The Bookhive List: Joan Didion

Normally the Bookhive List posts are about specific books that I love, but I refuse to choose a Joan Didion book I like best. They are all good and they are all short, so you really have no excuse for not reading all of it. But I suppose if you must limit yourself, please read A Year of Magical Thinking, Play it as it Lays, and The White Album. If you, like me, are already a major Joan Didion fan, you should check out this new biography of her, coming this month.

Also, for more of the same, go here. And here.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books.

The Better Father's Day Gift Guide

Don't waste a day of celebrating your father with garbage books like Erik Larson and Doris Kearns Goodwin. That is perhaps unnecessarily harsh -- both are great writers -- but show a little creativity this Father's Day. Every other Father's Day gift guide I've seen lists the same old sports and non-fiction stuff, which is fine and predictable and lame. Here are the superior choices to celebrate your dad:

Missoula by Jon Krakauer -- This one is actually a trick because Krakauer is totally in the realm of Erik Larson and Doris Kearns Goodwin in terms of non-fiction bestsellers, but hey, dad's love Krakauer. Plus, this one has a bit of sports and a heaping dose of feminism, so it's the perfect thing.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- In my own dad's words "It's one of the best books I've read...AND it's by a woman!"

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -- I've got a longer review of this coming up, but it's a really terrific book about grief and falconry, and is totally something your dad would like, if your dad is awesome.

The White Album by Joan Didion -- Baby-boomer dad's like books about their cultural "moment" which is why every list of dad books includes some kind of rock bio, but give your dad this instead. Didion's counter-culture essays are smarter and more nuanced than anything else out there.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace -- Another book of essays, although these are a lot more contemporary. Dads love books upon which movies are based (Seabiscuit, Unbreakable, all the Lincoln  biographies), so buy your dad this funny, touching book and remind him about 'End of the Tour.'

The Son by Philipp Meyer -- If your dad is like my dad, or my father-in-law, he likes Westerns, even if he doesn't know it. More likely he just finds himself watching whatever is on AMC on a Saturday afternoon, and thus a lot of 'Lonesome Dove' type stuff. The Son is a really recent, really great novel, although I will admit the brutal violence was too much for me. 

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel -- If your dad dabbles in PBS programming, he probably caught at least an hour or two of the miniseries, so get him hooked on the original, which is better and less confusing; also, if he's like my grandpa, he can't figure out how to watch the rest of the episodes, so he needs to get caught up anyway.

The Better Beach Read

I have always hated the phrase "beach read," and the notion it represents, that somehow your vacation is the only appropriate time for pleasure reading or genre fiction. It seems like the kind of unrealistic trope that is exacerbated by magazines, like you should buy some sunglasses based on your "face shape" and a swim suit that emphasizes your "small bust" and get a "beach read" for your vacation. I have a tendency to bring on vacation any book on my TBR list that is compact and lightweight, i.e. paperback, and there is usually no rhyme or reason to it. That said, I can concede that people often want good books for vacation time with the implication being that they'll be sitting in a hammock, on a beach, or poolside for long stretches of time and need a book that they can really disappear into. Thus, the following, my recommendations for beach books this summer:

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