The New Yorker on Summer Reading

Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 07.10.08 | 1:17 PM ET

The New Yorker’s Book Bench bloggers offer some entertaining thoughts on how to choose a reading list for the summer reading season. Jenna Krajeski observes that “a lazy place necessitates its own reading list”—and for her, that means a lake in Maine and a copy of Harry Potter.

“I resolve to fall asleep on the dock in my damp bathing suit,” she writes, “Potter dropping from my lap into the clear, cool lake to be fished out during another swim, dried slowly in the sun, and then read.”

Andrea Walker points out that her dream vacation doesn’t include books: “I would read nothing at all. I would sit in a deck chair and stare at the sea.” She does list some picks for airplane reading, though. While for Lauren Porcaro, summer reading means The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “which might help me learn better how to while.”