Exclusive summer reading list from Mojo Mom and Rachel Pastan

I love books, I adore books, I am crazy about books, and now that Mojo Mom is finished, it's more relaxing to read for fun again, not just on deadline as part of my work. Some of the new summer reading lists have failed to light my fire--my tastes run more literary and less "beachy" than the chick-lit lists that even the New York Times has produced (though I am going to check out a couple of those titles).

So I wanted to recommend a few of my favorite reads from the past couple of years, and share an exclusive list from novelist Rachel Pastan, author of Lady of the Snakes, which is one of my favorite novels of the past two years. I called up Rachel and asked, now that I've finished your book and loved it, what would you recommend next?

By the way, my picks are not necessarily "summery" in their content--there may be snowy landscapes or steaming radiators in these books, but no matter what time of year, I am on the lookout for literary page-turners with strong character development.

Mojo Mom's summer reading picks:

Lady of the Snakes by Rachel Pastan (read Mojo Mom's Amazon review)

Intuition by Allegra Goodman (Mojo Mom's Amazon review)

The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart (Mojo Mom's Amazon review)

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown (Mojo Mom's Amazon review)

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (Mojo Mom's Amazon review--definitely my favorite review of all I've ever written. This book will make your head spin, in a good way!)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (new release on July 28) by Steig Larsson (Mojo Mom's Amazon reviews, Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played With Fire)

On my to-read list: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Perfection by Julie Metz, and Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad.

And thanks to Rachel Pastan for her exclusive summer reading recommendations for Mojo Mom blog readers:

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
A completely compulsive and very smart novel about a Princeton admissions officer. There’s lots about college admissions, but mostly it’s this particular woman’s life story—her secret past, her uncertain future. It’s a great combination: a grown-up, thoughtful novel with an obsessive quality.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
I had never read this classic till this year. Lively, original, breezily written, this portrait of a young woman determined to use her beauty and charm to get what she wants in lower Manhattan in the 1950s is a compulsively readable delight. Better than the movie.

The Brambles by Eliza Minot.
One of the best depictions of being the mother of young children I’ve read. The manic, moment-to-moment, dazed life of the protagonist is amazingly well-rendered with energetic, syncopated prose. The story is about how three grown children deal with the final illness of their father, but the narrative is the least of what’s delightful here.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Hardly a classic beach book, but if you’re anything like me you won’t put it down. It’s hard to explain why a novel about a small town in Maine and the difficult, large, retired math teacher who lives there is so amazing. Marriage and motherhood are portrayed in all its complexity. Beautiful narrative prose is contrasted with colloquial Maine dialogue. You love Olive, even though (or because) she’s so prickly—you never want to be done with her. For once the Pulitzer committee agreed with me.

Rachel Pastan’s latest novel, Lady of the Snakes, just came out in paperback from Mariner. A literary mystery story about a young Russian literature professor with a small child and her struggle between her passion for her work and her love for her family, Lady of the Snakes was selected by Maureen Corrigan (of NPR’s Fresh Air) as her top summer reading pick.

Mojo Mom Podcast: Lady of the Snakes author Rachel Pastan

I fell in love with Rachel Pastan's novel Lady of the Snakes, so I invited her on this week's Mojo Mom Podcast. Both podcast segments this week feature literary discussions for busy Moms. You can learn more about Rachel's work and find a Lady of the Snakes readers' guide at RachelPastan.com

To my delight, Rachel also shared a list of recommended books she created just for our Mojo Mom audience:

First, here are some of my favorite novels about the experience of living with
small children:

The Lucky Ones by Rachel Cusk. This is a smart, wonderfully written ensemble
piece about very different characters with various children in their lives, and how their lives are affected by that.

The Book Borrower by Alice Mattison. This book captures my experience as the
mother of an infant better than any I’ve read. The tenderness and the
ambivalence. It’s also a wonderful novel about friendship between women, and
it has a great historical element. This is the only novel I know in which a female protagonist is referred to by her last name.

The Brambles by Eliza Minot. The mother in this book is less ambivalent than
the ones in mine or Mattison’s. The texture of suburban life with children is gorgeously rendered.

Other books:

Possession by A.S. Byatt. The ultimate literary mystery story, and a fabulous Romance. Unputdownable.

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. A British novel from the thirties that no one reads anymore and which deserves renewed attention. It’s about two musical twins growing up in an impoverished family in which their untalented older sister gets all the attention. It’s funny, charming, sometimes eerie,
and always compelling.

Enjoy!

Warmly,
Rachel

"Lady of the Snakes" charmed my mind and heart

There's no school today and I had just enough time to steal away to write a new book review:

Usually I tear into a book but this time I felt like Rachel Pastan's new novel Lady of the Snakes devoured me and left me an extremely satisfied reader. As a motherhood writer myself, I've read hundreds of books about the tradeoffs between work and family that all mothers have to face. Since reading is part of my work, at this point in my life I am generally burned out about reading about motherhood, and have little patience for either dense literary fiction or fluffy "chick lit."

Against that background, Lady of the Snakes was a wonderful treat. Incredibly honest about the everyday realities of a young academic juggling work and family, yet engrossing on the level of big questions; compulsively readable and convincingly literary at the same time. Rachel Pastan creates believable voices for both her modern heroine, Professor Jane Levitsky, and Jane's research subject, Russian countess Maria Karkova. (Quite an accomplishment given that Pastan had to create the excerpts of Karkova's journals and letters as well as the fictional 19th-century literary masterpieces of her husband Grigory Karkov.)

The academic mystery/counterplot about Karkov and Karkova is involving even if you have no background in Russian literature. The relationships between Karkov and Karkova, Jane and Maria, Jane and her husband Billy, and Jane and her academic rivals avoid easy categorization, mirroring the complicated textures and ambivalence of real life. I was touched by Jane's honesty about the tug she felt toward her work even as she cared deeply for her young daughter.

Lady of the Snakes would make an ideal book club selection. If you enjoyed Allegra Goodman's Intuition or A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance I highly recommend Lady of the Snakes.