Read a F*cking Book: Our Picks for a Guilt-Free Superfun Midsummer Reading List

Hey, remember when we made that exhaustive list of all the feminist books you could ever want to read, and it was really awesome? Hopefully, you added a bunch of those to your summer reading list. But let’s get real, a girl can’t survive on just A Room of One’s Own, especially during the summer. That’s where we come in, obvs.

Here are our recommendations for books that you can read this summer without feeling like a jerk/feminist traitor. You don’t have to hide these in your latest copy of Ms. like you would a Nicholas Sparks novel (jk, The Notebook was good, right?). These books will entertain you and expand your mind all at the same time. Share your own recommendations in the comments!


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RACHEL RECOMMENDS

The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You

by S. Bear Bergman

If I’m going to be completely honest, I have to admit that my initial interest in this book was roughly 40% about the cover and 60% about the title. I’d heard wonderful things about S. Bear Bergman and was intrigued by what a “gender-jammer” might be. But really walking into this, all I was going on was the comfortingly instructional graphics on the cover. Coming from that level of unfamiliarity, and knowing Bergman only as someone who talked about gender identity a lot and didn’t use male or female pronouns, I approached The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You as something of a Trans 101.
Don’t do that when you read this book, which you are going to do, because you have to read this book. It’s true that Bergman talks a lot about gender and trans identities; it’s his job. But more than being about trans or gender or even queerness, it’s about difference, it’s about the ways in which we connect to people who are like us and who are not like us.

“But more than being about trans or gender or even queerness, it’s about difference, it’s about the ways in which we connect to people who are like us and who are not like us.”

I had decided that I was going to say every queer person should read this book because the experiences Bergman talks about will resonate with all of us, but now I’m wondering whether that isn’t just queer people. Maybe everyone could read this and think yes, yes, I know. There’s a chapter on fucking gay men in the ass, so actually maybe I was overenthusiastic with that idea, but do you know what I mean? You know what I mean.

What really cemented this for me was the longest essay in the book, “The Velveteen Tranny.” This is an important thing to read. If you read nothing else in this book, read this essay. If you read nothing else today, read this essay. It deals with the struggle that transpeople in particular are never allowed to forget even for a minute — proving to yourself and those around you that you’re a real woman, a real man, a real dyke, a real butch, a real person. It’s about the exhaustion of having to insist on yourself to everyone over and over again to no avail and the terror of wondering on bad days if maybe they’re right and you’ve been deluding yourself all this time.

We’ve had our existence dismissed so many times that someone’s skepticism about our identity taps into our deepest fear: they’re right, we are all a sham, the naked emperors of the sexual landscape, and everyone but us can see it. But then you read something by someone like S. Bear Bergman, who’s like “Listen, girl, it’s okay, I know how it is. I know exactly what you are, because I am too, and I know that we’re just fine.” And then you feel better. So read this, is what I’m saying.


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SARAH RECOMMENDS

Millennium Trilogy:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
The Girl Who Played with Fire,
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

by Stieg Larsson

If you’ve been paying attention to bestseller lists recently, you’ve probably heard of the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson. Maybe you’ve been avoiding it like the plague because the popular opinion of Americans usually sucks. But did you know that this book has lesbians who like leather? Yeah, now I have your attention.
I found the books because of the Swedish movie version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I didn’t bother reading the first book ’cause I was told the movie was better anyway. So I dove straight into book two, and I finished it before Amazon had delivered book three to my door. (Don’t do that to yourself.)

The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest are two halves of the same book, like Larsson ripped the manuscript exactly down the middle. It’s a good story — government conspiracy, Cold War spies, gangsters, etc. The female characters are really the heart of the book, though. The main character, Lisbeth Salander, is a kickass queer girl (maybe she’d prefer “label free”, but she’s not here, so) who likes revenge, hacking, not speaking, pan pizza, and being awesome.

Most women will find plenty to identify with in the book, either in Salander or another female character. Larsson is surprisingly great at describing sexism, sexual assault and the sins of the patriarchy in general — as well the psychological toll that takes on women. His novel is not a perfect feminist work, but you can tell he gets it. If you’re looking for a guilt-free summer read with a mix of page-turning action and social commentary, give this series a try.


