Shape up

Read your way to a better body of
knowledge via this seasonal curriculum

by JULIET WATERS

This summer, I offer up more than just a guide. Welcome to your personally designed reading plan. I’ve covered all the important reading groups, from fiction to…uh…non-fiction. And I’ve included helpful but nutritious options so that you can further personalize your plan according to your individual reading needs!

Of course, if you’re like one in four Canadians (or one in five Quebecers), apparently you’re obese. So the main thing on your mind is not reading, but losing weight. And odds are, even if you’re not overweight, you’re still obsessed with food. Next week I’ll have an interview with David Kessler the former U.S. FDA commissioner who has just published The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. This is an intelligent, provocative page-turner about the chemistry and coercion involved in the making and marketting of calorie-dense processed food. I read this book a month ago and haven’t looked at a Dorito since. Highly recommended as both fascinating reading and a head start on your weight control plans.

Once you’ve redirected your attention from all those summer frappuccinos, it’s time to take a look at Nick Hornby’s Shakespeare Wrote for Money. This is the last collection of the book columns published in The Believer. Hornby is the best kind of book critic, one that makes you want to read more than just the book he’s writing about. This witty, entertaining column is an ongoing testament to the reading life. Just try this one slim little paperback and bet you won’t be able to just stop at one book this summer.

Not that there’s anything wrong with reading just one book. Or even half a book if it’s Pulitzer Prize winner David Hackett Fischer’s enthralling Champlain’s Dream. This may be one of the best Canadian history books you’ll ever read. So take your time, and chew it slowly.

If what you’re really craving, however, is a menu of entertaining but substantial fiction, I highly recommend Zoë Heller’s The Believers. Reviewers have had mixed feelings about the characters, but have been unanimous in pointing out its intense readability. I also recommend Michael Zadoorian’s The Leisure Seeker, the senior citizen’s answer to Thelma and Louise.

QUIT READING, START BLOGGING

As you find your summer days increasingly filled with the deep satisfactions of your well-read brain, you might actually start feeling the urge to write. Give in. Start a blog and make a commitment to write three times a week.

Start it right with The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. Why would I recommend that people add to the glut of words that is arguably drowning the very profession that is my career? Because writing is to reading, I believe, what exercise is to food. Ultimately, it’s all part of a healthier cultural continuum. And, if the worst that happens is that, by next summer, you’re able to come up with your own reading plan—is that such a bad thing?

As for myself, I’m looking forward to playing a little catch-up with a few releases I didn’t quite get to when they came out earlier in the year. In particular, Apologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly. Heather O’Neill was raving about it at Blue Met, so I’m going to take her word on it.

I’m also excitedly awaiting my review copy of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer. This is billed as fiction but it reads suspiciously like his brilliantly gonzo-mystical non-fiction, as “Jeff,” a burnt-out, self-hating hack journalist in London, travels to the 2003 Venice Biennale. Dyer’s no hack, though he often plays one in his books.

I’m also incredibly intrigued by Graham Rawle’s Woman’s World, composed entirely of clippings from various women’s magazins. A labour of love done over five years, it had rave reviews when it came out in Britain. Yum. A book composed of trashy magazines. The next best thing to a delicious Doritos salad.