I almost always have a list of books I want to read, and it never seems to get any shorter, but while on vacation last week I made a good dent in it.  Being fortunate enough to have a family vacation home on Cape Cod, I’ll have plenty more opportunities this summer to check off a couple more books.  After all, as I am fond of saying to friends who notice I disappear for the middle months of each year, the beach isn’t going to sit on itself.

With that in mind, and since Mike was kind enough to share with us some of his summer reads, I thought I’d do the same.

1. Just this morning on the T, I finally picked up Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  It is a book I’ve been meaning to read for some time, but for one reason or another have always put off.  With failed vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s run for office last year, and with all the discussion about whether the Russian-born novelist or his Catholic faith had more influence on his policy decisions, I firmly placed it on my list for this summer.
2. I had actually planned to read Atlas Shrugged while on vacation, but got distracted by several other excellent works.  One of the best, which I finished in less than two days  baking on the beach, was Forbidden Fruit by Mark Regenus.  The title comes from the Book of Genesis and is a sociological study of sex, religion, and American teenagers.  The work was fascinating, but I think it can be summed up by saying that which denomination an adolescent belongs to is less important than how deeply they feel religious convictions.  That is to say that the sex lives of nominally Catholic and nominally evangelical youths look a lot more alike than those of devout and non-practicing Catholics.  Almost none of them, however, reflect  Church teaching on the matter.
3. Also in the world of sociology, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men by Michael Kimmel will hopefully be checked off before Labor Day.  It describes a cohort of 16-22 year old guys in America who are “obsessed with never wanting to grow up; this demographic, which is 22 million strong, craves video games, sports and depersonalized sexual relationships.”  Even though I am now outside this age bracket, I can’t say that I don’t recognize at least a few of these traits in my friends, and myself.
4. As much as there is to condemn in modern American guy culture, I think most of us would pick it over the world of Yanomamö Indians, one of the last large tribal groups still living in isolation.  Far from being the peaceful, if undeveloped, people described by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Napoleon Chagnon found a remarkably violent society where men often killed for women and revenge, and described it in Noble Savages.
5. I don’t normally read much fiction, but I try to reread Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World every few years.  My civil libertarian tendencies aside, I am much more worried about the “utopia” described here than I am with, say, the Big Brother dictatorship described in Orwell’s 1984.  When I look at our own country, I am not as concerned about the overreach of the government–though it is at times certainly an issue–as I am with people willing to numb themselves with a drink, drug, or screen.  Society worries more me much more than the Feds.  How many more people would choose a life of luxury devoid of any real humanity to an authentic life under the thumb of a brutal tyrant?  Bravehearts most people are not.
6. The novel Small Gods satirizes much of religion, religious practices, and the role of religion in public life.  Terry Pratchett’s criticisms aren’t totally off the mark, but I’m not running out to pick up any of the other books in this series.  It wasn’t bad, but fantasy novels just aren’t my thing.
7. If a little neuroscience is your thing (or even if it isn’t) I really enjoyed Permanent Present Tense by Suzanne Conklin.  A professor at MIT, she tells the story of a man who had experimental brain surgery in the ‘50s to cure his epilepsy, and unfortunately lost his ability to form new memories.  He lived his life in 15 to 30 second increments, and as soon as the moment was over he had no recollection of the experience.  It gets a bit technical at times, but the underlying story is well worth the read.
8. I’m saving Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan for some weekend when the house is overrun with guests.  It’s not that I think the book is unimportant, but I don’t imagine that I will need to concentrate much to read this Catholic comedian’s take on living in a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan with his five kids, and the other joys of parenthood.  I’m not a father myself, but I take some comfort in Gaffigan’s statement that “Ten years ago I couldn’t get a date, and now my apartment’s crawling with babies.”
9. I know this list is all over the place, and so to round it out I thought I’d include a few of the others that have made my list that might be of interest to Millennial readers.  On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good, is Jim Wallis’ latest.  Robert George writes at the Catholic legal blog Mirror of Justice, and his new book is Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism.  Finally, when the Iranian-born Reza Aslan first heard the Gospel as a young teen, he had a powerful experience and converted from Islam.  On NPR last week discussing his new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, he described how he now considers himself a follower of Jesus but not a Christian.  Should be an interesting read on multiple fronts.