Jumpstart your summer reading list with new Alberto Ríos poetry, a Baldwin biography and more

Summer always comes earlier than we’d like it to here in Phoenix. But there are some benefits to that. For example, we get a jumpstart on building our summer reading lists.

In other places, it’ll be another month or two before people start thinking about the books they want to curl up with to beat the heat, but we get to — or maybe have to — do that right now.

Mark Athitakis, a Phoenix-based journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other places, joined The Show to give some recommendations.

Mark Athitakis

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: So I wanted to start with, there's a new biography of James Baldwin that is out. It's by Nicholas Boggs, and you know we see James Baldwin quotes a lot, like on t-shirts and posters and things, which can make it feel like we already know a tremendous amount about him. But, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first significant biography of him in some time.

MARK ATHITAKIS: Yes, and we have a habit, I think, of simplifying a lot of authors, like James Baldwin. And, yes, this is the first major biography of him in about three decades, and the subtitle of it is “A Love Story.” And part of Boggs' goal with this book is to look at James Baldwin through the filter of his relationships, his affairs, the people that he cared for and that is intended to reveal a different side of him. And Boggs uncovered previously unearthed writings looking through the archives at the Yale Library and other locations, and it creates a fuller portrait of who he is.

DINGMAN: It seems like an interesting lens for approaching Baldwin, who is in the aggregate so well known for his ideas, these philosophical pronouncements that he made that are so profound and moving, but getting to understand his inner life seems like a pretty fresh perspective.

ATHITAKIS: Well, he always operated on two levels. There was the author of “The Fire Next Time,” which was more of a Jeremiah, but he's also the author obviously of “Giovanni's Room,” which is one of the pioneering LGBTQ novels as well. So, understanding James Baldwin means understanding both of those elements of him.

DINGMAN: Let's shift now to, there's a new book [The Emperor of Gladness] by Ocean Vuong, and, and you actually recently talked to Ocean about this book for Kirkis Reviews. Tell us about this book.

ATHITAKIS: So this is his second novel, his first novel called “On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous,” was much acclaimed when it came out in 2017. And this one, you know, there's a dearth of working class American novels, and this novel is largely set in what you and I would recognize as a Boston Market. And exploring the notion of, “if your real family is fractured, how do you create a family that you're basically thrust into,” the workplace environment.

DINGMAN: Let me just clarify, you mean Boston Market, like the restaurant?

ATHITAKIS: Exactly. Yes, exactly. So, and he's talked about how he worked in these places growing up and was really interested in the idea of about, “how do we build relationships and how do we build almost familiar relationships with people when we don't know who they are and we know them first because we have work tasks.”

DINGMAN: Wow. Well, shifting out of this particular style of writing, if we could, Mark, I wanted to also talk about Alberto Ríos' new collection of poetry, “Every Sound Is Not A Wolf.” Tell us about this collection.

ATHITAKIS: So Alberto Rios, obviously, he was a former Arizona poet laureate and is a veteran poet writing in a variety of forms. This particular collection is made up entirely of poems that are couplets and focused on boyhood, the desert and interested in themes of delicacy and resilience. And to your point earlier about how we get a jump on things in the summer heat here in Arizona, there is one poem of his in this collection that speaks pretty much directly to that, and I could read it if you like.

DINGMAN: I would love to have you read it.

ATHITAKIS: Sure. So the poem is called “One More Sonoran Summer.”

ATHITAKIS: Here, when the first 100 degree day arrives, someone wins a contest, and they're happy. Everyone else is lost, however, and knows 100 degrees is just the start. 110 feels much the same. When it comes, and it does, it most certainly does. No lithe impressive dodgeball move here. One newspaper winner again. But then the rest of us, the humor wears thin, as do the constant complaints finally about how unbelievably ridiculously hot it is. So simply what follows, however, is our lives, the regular us, albeit slower in hotter cars and sweating. But us: professors, miners, astronomers, librarians, candy makers. We go on in this place, this desert, so full of apparently nothing, no skyscrapers out there, only cactus, no freeways but arroyos. This desert, so full of apparently nothing. But that trick is itself the great mirage of the Sonoran Desert, along with the cholla and orange trees, the iguanas, the thunderstorms, tortoises, turquoise and tarantulas. We are here. We have always been here. We will be here. We stay inside, we move slowly, we go where we must. We too are some of the animals of the desert, this whole world baying at the moon and marveling at the jackrabbit's ears.

DINGMAN: “We stay inside, we move slowly, we go where we must.” That's beautiful, that's beautiful. Well, we have just about a minute left, Mark. Let's close out with the new novel by Gary Shteyngart, who I know is a favorite of yours.

ATHITAKIS: Oh, absolutely, and one of our funniest writers and one of our most socially astute writers as well. And so, this novel is titled “Vera, or Faith,” it comes out in July, and it is a take on the Henry James story, “What Maisie Knew,” which is told from the perspective of a young child. And so, Gary Shteyngart is an expert at fracturing and fragmented families and finding the humor in it. So, telling that from the perspective of a 10 year old is something that he was practically born to do.