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RIESE RECOMMENDS

Like Life,
Birds of America and
Self-Help

By Lorrie Moore

Hi! Have you started reading Lorrie Moore yet? Why not? Look, everyone’s been feeling a little crazy lately. Lorrie Moore will remind you that you’re just a little crazy, not a lot crazy, and this too shall pass. I dunno how she does it, but she does it with short stories and novels about people.

She wrote this paragraph:

“What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and — let’s be frank — fun, fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life’s efforts bring you. The mystery is all.”

And many more. Begin with Like Life, her 1991 short story collection. Some passages:

“This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.”

“She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth… People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane. “

Then her 1998 collection Birds of America: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries):

“That had been in Agnes’s mishmash decade, after college. She had lived improvisationally then, getting this job or that, in restaurants or offices, taking a class or two, not thinking too far ahead, negotiating the precariousness and subway flus and scrimping for an occasional manicure or a play. Such a life required much exaggerated self-esteem. It engaged gross quantities of hope and despair and set them wildly side by side, like a Third World country of the heart.”

Then her first collection, 1986’s Self-Help, which features her famous oft-xeroxed-for-writing-classes’ “How to Become a Writer.” Moore wrote most of these stories while getting her M.F.A. from Cornell (after winning Seventeen Magazine’s fiction contest at 19 — which used to be a HUGE deal for young writers, is it still? — and then going to St. Lawrence and temping in Manhattan for two years) and was 26 when she sold the book.

But here, from “How to Be An Other Woman,” which you can also read the first few pages of at this Amazon page:

“It is like having a book out from the library.
It is like constantly having a book out from the library.”

That’s a good start.


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TAYLOR RECOMMENDS

King City

by Brandon Graham

You can get away with reading all kinds of stuff in the summer. Probably even some Dan Brown or Tuesdays With Morrie. So if you had any reservations about reading a post-manga, post-apocalyptic comic about some dudes in mexican-wrestler masks who trade super-powered organs on the black market, then get over them.

Brandon Graham’s King City is the most brilliant comic series/graphic novel one-two punch I’ve read in months. His lunatic opus follows a handful of loosely connected characters, like Joe, a laid back black-belt “catmaster” and the cat he (literally) uses like a Swiss-Army knife. Then there’s Maximum Absolute, a vet from the Korean Xombie War who’s addicted to chalk, which is like cocaine except it makes your fingers fall off.

But King City is more about its weird, delightfully rendered setting than anything. We don’t know a lot about King City itself yet, but we do know it’s a bizarre dystopia ruled by some kind of betentacled overlords. Which is sure to be a selling point, right? Naturally, our protagonists are the counter-culture, so that makes for a lot of rollicking and havoc-wreaking perfect for anarchistic, let’s f*ck some shit up summer reading.

Graham’s got a real knack for weaving a brilliant, addictively weird world. His characters speak in endlessly clever Clockwork Orange-ian wordplay, and every panel is full of intricate doodles you wont notice at first glance. It’s the perfect escapist reading for the hotter month. If you feel like escaping to a decaying urban hotbed of cartoon weirdness run my mob bosses with tentacles, that is.

While you might have a hard time tracking down King City online, check out your local comics store — if they don’t carry it, they’ll be able to order it for you, no prob. It comes out in serial comic book form, and it’s currently on issue 10, so there’s plenty to keep you busy.

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27 Comments

  1. a straight girl recommended “the girl with the dragon tattoo” to me over 4th of july weekend. she said, “i don’t know why, exactly, but i think you’ll really like the character salander.” hmmm…haha

    also..this lorrie moore sounds amaz-ING. amazon.com here i come.

    • my Mom tried to get me to read it/see the movie, saying that I would really like it and suggesting it was somehow secretly gay or feminist. But the title sounds boring to me! I’m secretly like way more lame than literary. But now that Sarah has told me it’s defo queer, perhaps I will now read it.

      • I picked up the book because I thought the title sounded good. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — hot. And it was.

        I do think that the book was much better than the movie.

    • I’ve just cracked the spine and read the first 20 pages of Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs, and was reading it as I rode my bus to town. Kept cracking up and chuckling. I didn’t realize she’s got such a very funny bone :)

      It’s 321 pages. I’ll give you my views about it when I finish. I suspect it’ll be quite a quick read.

