A summer reading list for dark times
finding hope, humanity, and “beach reads”
by Norah Vawter
This has been a stressful summer to live through, politically speaking, and it doesn’t feel like the tension is going to break anytime soon. But life goes on, with these long summer days feeling normal and not normal, surreal and not surreal. I’m always on the lookout for summer reads that are also smart—books that feel weighty enough for me to care about, but are entertaining enough for the pool or the beach, or just a long, hot Saturday spent inside in the air conditioning. Bonus points if humor or hope run through their pages. There’s a sweet spot that I’m after in a summer read, and thinking about it got me reminiscing about some of my favorite books by D.C. area and Baltimore authors.
Read on for six novel recommendations and a bonus poetry recommendation from my co-founder Gregory Luce, Washington Unbound’s Poetry Editor. Most of these books aren’t recent enough to review in Washington Unbound, but I wanted to share these recommendations with you. I’m guessing many readers may be looking for books that fit into this general category. I don’t know about the rest of you, but reading for fun has been an antidote to anxiety for me these last few months. It feels necessary to do this so-called unnecessary thing. Reading, like joy, is an act of rebellion.
Bookish People (2022) by Susan Coll
Bookish People is a fun and delightful read about a week in the life of a fictional, independent bookstore in D.C., and its quirky staff. It's an easy-going, comic novel that feels like a beach read (in the best sense of the word) but is also thoughtful, sometimes dark, and often surprisingly deep. Like the best comedy, it made me think. Also, the author works in a real, local independent bookstore, so the book is rich with all those little, mundane, details you can't make up or even research. This work of fiction feels lived-in, grounded, and real.
Meet Me in the Fourth Dimension (2024) by Rita Feinstein
This young adult/adult crossover novel manages to be many things at once. It’s a tender, thoughtful coming of age story. It’s a novel-in-verse that has some gorgeous poetic lines. But it’s also a book about conspiracy theories, why they are both fascinating and dangerous, and how individuals get sucked into their narratives. While not explicitly about Qanon, Meet Me in the Fourth Dimension is in conversation with the real-life Qanon and Maga phenomena. Full disclosure: the author is a friend, so I can’t claim to be an unbiased reader. But this is one of the strangest, most original, and most beautiful books I’ve read.
For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus (2024) by Varun Gauri
I reviewed this debut novel for DCTRENDING. You can read my full review here. “For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus is a thoughtful and complex book that explores individual identity within the context of culture, traditions, and community. It does deal in weighty themes like tradition, modernity, religion, globalism, colonialism, and gender roles, to name a few. And yet, this novel is incredibly funny. Laugh out loud funny. Reminding us that laughter and whimsy are also found in the immigrant experience, Gauri has written his novel as a romantic comedy of manners and miscommunication, in the tradition of Jane Austen.”
Hestia Strikes a Match (2023) by Christine Grillo
In her debut novel Hestia Strikes a Match, Christine Grillo imagines what would happen if a second Civil War broke out in the United States. The author envisions an alternate timeline in which the 46th president is assassinated, leading Republican-led states to secede from the union. In one sense, this is a novel about what it means to live in our own deeply divided political landscape, asking the reader to consider their own privilege, duty, honor, and responsibility to their nation, community, and family. In another, it’s a romantic comedy. And it’s incredibly funny. Ultimately, it’s a about book about what it means to be human.
The Ladies of the Secret Circus (2021) by Constance Sayers
This sprawling novel weaves fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction together, jumping back and forth between Paris in 1925 and Virginia in 2005. The titular secret circus is full of wondrous scenes of dark magic, daring feats, forbidden love, and danger. I found myself racing through the book, eager to find out what happened, to understand the links between past and present and piece all the clues together. I was introduced to Sayers’ work when I moderated a panel she was on, and I’ve since read and enjoyed her other work.
A Spool of Blue Thread (2016) by Anne Tyler
Baltimore writer Anne Tyler is one of my favorite writers, and A Spool of Blue Thread is one of my favorite Anne Tyler books. The author is the master of the slow, subtle novel where the small things matter and the big reveals turn out to be tiny details. It's the little moments that make up our everyday lives, and Tyler has been studying the American family—the intricacies of marriages and parent/child relationships, and how a house makes you feel, and why people don't talk about the things that really matter, and what regret looks like, and how nobody knows how to be a parent or a spouse or a child—for over 50 years. It shows.
And a bonus poetry recommendation from our Poetry Editor, Gregory Luce:
“D.C. resident Amanda Shaw's brilliant debut collection It Will Have Been So Beautiful, published in May of 2004 still stands as one of the finest books of poetry I have read in recent years. As I wrote in my review of the book for Scene4, ‘Although Amanda Shaw has been writing poetry for many years and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, her debut collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful, has only now been released. Whatever the reason for the delay, the book is a stunner. A keen intelligence and a deft hand with words inform this entire collection. An auspicious debut and one well worth adding to your library of poetry.’”
Norah Vawter is the co-founder and fiction/nonfiction editor of Washington Unbound. She’s a freelance writer, editor, and novelist and is represented by Alisha West. Follow her on Instagram @norahvawter and check out her Substack, Survival by Words, here.
