What is on your summer reading list?

As I write to you, the city of Philadelphia is sweltering. Today is the longest, and I hope, the hottest day of the year. Apparently 100 Million people in the U.S. are currently experiencing a heatwave on its fifth consecutive day. Nearly a third of the entire country! (Please stay hydrated and out of the sun as much as possible.) 

Needless to say, summer is officially here and has made herself known. I could not be more grateful that we now have air conditioning at Kol Tzedek. I can now safely imagine our summer shabbat services without fear of heatstroke. And I am doubly excited for popsicles at oneg.

Summer for me is marked by extended time off, mostly spent camping with my family and a few of our Boston friends we see but once a year. Each day is marked by a combination of the following five things: swimming, biking, eating ice cream, playing baseball and reading, in every possible order and varying ratios. 

I am very grateful to my kids who have taught me how to spend many hours reading. This has been a revelation for me. We read in hammocks, in sleeping bags, by the campfire, by the lake. As someone who spends many hours a week writing, taking this extended time to close my computer and read is the best way I know how to restore myself. 

And so on this second to last Friday email of the year, I wanted to make space to share with you some of my summer reading list, with the hopes that you might want to read along with me. 

Below you will find my first three picks for this summer, from three different genres. 

The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a distance by Shaul Magid
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBridge
World of Wonders: In praise of fireflies, whale sharks and other astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Fumi Nakamura (Illustrator)

These three books speak to places of wonder that I want to encourage for us as a community. And so I invite you to join me in reading or listening to any and all of them this summer. Perhaps we can have a book discussion upon my return in August or the Fall. 

No doubt I will likely also read some celebrity memoirs and queer graphic novels, and I hope you do too. 

What is on your summer reading list?