Don't you just love the lazy days of summer reading? Summer always reminds me of the long days of summer vacation of my childhood. When the days stretched out endlessly, when it is so hot and humid there was little else to do but curl up with a good book and a tall glass of sweet iced tea. I remember going to the library every week to get my weekly stash of books. Among all the guilty pleasures, I would get one book on a random college reading list I had found. This was back in the day when even aspiring students did not have a summer reading list. I remember reading Wuthering Heights the summer before my Senior year in High School during a late afternoon thunderstorm. I remember sitting on the front porch re-reading Gone With The Wind with my niece. I struggled through Brave New World.
But I digress. Reading has been such a big part of my life in every season, but especially during the summer. This summer is no different. I have found a common theme in several books I have been reading or plan to read this summer. These books revolve around the concept of memory loss. The first one that I read was Before I go to Sleep by S. J. Watson.
Christine wakes up every morning having no memory of the day before. She doesn't know the man sleeping beside her. When she looks in the mirror she screams when she sees her face as it is much older than she expects to see. Each day is the same - trying to discover who she is and then she forgets everything once she goes to sleep and the next day begins in a similar fashion. Working with a Doctor, she begins to keep a journal, and she hides it each day. The Dr. must call her every day and tell her to go look for her journal.
The next book that I had in my TBR (to be read) stack was What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. Alice is a 39 year old super mom, who falls off her spin bike and suffers a concussion. She wakes up thinking she is 29 and pregnant with her first child. She had no memory of the last 10 years. While a lighter read than Before I go to Sleep, it gives one a chance to think about the choices we make in life and how gradually we may become people we don't even like. The 29 year old Alice does not like the Alice she is at 39. She discovers she is in the process of divorcing the husband she adored at age 29, and she can't stand most of her new friends, and something seems to be amiss with her relationship with her sister.
I then picked up The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes by Marcus Sakey. Imagine my surprise when I found out the protagonist wakes up naked on a beach in Maine with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He finds a BMW parked nearby with a CA registration in the name of Daniel Hayes. He soon discovers he is being hunted by the police. This is slightly reminiscent of The Bourne Identity written 30 years ago. I adored that book when I first read it long before it had been made into movies. Daniel Hayes is certainly no spy. He travels back to CA to try and put his life back together.
Lastly, the 4th book is one that is getting much press this summer, and one that I have not started -- Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante. This book has received many excellent reviews and has been recommended by many. The protagonist, Dr. Jennifer White, is an orthopedic surgeon in the beginning stages of dementia. Can't wait to get to this one!
I find it strange that these 4 vastly different authors were all writing books dealing with memory loss and they were all published within a month of each other. Yet they are very different from each other.
Have you found any themes in your summer reading? Go pour yourself a glass of ice cold lemonade or tea and curl up with a book. You don't have to be at the beach to enjoy a book this summer.
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