July 26, 2010 We are now at the peak of summer, and that chaise lounge under an umbrella, that cool couch in an air conditioned room, and time spent out of academia may mean we all get the chance to read a little more. I asked a few really smart, cool friends what they like to read, and here are their responses: A magazine editor suggests Dali's Diary of a Genius, and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. A science writer: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tollen. A journalist: Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. A drummer and activist/organizer: Last Flag Down by John Baldwin and Ron Powers. Another journalist recommends The Alienist by Caleb Carr and American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A newspaper editor said "...it was summertime when I first read Slaughterhouse-Five, so I always associate summer with Vonnegut. Bryson's Walk in the Woods is an excellent outdoor read. Anything by Bryson for that matter..." A poet and physics professor said he is "re-reading classics that I read in my 20s. Right now: A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. I also recently re-read his The Sun Also Rises and for the first time, A Moveable Feast and The Garden of Eden. A young writer/novelist with a penchant for politics recommends Glenn Tinder's Against Fate. And another writer/blogger suggested, Everybody Was So Young, "about Sara and Gerald Murphy and all the golden lost generation, American ex-pats living in France after WWI. Magical summer reading." The New Yorker's most recent list, 20 under 40, published June 10, included works by Rivka Galcha, Gary Shteyngart, Nicole Krauss, ZZ Parker and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. (No, I'm not kidding..) I recall TNY's 1999 "20 under 40" list included Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz (who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, in 2008), and the extraordinary Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, who launched her career with Interpreter of Maladies, and whose works have been made into films. I recently finished a blues mystery by a Bergen County writer, Peggy Ehrhart, called Sweet Man is Gone -- delectable, all the way to the smooth, terse finish. Perfect for the beach, or as a light night cap. (Please visit my blog at http://writersnreaders.blogspot.com/)