Local Happenings

Summer Reading Recommendations

By Logan Anderson (landerson14@css.edu)

April 17, 2025

Although summer (unfortunately) isn’t here yet, here are some recommendations to start off your summer reading list. These books are all quite different from each other, and it is my hope that they help diversify your bookshelf.

“The Serviceberry” by Robin Wall Kimmerer is meant to be read while swinging in a hammock by Lake Superior, munching on serviceberries. These berries, also commonly known as juneberries, Saskatoon berries, and shadbush, are an excellent representation of a gift economy. A gift economy is a system centered around sharing, gratitude, and mutual flourishing. 

This extended essay explores the relationship humans have to the land and to each other, and the ways these relationships have been broken and how they may be repaired. Kimmerer thoughtfully explores these concepts, bringing in knowledge about indigenous ways of life as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her writing is easy to understand and digest, and she provides several anecdotes from her own life to relate to the concepts. I also found much to connect to my personal life while reading this essay, and it helped shift my perspective. While “The Serviceberry” is a short read, it’s one that you’ll want to take your time with. I savored each word like I savor sunbaked serviceberries by the lake.

The second book is my current favorite,“The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt. Be warned: this is a long, winding story that spans nearly 800 pages. Because this book takes some time to read, it’s perfect for summer. Tartt is a master at crafting a compelling story and writes with vivid imagery and incredibly real characters. 

“The Goldfinch” is a book that I truly did not want to put down. It follows 13-year-old Theodore Decker into his twenties as he finds ways to deal with the grief of losing his mother. Theo’s world expands and contracts as he moves from New York City to Las Vegas to Amsterdam. The single guiding force in Theo’s life over all these years is a painting that he acquires through strange circumstances at the time of his mother’s death. While this painting is in some ways his greatest comfort, it also haunts him.

As the narrative unfolds, Theo is pulled down a dark path of his own making. He becomes involved in things that are hard to imagine happening to the young boy from the beginning of the book. “The Goldfinch” explores what it means to experience great change, face each phase of life and how our choices build up to define our worlds.

For something shorter after the last read, “Bright Dead Things” by the current U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón is a great little book of poems. These poems catalog a variety of themes, with an innate sense of honest humanness at their core. Limón’s poems are deeply personal, while still welcoming readers into the space together. Underlying feelings of nostalgia and grief color much of this book, but there are many joyful moments that capture the experience of being alive. “Bright Dead Things” is full of little slices of life, and is truly dynamic with each turn of the page.