Chill with a book

News reviewers rate the top summer reads to free you from your Blackberry

Rocky Mountain News

Published May 27, 2006 at midnight

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With our iPods and Blackberries, computers and DVD players, Americans are drowning in distractions. To make matters even more chaotic, we run about with all the deliberation of a pack of mad hatters, shuttling kids to activities, buffing our bodies, cleaning our homes - and logging in enough hours at the office to put the rest of the world to shame. No wonder we often long for a break from all the dizzying duties. So consider this: a blanket, a shady spot beneath a tree, an absorbing book. Sheer bliss?

For those who realize that vision is not a dream, but a necessity, today we offer our annual summer reading section. Guaranteed to take you away from the fray, we've filled it with cool reads to help you simmer down. Inside, News critics who have been screening books all year offer their favorite picks for summer reading. Meanwhile, books editor Patti Thorn previews the high profile titles you'll see coming out in the next three months. In addition, we've asked local authors for their suggestions of no-miss titles that will make the most of your reading time.

In short, we hope to entice you to take a timeout. Here's the plan: Grab a book, pack a picnic and head for the hills - and don't forget to leave the Blackberry at home. Believe us, it'll be there waiting for you - with all those other duties - when you're ready to reenter the madness.

Writers' market

What do local authors recommend for summer reading? Here's a look.

Kent Haruf

(Plainsong, Eventide)

"The novel Winter in the Blood (1974) by the Native American James Welch is an American masterpiece and one of the most important books for me in my attempt to learn to write fiction. I have read the book at least half a dozen times, and each time I've been taken by its mastery: Its accurate, unsentimental evocation of the West; its clear portrayal of character; its complex view of life on the reservation; its natural and direct dialogue; its simple, lyrical style;. . . and, not least, the sheer page-turning story it tells. Welch had a poet's eye and a realist's heart, and I have tried to learn all I can from this first novel of his. Winter in the Blood is as perfect a novel as anyone can write."

Chris Ransick

Denver poet laureate (Never Summer, A Return to Emptiness)

False Prophet, by Stan Rice features the last poems written by Rice before his death from brain cancer four years ago. He is known as the husband of novelist Anne Rice, but I knew him personally as a mentor during my early years as a poet in San Francisco. These numbered poems pick up at "Psalm 151," where the Hebrew text leaves off, and from there, explore impressionistic galaxies as only Rice could: streaming through surreal imagery and making acrobatic leaps of imagination . . . You won't find answers among these poems, but when you are "rowed to the cherry trees on the shore" in the last line, you'll realize you've traveled with someone asking the right questions."

Stephen Singular

(Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer)

"I grew up in rural Kansas in the 1950s and '60s, and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood made a lasting impression on me. I read it in high school, in 1967, and have read it at least once a decade, ever since. It has influenced my own writing career as an author of numerous true crime books and two about serial killers in Kansas... Capote's evocation of the Kansas landscape and of the horror of these murders, along with the author's more or less sympathetic portrayal of killer Perry Smith, will reverberate through readers for a long time to come."

Adrian McKinty

(Hidden River, The Dead Yard)

"David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was short-listed for the 2004 Booker Prize and appeared in many top ten lists as the best book of that year. His new novel Black Swan Green is less experimental than that work but equally brilliant. It's the story of a 13-year-old boy growing up in the middle of rural England in 1982 — though this being a David Mitchell novel, it's about far more than that, too. It touches on philosophy, ecology, musicology and art in a lyrical and moving narrative. Readers will enjoy Mitchell's deep intelligence, wonderful prose and sly sense of humor and, after a few pages, will be hopelessly lost in a foggy English wood, even as the sprinklers come on and the mercury creeps over a hundred degrees."

Ann Ripley

(Summer Garden Murder, Death at the Spring Plant Sale)

"In nonfiction, I suggest Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a truly inspiring book when Americans need inspiration. It tells how Abraham Lincoln embraced his political rivals and formed an administration that almost magically handled the crisis that threatened our young country's future. How we could use his wisdom, goodness and adroit political savvy in today's world! In fiction, I recommend, for its laugh-out-loud humor and intelligent detecting, The Smell of the Night, or any other mystery novel by Andrea Camilleri. His Inspector Salvo Montalbano is imperfect, lovable and smart. You rue the moment that you finish the book and long for the next one."

Margaret Coel

(Eye of the Wolf, The Drowning Man)

"The opening sentence of Amagansett promises a page-turner. British author Mark Mills delivers that and much more. Set in the Hamptons in 1947, the novel evokes a place at its tipping point, when everything is about to change. Fishermen who have made their livings in the waters for generations are about to be displaced by wealthy families crowding in from New York. Then Conrad Lebarde, a fisherman scarred by World War II, hauls the body of socialite Lillian Wallace out of the Atlantic, and tensions between two very different cultures ignite in chilling and unexpected ways. Like the best mystery novels, Amagansett is a smart and multi-layered story of characters who must grapple with forces often beyond their control. And Conrad Lebarde is surely one of the most haunting characters in recent literature."

Nick Arvin

(Articles of War)

"I have been reading and marveling at Love and Hydrogen by Jim Shepard, a collection of short stories that sprawls through a remarkable range of history and characters, illuminating the lives of a minor league baseball player batting against Castro in 1950s Cuba; a married couple enmeshed in the Charge of the Light Brigade as a metaphor for the illness of their child; a closeted gay couple working in the vast spaces of the Hindenburg; and on and on, through scientists, rock stars, assassins, and, I must not neglect to mention, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The writing is diamond sharp, the pacing is swift, and the characters are complex and surprising. I'd suggest you pick it up now and dabble in its stories throughout the summer, but be warned: Once you start, it could keep you up all night."

William Haywood Henderson

(Augusta Locke)

"(I recommend Lady's Choice: Ethel Waxham's Journals & Letters, 1905-1910.) Lady's Choice is a beautiful tale of Denver and Wyoming in the early 20th century. Ethel Waxham, a Wellesley graduate from Denver, decides in 1905 to accept a job teaching in a tiny school on a ranch in Wyoming. . . The heart of the tale is the romance that develops between Ethel and a Scottish sheep rancher, John Love, whose attraction to the young school teacher is instantaneous and deep. Over the years, Love courts his love primarily through the mail, though at any possible chance, he'll ride a horse or drive a wagon 50 miles across the wilds to see sweet Ethel in person. This is a wonderful tale of a bygone era, so fully bygone that it's hard to believe it was only 100 years ago. . . But most of all, this is a love story, told primarily through the letters of two eloquent and heartfelt writers."

Micaela Gilchrist

(The Fiercer Heart, The Good Journey)

"Call in sick and break out the sunblock, here are two great reads by Colorado writers that you won't be able to put down this summer. Elisabeth Hyde's highly anticipated mystery The Abortionist's Daughter is destined to become a book club favorite. Hyde masterfully illuminates her compelling novel with deft characterizations and a nuanced approach to a divisive controversy. The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer is a joyously funny and honest memoir about how a fatherless boy discovers his role models among the well-meaning (but often misguided) drinking men at the neighborhood bar."

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