Summer Reading 2025
Archived from May 22, 2025:
First, an anecdote. A buddy of mine has been dating a woman for the past few months and over the holidays, around mid December they and another friend came over for a holiday brunch. We chatted, ate smoked salmon breakfast bake and drank mimosas as one is wont to do in the temporal haze of the last two weeks of the year. Mid afternoon, my guests slowly stand, meandering over to the coats while I pack up leftovers to be sent home and enjoyed later on. As I putz in the kitchen, they all chat before my buddy pipes up “Hey, she was wondering if she could borrow a book” and, in my memory at least, I threw my tea towel in delight and barreled down the hallway to the bookshelves.
“Fiction or non fiction?”
“How weird are you willing to get?”
“Annihilation? Are you OK with some pretty gross body horror?”
Books are pulled from the shelves, held up and gushed over before I toss it aside, excited to talk about the next. Everyone picks one or two, returning previously borrowed books and I apologise for my excitement. She smiles and says not to worry, thanks me and my guests disperse into the wet Toronto winter. I find Kafka and sweats, curling onto my couch to doze off watching an early evening movie.
Later that night, I rouse from the couch and make my way to bed for a proper sleep. I pull aside my comforter, arrange my pillows and settle in only to find my pillow strangely solid. A rearrangement, a rummage later and I pull out a book from underneath it, clearly having made its way there in my frenzy of literary recommendations. I couldn’t help but laugh, it just felt so fundamentally me.
On May 20th, 2025 the Chicago Sun-Times published an AI generated Summer Reading list that was almost entirely hallucinated by a Large Language Model. Many of the authors are real but almost every title and description is of a book that does not exist, averages of words vomited out by the pattern finding machine. People who, presumably, have some kind of editorial or journalistic training, who pursued a career revolving around writing, reading and editing could not be bothered to write, read or fact check an entire page spread in their own paper. Worse, this was part of a sixty four page generic “Summer” spread that may make its way into other publications. Their reply to the posts on Bluesky was less than reassuring:
I think this reply raises more questions than it answers. How on earth can an editorial room not know what it published? Not approved but printed in your paper? Disrespectfully, what the fuck are you talking about. In any reasonable world this would be the death knell of many people’s careers, from “writer” to editor. I find liking my own writing extremely hard, and I’m pretty insecure about it but good lord at least I actually do it. Apparently I could have pursued writing and just had the lying machine do my job for me.
I adore books, I think anyone who’s seen me talk about them can attest to this. There is a magic within them, the human desire to communicate, to connect and to imagine. The surprise of a fiction novel, the rigor and prose of beautifully complied history. I am even happy books I don’t adore exist. Every one of them leaves a trace, some big, some small and I am immensely grateful to live in a time where books are accessible, translated and abundant.
So, here’s my Summer 2025 Reading List for you. Real books, real authors, though maybe not published this year. If a newspaper can publish completely hallucinated works, I think I’m allowed to suggest books that are a few years old at this point. (Also, the one real book, Atonement, was published in 2001 so fuck it, you know?)
Violets - Kyung-Sook Shin, 2022
When I think of summer I think of this heat drenched novel of desire, isolation and confusion. Seoul, 1970s and a flower shop set the scene for the desperation and loneliness of San. There’s something about this book that reached further and deeper into my own young insecurities than I expected when I started. It left me with a feeling of reeling, being incomplete in a beautiful way.
Prophet Song - Paul Lynch, 2023
A desperate story of an Irish woman trying to hold her family together when her husband, a union organizer, is disappeared by the new right wing faction taking hold of Ireland. It is a book that burns under the skin, wrenches at your viscera, shakes your soul asking who, exactly, do you think you are. This book has one of the single most difficult pages I have ever read and every day it becomes more relevant.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa, 2012
A trip through Japan, as told through the eyes of a well loved cat, this is a book for anyone who has ever loved an animal. It is so steeped in love and life, a testament to all the things that fill up our lives and make them whole. If you’re in Toronto, more than happy to lend my own tear stained copy out.
A Paradise Built in Hell - Rebecca Solnit, 2009
I’ve spoken about this book here before and it will always be a book I consider Required Reading. Tenacity, justice and community live at the center of a book that shows you, through no uncertain terms that those will power will always seek to protect power, not you. Frustrating as it may be, it is an ode to humanity and the beauty we can create when we truly show up for one another.
The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman, 2024
If you like a fun romp, The Thursday Murder Club is for you. It reminds me of a Miss Marple mystery if there was 4 of her. I read the first a few months ago, and without thinking much about it read the most recent (I will be going back to read the 2 I skipped over, promise) and was blown away. A marvelous mystery intertwined with beautiful meditations on aging, loss and love. I was truly blindsided by this installment and I look forward to more from Osman.
They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent - Sarah Kendzior, 2022
I am fairly certain I’ve mentioned this book here as well, but it is such a damning picture of all the things we have been watching unfold and the impunity of the wealthy and powerful. It is disgusting and sanity giving at the same time, to be reassured that this is not normal and a demand for better is not outlandish or ridiculous.
Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon, 2024
The strangest tragi-comedy I have ever read. Syracusans seeking to have Athenian slaves perform Medea in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. A wild, surprising story about brotherhood, art and meaning, all told in a thick, contemporary Irish lilt.
Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer, 2014
I have been revisiting the Southern Reach series in anticipation of the 4th book, Absolution, coming out in paperback this fall. A strange, haunting story of 4 women venturing into Area X, a place where humans no longer dominate, no matter how hard they try. Science fails in the face of paranoia, secrecy and nature. A fast, delicious read that digs into human’s relationship to the world and the inevitable reclamation the earth will have.
I figure 8 is a good start, given I picked actual books that you can go out and read. Imagine that, time and passion being put into book recommendations. Apparently that’s novel these days! No comment on if that pun is intended, you decide. If you do read these, please let me know. There’s little I love more than talking about books and stories.
At the beginning called this an update, but I suppose it’s also an apology to you as much as it is to myself. I almost completely stopped writing for a couple months there. The reasons are two fold. One is this site and it’s CEO who is very comfortable platforming and profiting off of Nazis. My deep discomfort with this became an easy excuse to simply not publish, which turned into not writing at all. I do intend on moving over to a different platform in the future, but while I work out which I have decided my free, tiny, non profitable newsletter is probably not the make or break line for Substack. Second, I simply wasn’t writing, no desire or discipline to be seen. Oddly enough, the closer come to admitting I want to write, the harder it is to do. I can’t fail at something if I never do it in the first place. I still feel that way (working on it) but I have decided that spite and my hatred of generative AI will be what spurs me to write for now, because any writing, good or bad, is better than whatever the plagiarism machine throws together.
Thank you, as ever, for being here. I know it’s been a while and I appreciate your presence as much as ever. Seriously, if you read one of these books please let me know! Or if you want more book recommendations, you can let me know that too. I will be back soon, promise.
