It should be exciting, witty, light – and in the truest sense too. And it should also elevate, appease and shake the imagination… We have very high hopes for our fleeting vacation reading. Do you already know what you will take with you to read on vacation? Psychologies experts have selected for you the most popular summer genres.
Together with an ironic detective story, a philosophical treatise or a “little book about great love”, we pack our dreams and desires, secret and explicit, into a suitcase. Everyone has their own – like books. “On weekdays, we try to observe the “principle of reality,” explains psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova, “we restrain ourselves from spontaneous manifestations, we are reluctant to let fantasies into our lives, we are afraid of not meeting some internal or social requirements, and therefore, for example, we avoid reading “any nonsense” like science fiction or women’s novels. On vacation, the “principle of pleasure” comes into force – and we allow ourselves to be naive, dreamy and experience vivid emotions along with fictional characters.
Anyone who lacks intrigue and bright events in life, who likes to solve riddles and look for answers to questions, will willingly imagine himself in the place of the hero of a spy detective. “At the same time, detectives, like scientific books, are also taken up by those who, even on vacation, find it difficult to relax and need to constantly maintain a certain level of tension,” the psychoanalyst clarifies. – Romance novels allow you to experience a forgotten or untested passion. Sometimes identification with the heroine becomes the only way for a woman to satisfy the need for intimacy, which she is afraid to realize with real people. Reading memoirs and biographies reflects not only the love of peeping through the keyhole, but also our secret narcissism: we unwittingly look for ideal images of ourselves or our loved ones in great people.
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Do you already know what you will take with you to read on vacation? Psychologies experts have selected for you the most popular summer genres.
Ask an expert
Kirill Krasnik, editor-in-chief of the Azbuka-classic series, Azbuka publishing house.
“Books selected by time itself”
The classic, published in paperback and pocket format, is a favorite vacation read. For 17 years, the Azbuka publishing house has published more than 1500 books in dark green binding with a total circulation of more than 30 million copies.
Psychologies : Have the interests of readers of classical literature changed over the years?
K.K. : Readers are always primarily interested in good books. And that is why it is easy and pleasant to choose authors for our series – we publish the best that has been written from Antiquity to the present day. Products with a mark of quality, which time has set. Now we often associate the release of books with film premieres – films based on classical works cause a surge of interest in the original source, regardless of the quality of the picture. But there is also an unexpected persistence. For example, I am surprised by the continued interest in Freud’s work. Why they are so popular, I don’t know. For me it’s a mystery.
And yet, is there a seasonal demand for books?
K.K. : It’s a myth that we take some books on the plane and read others at home. How many readers, so many rules for reading. But we try to take into account the nuances. In the fall, we care more about students and schoolchildren – we republish the classics that are included in the training courses. And in the summer – love and detective novels of the XIX century, Zola, Balzac, Wilkie Collins. They are more willing to buy. On the one hand, this literature is certainly of high quality, it cannot deceive. And on the other hand, it is easy to read, allows you to fly away from the present, which is what many of us strive for on vacation.
Interview Alla Anufrieva
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Detectives
Rumors about the total victory of the “computer thriller”, where there is no plot without high technology, are exaggerated: the traditional detective story is unlikely to disappear from the literary map. There will always be riddles in the world that – with all due respect to the computer – only a person can handle.
Roman Arbitman, literary critic, author of detective stories (under the pseudonym Lev Gursky). Based on his novel “Change of Places”, the series “Dossier of Detective Dubrovsky” was filmed (dir. Alexander Muratov).
“Believe My Lies” by Elizabeth George
Although the American Elizabeth George is not related to the Englishwoman Agatha Christie, she is considered her heiress: as in Christie’s novels, George’s plot is an interweaving of related-love-financial interests of many people, and anyone can be a murderer. The protagonist, Thomas Linley, is not only an employee of Scotland Yard, but also a lord who easily fits into high society, where the most intricate crimes are committed. You need to be patient, keep watch at the family closets – and soon skeletons will definitely start falling out from there.
Translation from English by Tatyana Golubeva.
Eksmo, 672 p.
The Mysterious Case of Jumpy Jack by Mark Hodder
Jumping Jack, like his namesake the Ripper, is a real character in the London criminal chronicle of the XNUMXth century. However, the detectives Burton and Swinburne have little resemblance to their prototypes, the traveler and the poet. And Victorian England, where the action takes place, is not like itself: the increasingly popular genre of “alternative history” is increasingly capturing related genres, from melodrama to film thriller, and in combination with a detective story, it gives rise to amazing stories where reality recedes with a slight curtsy, and because the outcome is unpredictable.
Translation from English by Alexander Virokhovsky. BMM, 352 p.
Heat by Jesse Kellerman
Perfect proof that a woman armed with a Noble Mission can move mountains. Secretary Gloria (36 years old, divorced) in search of her disappeared boss, she cares about, will make a dangerous journey into the Mexican outback – where the heat is crazy and where there is no more justice than in the movie Desperado. The writer saved the action-style scenes for last, although – a rare case for a detective – not only the plot is interesting here, but also the heroine herself, who at the beginning of the novel does not suspect what she will be capable of at the end.
Translation from English by Sergei Ilyin. Phantom Press, 416 p.
Quote
“Look around. How many female detectives work in Homicide? The one and only, and you talk to her”
Jane Rizzoli and pathologist Maura Isles investigate a horrific crime in Boston’s Chinatown. The impulsive Rizzoli and the calm Isles make – to the envy of men – the perfect team.
Tess Gerritsen Deadly Silence.
