Summer Reading - Bestsellers? Classics? Both?

“I just finished reading Finding Nemo to my dolly. I told her it was a classic.” Maeve Wilson, 5 years old.

Not quite. But the concept’s there. Classics stand the test of time because of their universal themes that touch us emotionally and intellectually. Though Dickens, Austen and Tolstoy may first come to mind, 20th century literature includes a long and diverse list of books now considered classics. Book stores frequently display them as suggestions for summer reading.

Beginning in June every year, newspapers and magazines publish lists of books ideal for taking on vacation. From their lists you get the idea that the ideal book to take to the beach is a commercial best seller or an escapist novel, or a well-honed mystery. James Patterson, Jodi Picoult, and Nelson DeMille, as well as the list of nonfiction books - history, biographies, and travel memoirs - make you want to grab the suntan lotion and head outside.

Enter a book store, however, and you’ll find another kind of summer reading. These are the books you’ll find on tables often marked recommended for high school or college-bound students. Book stores also display piles of paperbacks generally acknowledged as some of the best books of the past, and mark the tables as recommended for summer reading. The two suggestions for summer reading frequently overlap. They include such 20th century classics as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Regardless of the choice of books to read this summer, there is no better place than a comfortable chair in a wonderful location for delving into a book that will be remembered beyond summer.

My summer reading? I just finished Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety, a story of a friendship between two married couples, and I’m about to start a current best seller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a mystery by Stieg Larrson.