August is upon us. The dog days are here. Make a last-ditch effort to wrangle some of the waning summer to read something new. I want to throw my own opinions into the mix, to offer up some insight into what I have grabbed to read over the past few months.

I read eclectically. I have a bookcase in my house that stretches down a long corridor. It hasn’t been there for very long. My old house burnt down in the wildfires of Northern California in 2017. The old house had what my family called the ‘magic bookcase.’ It wasn’t very large. This was a modest bookcase that took up the long wall in a back bedroom. It was just big enough to get lost in for a few minutes. And, somehow, the perfect book was always at hand. Without fail, the bookcase revealed the exact title to suit one’s inclination or passing fancy. Intrigued with the idea of learning all about bonsai? A primer on the art suddenly appeared on the shelf. Curious about birdsongs of North America? Here was a slim little volume that told you all about those warbles. And the fiction titles didn’t disappoint – from Russian classics to contemporary romances, the right book to suit your mood fell right into your fingertips.

The new bookcase doesn’t have the same allure yet. But, over time, I hope it begins to reflect my own free-ranging tastes. And somehow deliver its own magic — where myriad interests contribute to a bookcase that has every subject contained within it, and so, as if by the stroke of a wizard’s wand, just the right title will be revealed, every time you go looking for it.

This week’s entry was prompted by a magazine article that listed the twenty-five books that you should read before you die. I don’t know how the writer came up with their list. It seemed like a daunting task. How was someone supposed to winnow down a great number of favorites to such a small count?

So, in response, I have put together a short list of books that have been in my orbit over the past couple of months. These are books that have struck a chord within me. I miss them, now that they have been retired to the bookcase which is not quite yet magic. But some future intrepid search will release their joys once again for another reader. It may take decades for this to happen, for the bookcase to fully mature into offering up surprising titles that exactly match your mood or aspiration. These books have spoken to me – and you could do far worse than to pick up one of these books to read while the dog days of summer drag along, when disappearing into a different space altogether is essential to preserving your sanity.

Picking up a book also helps with the creative process, no matter the medium in which you are working. It takes a certain amount of fixed time to devote to a book. Several hours in which the only demand is to contemplate the pleasures of someone’s else’s artistic endeavor. It should inspire you with your own work, once you have come back from wherever the book had transported you.

Here is my list. I hope it inspires your own magic bookcase. These are the books that have been on my nightstand over the past few months, offering some respite as the mercury has climbed up the thermometer.

Willa Cather’s novel Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) is sublime. I found it on the shelf of the newly minted bookcase sometime this past spring. Her narrative voice has such authority. The reader has this notion that what she is putting down on the page truly came to pass. The story has a certain kind of inevitability to it. The most horrific events occur within its pages, yet they are so calmly and purposefully handled that they lose all sensationalism. I love the landscape too – of the American southwest – and she speaks to that barren quality of the landscape, where mystery and miracle and tragedy hide behind every stark pine tree.

Killing Commendatore (2018), Haruki Murakami. I am a huge fan of Murakami. He was one of the first authors that I had to replace when stocking the new bookcase. I have waxed poetic about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle elsewhere. His characters always encounter the most peculiar set of circumstances, which move from surreal to science fiction. But, along the way, his characters assume a grounded quality which makes the very strangeness of the story all the more likely. I always marvel at his authorial acrobatics. This particular novel concerns an unusual figure in a painting, who slides off the canvas one day and begins to animate the story. This painted figure, now acting of its own volition, brings together a diverse set of flesh-and-blood characters, who all must reckon with both their own personal past and the history of their community as well.

The Association of Small Bombs (2016) by Karan Mahajan. This is a beautiful book. It starts with a tragic event in India, which sets off an exploration into family history, and how the grand sweep of historical events must be reckoned with in the everyday choices of the individuals involved. The book moves with such confidence through the quiet dramas that erupt in the wake of the inciting event. Mahajan holds the reader’s awareness of both the large societal implications of terrorism and the ways in which the bomb blast which starts this story maneuvers through this closely observed family history.

Night Boat to Tangier (2019), by Kevin Barry. This tightly woven story is beautiful in all its bleakness. It tells the story of two men waiting at the port in Algeciras, Spain, for one of their daughters to either return from Tangiers or leaving for the city in Morocco later that night. The story is so spare. I love the quality, when it appears in fiction, for it means that the writer intimately knows their characters and only needs to provide the most essential information to carry the story forward. Barry has got it down. And once he establishes setting, Barry confidently moves back in time to reveal a heart-wrenching story of love and betrayal.

Plainsong (1999) by Kent Haruf. A friend recommended this book to me. It is one of those slim books that carries such profound emotional weight. The book reads like poetry. It tells the story of a community grappling with change of the most quotidian and the most evocative. The characters of this remote Western town move with precision, through this barren landscape. A young woman is pregnant; she must find some safe place to carry the baby to term. The characters and the landscape operate in perfect accord, as the author works out way in which the community comes together to support this young woman. It is a beautifully textured novel.