  2. I just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and started The Girl Who Played With Fire. I also got the first couple Pretty Little Liars books from the library to rest my brain in between (those Larsson books are intense!)

    • I also just read both of those series, in that order. Have you seen the PLL tv show? Kinda terrible-awesome.

  3. Autostraddle, are you spying on me this week? It’s so nice of you to give me so many reading recommendations right before I’m off to spend 20 or so hours in a car with NO MUSIC this weekend. I’m hoping between a trip to the book store, and good phone/internet service on the road, I’ll be able to check out some of the books/blogs you’ve featured today.

    • I had the same thought when I saw this posted :)
      Summer reading lists are my jump off.

    • you represented a much under-appreciated genre! yay taylor!

      PS. Ariel Schrag’s Highschool series is also delightful summer reading!

  4. Ace recommendations. I read the Millennium trilogy a few months ago and could hardly put the books down.

  5. Also, Stieg Larsson was a BADASS. He wrote the Millennium trilogy when he wasn’t busy being an anti-fascist journalist and hiding out from gangs of Neo-Nazis and stuff.

  6. I love the Millenium trilogy, I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know.

    The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You sounds really interesting, I’ll have to order a copy since I just checked and the local library doesn’t have a copy of it.

    • I put it on hold through interlibrary loan so I don’t have to buy it bc I am poor/cheap and don’t buy books very often. It’s worth a shot if your local library doesn’t have it.

  7. My mom has been bugging me to read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Played with Fire/Kicked the Hornet’s Nest for a while.

    “Honey, you should read this book. I think YOU will really like it.”
    “Okay, Mom.”
    “No hun, YOU should really read it. I think YOU’ll really relate to it.”
    “….?”
    “Just saying, honey.”

  8. i’ve read Lorrie Moore books b/c of you Riese! i thought “who will run the frog hospital” was cute and kinda gay, even though it was about two friends.

  9. I watched the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on an airplane the other day and we started our descent/they stopped the movie with 10 minutes left! Basically I’ve been dying ever since. So good.

  10. Re: avoiding bestsellers & the like because American opinion is usually suckage — I do that. Allll the time. Especially regarding books (which might be weird for an English teacher who’s working on an MA in English but probs not); I just got a ration of (loving) shit from assorted family members who referred to me as an Elitist. Is what it is. I just kinda refuse to read something that everyone else in the world is reading & praising, mostly on the basis that there are far less Popular Books that deserve to be read, too.

    However… I didn’t know there was queerness & leather involved in the trilogy. May have to redact my Elitism for a bit.

    (…as I lie on the beach and read trashy/cheesy/plotless lesbian novels and am not ashamed)

  11. I am definitely going to pick up King City to fill my Scott Pilgrim void. I think it would be great if Autostraddle started doing features on comics. I would love you guys forever (more than I do already)!! The only thing I like more than nerding out about music is nerding out about comics *sigh*.

      • Yay!! This news totes made my day (even more than my whopping 6 dollar tip from 8 hours of room cleaning). Thanks Taylor!!!

  12. will pick up Lorrie Moore and The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You. Autostraddle makes it hard for me to catch up on my reading list. but your book recos is always one to watch out for, always interesting mix

  13. Pingback: Week in Links: Blake Baily vs Batwoman — Lambda Literary

  14. I too have a terrible habit of avoiding bestsellers – I think it comes from all those years working in massive corporate bookstores.

    Funny, my mom was also the one who finally got me to read Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but mostly I wanted to read it after learning all about Stieg Larsson. His story is pretty fascinating and I recommend anyone to read into it.

    I also thought the book was much better than the movie (possibly due to time constraints?), but of course, Hollywood is remaking the film ’cause apparently Americans can’t read subtitles and need more attractive stars to buy movie tickets. *shrug* Even though I’m fairly pissed that they’re remaking the film, it does present one of the most interesting casting opportunities of the year. Who will be Lisbeth Salander??

  15. i had been thinking of reading the “girl with” books, every time i would go into a book store (which is every chance i get)i would be drawn to it again and again. but something told me “nah, its a plain ole mystery you don’t want to read that”.
    then of course it became a best seller and movies, and ive learned the hard way that almost any book that becomes this big this fast is so not going to be interesting to me.

    thanks to the recomendation here and all the positive comments, im going to step outta my book-snob-box and try it any ways.

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