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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

06.19.2003

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the bookshelf:
summer
reading  
by Yee-Fan Sun
| 1 2

Summer-league soccer, lemonade stands, sleepaway camp, those after-dinner neighborhood kickball games that take advantage of the late-setting sun: these are the things summers are made of, when you’re a kid. But as a geek girl growing up in the suburbs, I have to confess: one of my favorite summer rituals was the pre-vacation book stock-up, where my parents would take my brothers and me into Harvard Square just before the requisite annual family trip, and let us loose in the stacks at the Coop. I’d leave with a heavy plastic bag full of books meant to tide me over the course of whatever impending vacation my parents had planned out for us – only to tear into them as soon as I got home, before the suitcases were even packed.  

Summer is still the time of year I find myself devouring books at a rate that my wallet finds most alarming. Graduations, weddings, and other trips away from home mean I spend way too much of my time sitting on planes and stuck in airports – which truth be told, isn’t so bad, since it provides me with the perfect excuse to spend hours and hours on end with my nose buried deep in a book.

While you’re battling the crowds trying to get your hands on a copy of the brand-spanking new Harry Potter this weekend, stock up on some other summer reads as well. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find me reading on long, lazy weekends this summer …


Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
 
Gregory Maguire
buy it

Every kid knows the story: how Dorothy tornadoed into the land of Oz, then set upon a journey down the Yellow Brick Road, meeting up with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion along the way, all four of them finally scoring a meeting with the Wizard, who sends them off on a mission to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. Good conquers evil: ding dong, the nasty Witch is dead, and sweet Dorothy gets to go home with a click of her fancy shoes. But as every adult knows, there’s generally more than one side to every story, and in Wicked, Gregory Maguire tells the tale from the perspective of the Witch of the West herself.  Born Elphaba, a mysterious little green girl who’s the product of a nymphomaniac mother and a neglectful, religious zealot of a preacher father, the Witch of Maguire’s story isn’t so terribly wicked at all. What she is instead is a bright, rebellious, agitator of the status quo, who grows up to be an animal rights crusader, a political activist/terrorist, a nun, a reluctant mother, a misunderstood loner.

Through its vividly-drawn picture of a fabulous fantasy world full of Munchkinlanders and magic, talking Animals, flying monkeys, and more, Wicked provides a fascinating social context and political/historical background for the land of Oz, as well as an interesting rumination on good and evil, fate and God and free will. Clever, witty, and frequently quite funny to boot, Wicked is great fun to read from start to finish.
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