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Book Party For One: A Loner's Summer Survival Guide

Harriet Russell

Summer is a season when people get hypersocial — with barbecues and neighborhood fairs, graduations and pool parties. In short, it's an especially trying time for those of us who'd rather stay indoors and read a book. My early summer reading list, therefore, takes the form of a loner's survival guide.

The nonfiction books on this list are filled with such marvelous facts and anecdotes; they'll arm you with a supply of handy conversational tidbits should you have to socialize. The letter collection and novels I'm recommending are so absorbing they'll give you the moral courage to draw the curtains, crank up the air conditioning and ignore all unwelcome invitations.

Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan