boyles is a freelancer writer living in
France. An NRO contributor, he writes regularly about the European media
for NRO.
Richard
Brookhiser
I will have finished Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by the 4th, so that's no good.
I just read Robinson
Crusoe, in a way a perfect beach book. John Ferling has a new
book out on the Revolutionary War, which is bound to be good.
— Richard Brookhiser, an NR senior editor,
is author, most recently, of Gentleman
Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution.
Kevin Cherry
My favorite work of popular fiction is Gregory MacDonald's mystery novel,
Fletch,
which was turned into the 1985 film featuring Chevy Chase. Although the
novel is vastly superior to the movie, its sequel, Confess
Fletch, is even better as the hero squares off against his intellectual
equal, Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn in an intriguing mystery with rapid-fire
dialogue.
— Kevin Cherry is a graduate student at the University
of Notre Dame in political science and a frequent contributor to NRO.
Danielle Crittenden
My impulse answer to this question is to name some great long classic,
like War and Peace, which is genuinely a great beach read, but
to say so would unfailingly make me look pompous. Each summer we go away
to Canada, to my parents' house on the shores of Lake Ontario, and I tend
to choose a "category" of books to take with me. Last summer
I was on a British binge — catching up on Trollopes, Thackerays,
and Dickens I had not read. This summer I'm in a more Middle Eastern mood
— especially for memoirs by women who live under the veil. My first
pick was Reading
Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. I was actually going to read
it in conjunction with Lolita,
which I've never read — in Tehran, Toronto, or elsewhere.
— Danielle Crittenden is author, most recently, of Amanda
Bright@home.
John Derbyshire
Watching TNT's Julius Caesar the other night, I thought of the
first two volumes of Colleen McCullough's series of novels about late-Republican
Rome. I read them a few years ago, enjoyed them tremendously, and meant
to read the new ones as they came out, but somehow never did. There are
now eight books in the series, the latest (and I think final) one titled
The October
Horse. I'd like to pick up with the third book, Fortune's
Favorites, and then carry right on through to the eighth.
— John Derbyshire, an NRO columnist and NR
contributing editor, is author, most recently, of Prime
Obsession: Bernhard Riemann & the Greatest Unsolved Problem.
Mark Goldblatt
Living History
by Hillary Clinton. Laugh out loud funny, plus cover photo can be used
to chill beverages.
— Mark Goldblatt is author of Africa
Speaks.
Meghan Cox Gurdon
The Long
Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz, (published in 1956) is the amazing true
story of a Polish cavalry officer captured by the Russians who escaped
the gulag and walked across Asia — across Russia, across the Gobi
Desert, across India! — to freedom. Why pick it up now? It's got
everything a conservative would want in poolside reading: bravery, patriotism,
brutal cold and grueling heat (things best enjoyed vicariously), and its
a pungent reminder of what happened to free people when the Soviets got
hold of them.
— Meghan Cox Gurdon is a writer and stay-at-home
mother in Washington, D.C.
Betsy Hart
The Count
of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. Forget the fact that the
author was French. This is a "can't put it down even though it's
4 A.M. and the kids get up at 6" read. It's a swashbuckling tale
of a young sailor mid-19th-century sailor unjustly imprisoned and so separated
from the woman he passionately loves and was about to marry. But when
he gets out — watch out. Dumas 's tale of cunning revenge is unparalleled.
His understanding of the wickedness men are capable of is extraordinary.
But it's his ability to tell a great story which is makes him such a master.
— Betsy Hart is a syndicated columnist.
Roger Kimball
On many questions, Cardinal Newman observed, to think like Aristotle is
to think correctly. Accordingly, my one book to re-read (for an adult
the best reading is almost always re-reading) is Aristotle's The
Nicomachean Ethics: a brilliant compendium about virtue, friendship,
and the practical requirements of the goodlife. One of my favorite lines:
"Only a blockhead believes that our character is not formed by our
behavior." If you behave decorously, you become decorous, if you
behave courageously, you become courageous; on the other hand, if you
behave in a vile, cowardly fashion, you become a vile, cowardly person.
— Roger Kimball is managing editor of The
New Criterion. He is author, most recently, of Lives
of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse.
Rob Long
Well, it's summer, and I think we've all done more than enough thinking
for a while, so my beach choice would be The
Light of Day by the late, great Eric Ambler — or, to be honest,
anything by that master of political adventure tales.
— Rob Long is a writer in Hollywood. He is author of the "Long
View" column in National Review and of the book Conversations
with My Agent.
John J. Miller
The Day
of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth: This is simply the best thriller
ever written — perfect for summertime and anytime.
— John J. Miller is NR national political
reporter and author of The
Unmaking of Americans.
Ramesh Ponnuru
Robert Darnton's George
Washington's False Teeth, because it's the only book I'm reading
right now that wouldn't make my brain hurt.
— Ramesh Ponnuru is an NR senior editor.
Andrew Stuttaford
You'd need to arrive early in the morning to get this book read in a day,
but I'd choose Roy Jenkins's Churchill,
a captivating biographical masterpiece about the greatest — and most
entertaining — statesman of the 20th century.
— Andrew Stuttaford is an NRO contributing editor.
Editor's P.S.: Not
enough suggestions? Check out last year's summer-reading list, too, here.
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