 Wave hello to some curious lit picks. Photograph of Angie Pontani and the World Famous Pontani Sisters at Union Hall by Amy Pierce. Styling by Daniel Opdahl. |
Ah, summer! The time to kick back in the sun, sucking up both gin and tonics and intellectual stimulation. But why be the hundredth person on the beach getting sand in Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth or smudging Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion with SPF 45? Put some idiosyncrasy into your life, folks! To help guide you through the waters of the literary unknown, we asked a number of authors to name their favorite obscure book. Below, their replies, which we pass along as suggestions for your arcane summer reading.
Jennifer Egan
You Can't Live Forever, by Harold Q. Masur
In recommending the mystery novels of Harold Q. Masur—all, sadly, out of print—I can do no better than quote the first two paragraphs of You Can't Live Forever:
"It started with a summons, a brunette, and a Turk.
"The summons was in my pocket, the brunette was in trouble, and the Turk was dead."
In his savvy, stylish novels of the '40s and '50s, Masur manages to wink continuously at the detective genre even as he revels in it.
Egan is the author of The Keep.
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