Will it be the public library or the local bookstore? Our
bookworm makes her way through the season’s hottest novels

As teenagers across the country extend their left hands to
receive a diploma and move their tassels to the left with aplomb,
in one joyful and miraculous instant high school summer reading
lists become a thing of the past as another deserving group of
young adults flings the traditional mortarboard into the air.
Entrance into college brings a dearth of new responsibilities and
freedoms, one of which is carving out one’s own path in the realm
of recreational literature.

But summer is winding down, and by October students will be
knee-deep in Shakespeare and organic chemistry.

Instead of racing through a holocaust novel or losing one’s will
to live after reading John Steinbeck, as we were once forced to do,
spend a Sunday reading a novel that is substantive, but not
weighty, because your lazy afternoons are numbered.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chobsky takes the
form of a dated series of letters written to an unidentified
recipient.

The intimacy level is similar to that of a diary entry, but the
mere fact that this high school freshman is writing to a person
that he knows only through the mention of someone else adds a sense
of distance.

Unfamiliarity doesn’t seem to pose a hindrance to Charlie’s
self-disclosure, however, as his audience is privy to his innocent
crushes, pubescent impulses and minute insecurities.

Something resembling the lovechild of “High Fidelity” and “The
Catcher in the Rye,” Charlie explores the awkwardness of first
loves and the discoveries one makes when struggling through
transitional phases in life.

“Perks” is a novel for anyone who appreciates the intricacy with
which literature, music and life become intertwined with personal
experience.

For Charlie, these three things are inextricably linked, and his
premature appreciation for great literature is, for lack of a
better word, adorable. This kid loved music back in the day when
mixtapes took hours and exhaustive amounts of effort to complete, a
refreshing endeavor to read about in an era where mix CDs have
become something of an atrocity.

Romance is one of the many facets of Charlie’s story, but it
serves as the meat on the bones of Jack Kerouac’s “Maggie Cassidy.”
This reads like the pre-teen version of “On The Road,” as Kerouac
makes many similar observations on love and loss in America that
ring true with the purest quality of universality and
simplicity.

Kerouac aptly captures the epic sadness of exploring another’s
heart when one barely has a grasp on his own, shedding light on the
grey areas where fondness and sexuality overlap and, in the end,
don’t add up to much.

An amorphous small town in Massachusetts during the Depression
era serves as the physical context for the illusions one is easily
fooled by when he is young and in love.

The detached meanderings that characterize the works of the Beat
generation lend themselves well to the lazy days of summer. Richard
Brautigan’s “Revenge of the Lawn” is broken up into miniature
vignettes that, by dint of their very nature, demonstrate
Brautigan’s gift for brevity.

Each story captures a singular feeling or image, sublties traced
and shaded with prose, with a voice that is distinctly American.
This is a book that can be picked up on a whim and even read out of
order: It’s more like a collection of poetry than a novel.

Brautigan’s unique perspective with which he paints the
landscape of California is a joy to wrap the mind around, a novel
that exercises the mind in a manner analogous to running down the
block after the ice cream truck, no matter what song the ice cream
man in your neighborhood plays.