Translation from English by Olga Lyutova. Book club 36. 6, 320 p.
“Opponents” John Grisham
The beginning promises a familiar plot: proud loners go into battle with corporations. Justice is on the side of the first, money is on the side of the second, and now … Stop! In the new book of the master of the forensic detective, everything is different. That is, the defendant, a pharmaceutical company, is indeed a monster, but the representatives of the plaintiffs are still piranhas. They don’t care if the new drug is really dangerous to health: the main thing is to get involved in a corporate lawsuit and grab a bigger piece. Young lawyer David Zink will find himself between two fires, and he will have to try very hard to win. Well, or at least just be an honest person.
Translation from English by Elena Filippova. Astrel, 480 p.
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Novels
A family saga, an intellectual short story, a book with a historical plot – good modern novels give us leisurely reading and deep immersion in the world of strangers and amazing events, convincing and somehow subtly recognizable.
Evgenia Vezhlyan, literary critic, member of the editorial board of the Znamya magazine.
The Sealed Letter Emma Donoghue
The book by the Irish writer and literary historian Emma Donoghue is full of finely written details of Victorian life, but it captures above all a psychologically accurate and sometimes ruthless study of female friendship. The plot is based on the documents of the real divorce proceedings, which took place in 1864 in England. The main witness in the case, Emily Faithfull, Lady Cordington’s former companion, testifies against her friend. And it turns out that the tender friendship of the two women hides completely different feelings.
Translation from English by L. Igorevsky.
Centerpolygraph, 413 p.
“Things are yours, love” Javier Marias
Every morning, young Spaniard Maria admires the perfect couple, husband and wife, who have breakfast in a small cafe near the publishing house where she works. But one day in the newspaper she sees a picture of a man who was attacked in a car park, and recognizes his face … Someone else’s tragedy disrupts the measured course of her life. The novel by Javier Morias combines a long, detailed reflection of the heroine and a tense plot with unexpected twists and pulsating rhythm, in the spirit of a passionate flamenco.
Translation from Spanish by Nadezhda Mechtaeva. Corpus, 416 p.
“Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen
You sink into this novel with a pleasant feeling that you are at home. Here everything is according to your standards and everything is familiar: the grumbling of old parents shuffling around the cottage littered with old things, and concern for children, especially the youngest, who wants to create something great, but only endlessly borrows money, and eternal quarrels of relatives, so fiercely loving each other, and their constant reconciliation … You swim along this stream of life and want it to never end. The episodes of the book mix with their own memories, giving rise to sweet nostalgia and a childish sense of security and comfort.
Translation from English by Lyubov Summ. Corpus, 673 p.
Quote
“Sometimes, when I turn on the computer, I feel like I’m sitting in a casino in front of a slot machine. I also get goosebumps with anticipation that anything is possible.”
Alice, 43, a teacher, wife and mother of two, answers an anonymous online family survey and unexpectedly strikes up a candid correspondence with its author. A good, ironic and gracefully built story.
Melanie Gideon “Woman-22”.
Translation from English by Elena Valkina. Corpus, 544 p.
“Call of an Angel” Guillaume Musso
Is it possible to build a prosperous life by avoiding any thoughts about the past? Turn, say, this past into an encrypted file and bury it in the memory of your mobile device? It seems that Madeleine, the heroine of a short story by the young and already very famous French writer Guillaume Musso, successfully coped with this task. However, Madeleine’s chance meeting at the Paris airport with restaurant owner Jonathan will show that electronics are the best way not to keep secrets, but … to get rid of them!
Translation from French by Sergei and Konstantin Nechaev. Eksmo, 416 p.
Read more:
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Essay
Introspection of a famous scientist, revelations of a supermodel, memories of a famous writer’s brother… Three personal stories about fears and despair, perseverance and inspiration, about finding one’s own path.
Vladimir Gubailovsky, mathematician by education, literary critic, writer. In 2012, his novel The Teacher of Cynicism was published in the Novy Mir magazine.
Confessions of a Young Novelist by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco is not young at all (he was born in 1932), but he is indeed a young novelist, since he wrote his first novel when he was almost 50 years old. In this book, the Eco-philologist analyzes his writing experience, and the result is breathtaking: those who have long been familiar with The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum suddenly see these novels as if illuminated from the inside and distinguish details that only the author-scientist and can show.
Translation from English by Alexander Klimin. Corpus, 320 p.
Veruschka. My life” by Vera Lendorf, Jorn Jacob Rover
In the life of the world-famous model Verushka, the daughter of the Prussian aristocrat Heinrich von Lendorf, there were ups and downs and periods of severe depression. But she managed to come back and again amaze the world with her wrong, harsh beauty. Verushka sought to prove that the model is not a dress hanger, not a “plasticine” in the hands of a photographer, but a real artist who uses his body in the same way that a writer uses his talent.
Translation from German by Evgenia Menikova. Hummingbird, 328 p.
The Unauthentic Life of Sergei Nabokov by Paul Russell
Sergei is only 11 months younger than his brother. But Vladimir Nabokov barely mentions him: Sergei was gay, which was not approved of in the Nabokov family. The story of Sergey’s life is a story about gaining freedom. A stuttering young man, having gone through many traumatic events, suddenly ceases to hide his orientation and rejection of the Nazi regime in Nazi Germany: he is tired of being afraid. Paul Russell’s novel is a fictitious memoir that Sergei Nabokov writes down in late 1943 in anticipation of his imminent arrest.
Translation from English by Sergei Ilyin. Phantom Press, 416 p.