The Exchange's Summer Reading List

This Friday The Exchange is hosting its annual summer books show, where you're invited to share the books that'll keep you company during the summer. We wanted to share our own lists, too:

Keith Shields – Executive Producer

1) Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall – A true story, the author sents off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong. As a distance runner I’m finding this book a great read

2) Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow – This is the latest offering from the author who has brought such classics as Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. It’s a fictional twist of the true story of brothers Homer and Langley Collyer. Homer is blind and deeply intuitive, Langley eccentric and deeply affected by mustard gas from the World War I, the story tells of their lives living together during the early to mid 20th century in a 5th avenue mansion. Doctorow will be coming to New Hampshire this September for our “Writers on a New England Stage” series.

3) The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide by Dick Lehr – Tells the true story of one of the most controversial cases in the annals of the Boston Police Department, involving a brutal assault on a black plainclothes officer by his fellow cops and the resulting 1998 civil rights trial against the police force. Living in Boston half my life I remember this story.

Laura Knoy - Host

1) Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracey Kidder - the true story of a young man from Burundi who comes to America after surviving a horrible civil war and genocide. The publisher describes it as 'an adventure story, a survival story, an immigrant's story, a story of despair and of determination, and of evil and kindness". We are interviewing Mr. Kidder for our "Writers on a New England Stage" series this fall, so I'll be sure to finish this book!

2) John Adams by David McCullough. I am a huge history buff and loved learning more about Adams's key role in shaping what our country was to become. McCullough also does a great job describing the complicated friendship/rivalry between Adams and Jefferson, and the fascinating role that Abigail Adams played in influencing her husband and other founding fathers. It's a lively, not-at-all stuffy read about some of the most important people of our nation's beginnings.

3) And for escapist "beach reading" I hope to tackle one of the many novels by my one of my favorite science-fiction writers Sheri Tepper. I've only read half a dozen, and she's published at least three dozen - so lots to choose from.

Dan Ankeles - Producer

1) The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. It’s a book that draws stories of America’s puritan past to talk about where we as a nation are headed today.

2) The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which is the only graphic novel listed in Time’s list of 100 greatest novels.

Priscilla Malcolm – Volunteer

1) The Lunatic Express by Charles Miller. This is the story of Kenya, its early history and the creation of the railroad that runs from the coast into Uganda.

2) The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles. Vanderbilt was one of the inventors of the corporate economy.

3) The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King. King writes wonderful mysteries. This is the latest in her Mary Russell series.

Alison dePeyster-Morris – Intern

1) 2666 - Roberto Bolano

2) Tepper Isn't Going Out - Calvin Trillin

3) Open Veins of Latin America - Eduardo Galeano

Elizabeth Faiella – Intern

1) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen -- Saw the BBC version of this on PBS last year, and have been wanting to read it ever since! The story is about a girl who reads too many Gothic novels and has an overactive imagination. She is invited to stay at an abbey, and imagines up all sorts of dire mysteries surrounding it. I'm a big fan of Austen, and this is one of her lesser-knowns that I'm excited to read.

2) Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall-Smith -- This is the second book in a series about a woman who becomes the first private investigator in Botswana (in the first book, The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency). She's a fascinating character -- vibrant, spunky, no-nonsense -- with a great back story. In Tears of the Giraffe, she solves some more mysteries involving her fiancé’s thieving maid, the disappearance of an American boy, and a butcher's wife suspected of having an affair. Apparently HBO based a TV series on these books.

3) Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain - I've always been interested both in psychology and music, and this book fuses the two. I've only gotten a few pages into it, but the basic idea of the book is to explore what it is about music that we connect with so powerfully, using principles of psychology.