Philadelphia Weekly

"There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work--and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs."

--Henry Ward Beecher

Shutter Island By Dennis Lehane (2003)

If you're looking for a page-turner to burn through, Shutter Island is a good one--it's tough, fast-paced and claustrophobic as hell. The setup: In 1954, a pair of U.S. Marshals arrive at the remote island's Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane after a female patient's seemingly impossible disappearance. As if it's not unpleasant enough that the place is crawling with America's most violently insane, it soon becomes clear that the asylum--led by a decaying, uncooperative doctor straight out of an Edward Gorey illustration--is hiding some extremely disturbing secrets. Then a hurricane hits and all hell breaks loose. Shutter Island is full of the requisite summer-book twists--including the big one toward the end, which will rupture your small intestine--yet it trades in such decidedly un-beachy themes as madness, alcoholism and wet hungry rats. Lots of 'em. Martin Scorsese's film version of the story, called Ashecliffe, is scheduled for an October 2009 release--so run out and grab a copy of Shutter Island now, before HarperCollins slaps on a cheesy DiCaprio cash-in cover. (Jacob Lambert)

Lambert is the editor of PhillyTurkey.com.

Revolutionary Road By Richard Yates (1961)

On paper, there's not a lot to recommend Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road . The title reads like a cloying Dylan B-side, and the basic premise of Frank and April Wheeler--a bright, talented couple negotiating 1950s suburban America--sounds like a Lifetime special. And yet from the opening scene, in which April's community-theater debut unravels into a circus of humiliation, you realize what Yates' polite, polished prose intends to unveil--a terrifyingly clear portrait of two individuals clawing at mannered civility. The Wheelers fancy themselves bohemians at heart, see--not like the rest of the neighborhood. And it's not until the novel reaches its final, alarming crescendo, when a neighbor hears the stomach-dropping sound "of emergency ... the siren mounting higher and higher into a sustained shriek ... " that you realize one of them might not be. In his lifetime, Yates never got to see his book, which lost the 1962 National Book Award to Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, evolve into what writer Richard Ford describes as "a sort of cultural-literary secret handshake among its devotees." This December, Yatesmania will likely reach an all time high when Sam Mendes brings Revolutionary Road to the big screen, reuniting Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. But before the storm hits, muggy August is as good a time as any to wrap your head in the claustrophobic particulars of the Wheelers' tragedy. Or as Tolstoy reminded us: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Cindy Price)

Price is a regular contributor to The New York Times.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy By Jane Leavy (2002)

There are all kinds of reasons that 42 years after he left baseball the name Koufax still carries magic with baseball's cognoscenti: He had film-star looks, he's from Brooklyn and played for the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers, he was a secular Jew who chose not to start a World Series game because it fell on Yom Kippur, he threw four no-hitters (one a perfect game), he was perhaps the greatest ever at his craft (Willie Stargell said hitting against him was like trying to drink coffee with a fork), he quit at age 30, and he chose to live his post-baseball life as a near recluse. Though Leavy, a veteran sportswriter, couldn't convince Koufax to be interviewed the book, he agreed to verify personal things and gave the go-ahead to the baseball world to cooperate. The result is a sweeping look at Koufax and baseball in the mid-'50s through mid-'60s based on scores of interviews and memories. We relive his perfect game of Sept. 9, 1965, nearly pitch by pitch, learn about the prejudices he endured, and learn why he related so well to black ballplayers. The players of that era speak of him with an awe usually reserved for prophets and gifted world leaders. Would the book have profited from his voice? Only maybe. More likely it's the furtive peeks we get into Koufax's psyche that provides the real intrigue. He removed himself from public view, writes Leavy, "not so much because he believed there are no second acts in American life as because he was so determined to have one." (Tim Whitaker)

Whitaker is PW's editor.

Heart of Darkness By Joseph Conrad (1902)

Free download at books.mirror.org/gb.conrad.html

It's the dark days of summer here in God's country. Banks are closing. Kids are dying in our inner cities and in places with unpronounceable names. Rising gas prices fuel our rage. Meantime, in the hazy equatorial climes of deepest Africa, it's always summer, and for all but the privileged, it's always dark days. As we endure the death roll of the Bush administration until the day a black man will reclaim the land the white man stole, consider another heart of darkness--Joseph Conrad's deliciously politically incorrect novella about exploitation in the Congo (and dozens of other like nations) and the darkened hearts behind it. He uses the N-word--a lot more jarring here than when blasting from a passing Navigator--but his point is to pillory the white devil, whose greed ruins everything. Conrad's classic tale is familiar--civilized white man terrorizes savage dark man in the godly name of profit. In Darkness, Marlow captains a ferry boat up the Congo River for a Belgian ivory trader. His mission: to reclaim Kurtz, who's made like David Koresh at Waco, surrounding himself with acolytes and crouching admirers. George Bush, evil as he is, is no match for Kurtz, and he doesn't have the sense to die in the end. But the story's still the same: "The horror! The horror!" The last eight years will soon be over. That thought alone should be enough to brighten the darkest days of summer. (Sara Kelly)

Kelly is PW's executive editor emeritus.

Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson By George Jackson (1970)