Summer has arrived in Oklahoma; the showers have passed, for the most part, and what are left are gradually rising temperatures, the din of ice cream trucks waxing and waning just out of your hearing, and the blessings of good shade-trees being realized over, and over, and over. For some, summer is a bastion of the Good Time, and for others, summer is a hell to be endured only by the respite of a good book and better air conditioning. We thought we’d invite you into a few of our favorites.
This is not a list of recent best-sellers. This is the true list of favorites of The Pickup staff and writers; take this inspiration and do with it what you will. From hot to cold, bliss to anger, love to un-love, we’ve tried to cover every mood you might have with this list. Let us know in the comments what you’re reading.
When You’re Sitting Outside In This Crazy Heat
McCarthy’s last Tennessee novel is also the best of them, a hefty blend of comedy and tragedy in the life of Cornelius Suttree, a son of privilege who falls into the life of a houseboat fisherman. Suttree winds throughout the seasons, but the titular character suffers a case of Typhoid fever late in the book that reads kind of the way a Tulsa summer feels. McCarthy’s freakish imagination isn’t totally uninhibited in this one, but it definitely Goes There, if you catch my drift. —Matt
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
In this 1974 classic of nature writing, nothing much happens, and everything happens. Dillard just looks—at bugs, at trees, at the weather—and her friendly, curious voice guides you to look with more love at the delicate, messy, seething life in front of you, including the sweat that’s dripping into your eyes. —Alicia