Summertime reading
I have a summertime ritual of rereading a bunch of Anne Tyler books. I read them at the beach as a young adult every summer, sitting under an umbrella avoiding the sun. It was a ritual my mom and I had, and we'd switch books as we finished them. My favorite was always Ladder of Years, followed closely by Searching for Caleb. I'd sometimes read those two or three times in one summer. They haunted my imagination with their poignant love stories and both reverence for and rejection of tradition. My moms favorites were Accidental Tourist and The Tin Can tree. I think she related to the kooky love story, and the concept of the death of a child was intensely personal to her, as she'd just miscarried a little while before we started doing this. We wouldn't only read them on the beach, sometimes we'd read them on our summer porch with tea, but that's the memory re-reading those books brings up. Sitting next to my mom, surrounded by the large group of kids we always had ...