You Won't Be Able to Put These Books Down

Welcome to the first installment of Sizzling Summer Reads, a new seasonal feature on New Milford Patch. Finally have the time to pick up a book but just don't know which one to choose? Well, you've come to the right place. 

Each week, we'll be sharing Patch picks and reader suggestions for great books. We need your help -- send an e-mail to tracy.montgomery@patch.com with your suggestions for books that you think your neighbors would love to read.

This week, writer Ann Piccirillo makes suggestions for great reads with a Roaring 20s theme:

Frankly, being lost in Paris in the Roaring 20s drinking, dancing and creating art is not a bad way to spend the summer. So grab your gin and let's shimmy our way back to glorious days gone by.

 The Paris Wife, Paula McClain.

Based on the letters and journals of Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson, The Paris Wife is a novel about Hemingway’s years in Paris (1920-1927) as told by his first wife, Hadley Richardson. This fast-moving story of a young Hemingway trying to find his voice brings A Moveable Feast to life. Grab a drink, find a comfortable chair and get set to immerse yourself in the gin-soaked era of the jazz age in Paris. This is a book that you just won’t be able to put down.

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

You can’t possibly read The Paris Wife without reaching for a copy of A Moveable Feast.  It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve read this book as an undergrad, it holds a deeper meaning now. In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway reflects upon his life as a struggling writer and newlywed in 1920s Paris where he writes, “We were very poor and very happy.” Told with more than a hint of nostalgia, Hemingway speaks to all of us who look upon our past as golden moments.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Despite the fact that a 3D movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio is set for release in June 2012, you should still read the novel because the themes resonate as much today as they did when the novel was published in 1925: an America in the middle of a financial crisis and a culture seemingly consumed by moral depravity (hello??? Housewives of…, Jersey Shore). The setting is the North Shore of Long Island and New York City in the heat of the summer, Gatsby is an age-old story about longing, desire and reinventing ourselves in the pursuit of getting what we want.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein

No, not the Peter Sellers movie, I Love You Alice B. Toklas, where he goes from a straight businessman to a hippie eating groovy brownies, this is a memoir written by Gertrude Stein in the voice of her companion, Alice B. Toklas, about her past. A great romp through the world of ex-pats in 1920s Paris.

Everybody Was So Young, A Lost Generation Love Story, Amanda Vaill

Sara and Gerald Murphy were handsome, wealthy Americans with homes in Paris and the South of France who were at the very cultural center of the ex-patriate community in the 1920s. Hosts and benefactors to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Parker, Dos Passos, Cole Porter and just about everyone else who came to France in the 1920s. Known for their wildly fabulous parties, Fitzgerald used them as his characters, Nicole and Dick Diver in Tender is the Night. If you think you know about France in the 20s but don’t know about Sara and Gerald Murphy, then you know nothing about the 20s.

Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin,Writers Running Wild in the Twenties, Marion Meade

Free love, dancing and drinking martinis all night long, this book embodies the spirit of the originalSex and the City girls who roamed the world in the Roaring 20s: Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edna Ferber. This book is like sitting in a salon listening to someone retell the stories of their wild youth. You’ll be captivated from page one.

The Ladies of the Corridor, Dorothy Parker

Based on Parker’s life, The Ladies of the Corridor is a searing tale about women living in a New York residence hotel. Using her razor-sharp wit, Parker explores the limitations that women faced in 1920s New York.

Don’t forget to keep letting us know what’s on your reading list this summer! Tell us in the comments.