Books are a fitting companion to any summer plans; whether you’re headed to the beach and need something to help you avoid your family, or you’re staying home and just need something to hold while you drink cocktails on the porch at 11am so nobody can call you a depressed alcoholic.
Below you’ll find a comprehensive guide to popular summer reading choices, along with some specific recommendations.
Classics --or-- Books you Pretended to Read in High School
These books can help you become a more learned person, and a better conversationalist.
Catcher in the Rye is a great choice because it will give you a deeper insight into that Jennifer Aniston movie where the love interest is named Holden Caulfield.
Reading any Dickens novel will provide you with more things to scream in a British accent. Instead of just “tea and crumpets, gov’ner?” you’ll be able to scream things like, “Sweep away thy cobwebberies!” Much more authentic.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a wonderful selection because carrying it around pretty much gives you license to yell “Stelllllaaa!” whenever you need some attention.
Flowers for Algernon will give you an appreciation for your lack of self-awareness.
Books that are currently popular movies or TV shows
These books have a built in safety net in case you get too tired to finish!
The Game of Thrones Series is a great choice because you can enjoy the saga without paying for HBO. Additionally, if you read enough to get ahead of the show’s broadcast, you can ruin the cliffhangers for your friends who have HBO and haven’t yet volunteered to give you their HBO GO password.
The Twilight books offer a great way to experience modern, sexy vampires without having to mess up your Netflix recommendations. Just because someone watches Twilight does not mean they would also enjoy “17 Again,” “High School Musical 3,” or “Robsessed: Inside the Life of Robert Pattinson.”
Put aside your discomfort with children killing each other and pick up The Hunger Games Series. While these books might be horrifying and nightmare-inducing in content, they’re extremely popular. And you want to fit in, don’t you?
The 50 Shades of Gray Series
You might be surprised to learn that this book was originally written as Twilight Fan Fiction.
But wait—does that mean 50 shades of Gray is for boy-crazy pre-teens who are just learning to read chapter books? No way! These are books for self-respecting adults, written by an intelligent person with a firm grasp of spelling and grammar!
When writing her Twilight Fan Fiction, 50 shades' author E.L. James used the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon, which is proof that she’s super smart. I’ve never even heard of an ice-dragon! I mean, I would think an ice-dragon would destroy itself every time it breathed fire-- but then again, I’m not a best-selling author!
The fact that a work of literature can go from sexy vampire fan fiction to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list isn’t a sign of a cultural void within our society, rather it’s a sign of hope for every fan fiction writer who slaves over the computer, churning out new adventures for already popular and well-developed characters. In fact, E.L. James’ success is even a sign of hope for aspiring authors who don’t write fan fiction ...yet!
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