What they're reading; Summer edition

6/17/2007

Lucas County Commissioner: I have a stack of books sitting next to my bed that are as close as I will get to a summer reading list. I have the Barack Obama book Dreams From my Father. Someone gave me Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. I m going to read Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I m going to re-read Siddhartha, and a big one, The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka. Some light summer reading. Check back later this summer to see how my life has changed.

Toledo architect: What will I be reading this summer. Um. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown [who wrote The Da Vinci Code]. To be honest, I am going to Europe to see my family and I will be working overtime before I go not a lot of time for myself this year.

director of the Creative Writing Program at Bowling Green State University: I m going to read Paul Churchland, Neurophilosophy at Work. They re all like that. I m going to read What Was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe by Anthony Grafton. And Reckless Rites, which is basically about the history of Jews and violence. So I m reading nerd books. Light stuff? Not really. You could always recommend my memoir [The Book of Telling], which the Times Literary Supplement raved about. It s easier than the books I m reading.

former coowner of (the now-defunct) Thackeray s Books: Up in Honey s Room, from the Detroit author Elmore Leonard, and Hunk City by James Wilcox. The fi rst is something of a mystery, and Hunk City is harder to describe. It s fun.

Wilcox sets his books in this fictional town of Tula Springs in Louisiana. It s not really about anything but people who live there. I don t change my reading [in the summer]. I just read a lot of everything all the time.

Toledo artist: Predominantly, I m reading a lot of academic critic writing this summer.

Books that address issues my work tends to deal with. But one large novel I m reading is William Gaddis The Recognitions.

And I m reading Anne Rice s Exit to Eden. And this book of essays, The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals. But frankly, I don t make enough time to read.