Kristopher Jansma's 5 Most Engaging Reads of the Summer

"I’ve always been curious about Gerald and Sara Murphy, who became a kind of adoptive mother and father to Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and dozens of others in the Lost Generation. Their names pop up in the biographies of all of these great artists, and they appear occasionally in the paintings and literature those artists produced. Vaill’s biography explores the lives of the husband and wife who attracted the most luminous figures of the age to their Villa America on the French Riveria. There they fostered immense talent, hosted lavish parties, and became muses. The book does an excellent job of explaining their triumphant influence even in the midst of their own private tragedies. Fitzgerald dedicated Tender is the Night to them and modeled the characters of Dick and Nicole Diver on their real life generosity and love."

"Shortly after our son was born, my wife and I each got a copy of this book so we could read it at the same time. I’m relatively new to parenting books, but this one reads more like a memoir than a manual and seems to back up its claims about the differences between French and American children with research and expert opinion. Druckerman relates stories about putting her young daughter into Parisian daycare and learning tricks from the other mothers at the playground, all of which helped her to rear a well-behaved and curious little girl instead of a highly-spirited hellion. We’ll see how much it works with our son, but we’re both hoping that following her common sense advice will help us raise the happiest baby in the arrondissment."

"I currently I know three different poets who grew up wanting to be physicists. And I must admit that when I’m running in the park, listening to Brian Greene chattering away on a Radiolab podcast, I can understand the appeal. At the end of the day, they are both all about wondering how and why the universe is what it is. This is the third book of Greene’s that I’ve read, each delving deeper and deeper into these mysteries. As the title suggests, this one focuses on what other universes and dimensions might lie outside of what our human senses and instruments can detect. Here’s just one mind-blowing example: if Space is infinite (as most scientists now believe) and the basic elements of matter can only combine in a handful of ways, then logically there are repeats out there — like a woman with ten shirts and ten pairs of pants and six pairs of shoes, there are only a handful of ways you can arrange the pieces before she has to wear the same outfit twice. With simple metaphors like this, Brian Greene exposes the deep weirdness and profound poetry of modern science."

"I know I’m late to the party on this one, but I’d never been a big Patti fan, so I missed this delightful book last year. Actually, it has been my seasonal audiobook download, which makes it even better, for Smith reads herself, and details her journey from being a homeless kid obsessed with Rimbaud and working on “drawrings” to becoming a rock and roll legend. The memoir focuses mainly on her relationship with her lover, soulmate, and best friend Robert Mapplethorpe. She describes what it was like to stand by him as he went down his own difficult artistic paths, from “hustling” to photographing S&M clubs, and eventually dying from complications of AIDS. Smith’s autobiography is really another story of a couple: Their love growing beyond diverging sexualities and bring them both to change the face of the world and the meaning of Art."

"And following that theme, I found myself flipping through this posthumously published novel-in-verse by the terrific David Rakoff. A long-time fan of his essays and appearances on This American Life, I knew I had to buy this last book of his — which is, strangely enough, his debut novel. I still can’t bring myself to sit and read it straight through, but maybe soon I will manage. In the meantime I’ve just been taking pages at random, which works pretty well. What makes me saddest isn’t even the loss, so much, as seeing what immense humor and love he encoded into this epic poem, all while he was losing his battle with cancer. After reading a while, I recommend hopping on this tumblr page where a friend of his has been collecting photos of the beautiful handmade gifts that David gave to people over the years. You might still wind up crying, but it’ll be at least partly in delight."