When I think of summer reading I think of book challenges from my local library. I’d sign up as a kid and track my reading habits for the chance of winning something fun like tickets to Six Flags or—more likely—a special bookmark or T-shirt. I never got the Six Flags tickets, but I always had fun trying to read as voraciously as I could all summer long.
While we didn’t have any prizes to give out at the end of our summer reading survey, last month we asked readers to tell us what they were reading by neighborhood, just for fun. You sure did deliver, Chicago! We got pages of responses from Chicago readers on what books they were enjoying.
Some found inspiration from the Reader itself, like one anonymous reader in Hyde Park who read the novel Whalefall by Chicago author Daniel Kraus, a new book contributor Janet Potter recently reviewed. Others were reading books that you wouldn’t be remiss to think had been reviewed or mentioned in our pages, like Niles Baranowski in Logan Square who read Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations with Coil, a compendium of interviews with core members of the British experimental band Coil.
“The Winter’s Orbit Duology by Everina Maxwell is two fantastic sci-fi tales with easy-to-grasp world-building and dreamy romances,” Hannah F., Mount Greenwood
“Just finished Agency by William Gibson. Currently reading Monolithic Undertow and Neil Young on Neil Young,” Alex V., Avondale
“I’m reading Paul Tremblay lately. I just finished Pallbearer’s Club and kept right into A Head Full of Ghosts,” Jennifer K., Humboldt Park
“Sci fi,” Kyle, Rogers Park
Speaking with people at local bookstores and libraries, popular book readerships often varied by neighborhood. Logan Square’s reading habits during the summer include a lot of children’s fantasy, nonfiction, and manga series, according to Erica Gamble, a children’s librarian at the Chicago Public Library’s Logan Square branch. The neighborhood kids tend to read more for fun during the summer months, many checking out large collections of books for summer road trips.
“We’re one of the busiest branches in the city, up there with some of the regional locations. I think that really speaks to the community being a community of readers,” Gamble says.
“Coda (Spurrier and Bergara). At first it seems like a straight-forward fantasy about a loner type on a quest to save his wife. But then . . . ” Isabelle P., Scottsdale/Ashburn
“History of Burning, Temple Folk, We are a Haunting, The Grimkes, Black Women Writers @Work. And I can’t wait for I Done Clicked My Heels 3x!,” Ariana, South Loop
“Currently: Artist by Yeong-Shin Ma & An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays. Just finished: Siddhartha by H. Hesse,” Echo, Ukrainian Village
“The House of Rust – Khadija Abdalla Bajaber,” Anonymous, West Ridge/Pilsen
Joe Judd from Tangible Books, a used bookstore located in Bridgeport, also notices a regional distinction in reading habits. He says the difference between what people read on the north side versus what people read on the south side is surprising to him.
Twelve years ago, Judd owned Myopic Books in Wicker Park, which he says primarily sold contemporary fiction then. Tangible Books currently sells more nonfiction than anything else, particularly political science, Black studies, science, and women’s studies.
“It’s really surprising in this neighborhood, at least to me, even though I live here. I thought [the books that patrons buy] would be more working-class stuff like books about sports, suspense novels, that kind of thing,” Judd says. “But it’s not. People bring in and buy a lot of architecture—we have a whole architecture section—a lot of philosophy, history, art books, stuff like that.” Judd just finished God’s Lunatics by Michael Largo, an encyclopedia of strange religions, cults, and spiritual movements.
Responses from the poll also hint at a south-side love for nonfiction. In Bronzeville, Tracy Kurowski read When McKinsey Comes to Town by New York Times reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, about the powerful consulting firm and its moral failings. And in Hyde Park, Livy Snyder read Medieval Music and the Art of Memory by Anna Berger, an academic book that challenges conventional ideas about medieval music.
Speaking with Myopic Books’ current co-owner (and Reader contributor) J.R. Nelson, what Judd says about the reading habits of north-side versus south-side Chicagoans seems to hold true. Myopic predominantly sells fiction, indicative of the north-side neighborhood’s popular reading habits that Judd spoke of. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t an increasing readership of nonfiction books. Nelson says most of Myopic’s new books—as opposed to their customary used-books traffic—are 50 percent nonfiction with a politically left-leaning point of view.
“[These books are] a little bit less genre specific and more perspective specific, where we have folks who are looking for a lot of progressive, politically minded writers [writing] nonfiction, philosophy, and cultural studies,” Nelson says. “I would say—by a very wide margin—the most asked-for book here right now is All About Love by bell hooks. Any kind of stuff that hooks has written I have a very hard time keeping in stock.”
Clear genre boundaries between neighborhood readerships weren’t as evident from the book poll, but there were thematic similarities in what was read. On the north side, Courtney in Lakeview read Jeanette McCurdy’s popular autobiography I’m Glad My Mom Died, a brutally funny and heartbreaking look at the childhood of the iCarly star. In the southwest suburbs, Brecken Cutler was reading Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence this summer, a book that also features a cast of sinister characters performing horrible deeds in a seemingly playful setting.
“Hangman by Maya Binyam,” Anonymous, Logan Square
“L.A. Weather, Maria Amparo Escandon,” Crystal B., Irving Park community
“Going on a science fiction summer quest, reading A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge,” Ted, Wildwood
“Currently reading Politics in Russia by Thomas Remington, just finished The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver and Herzog by Saul Bellow.” Anonymous, Oak Park.
Overall, and in keeping with current trends, many readers appeared to be enjoying an eclectic mix of fantasy, philosophy, politics, history, and sci-fi books—including this writer, who over the summer had their nose in a cozy fantasy, Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree; it’s the tale of an orc who opens up a coffee shop in a medieval, Dungeons & Dragons-esque town where no one knows what coffee is. I live in Logan Square, so I guess a young-adult fiction book means I fall in with the crowd.
