Required Reads

Ten books you won’t be reading this summer

 

1.

Tuesdays With Prince

By Prince
So, the secrets of life are a purple motorcycle, not making doves cry, and never—ever—signing a contract with Warner Bros.? Okay, just checking.

2.

Lake Wobegon Gets a Wal-Mart

By Garrison Keillor
What happens when Lake Wobegon is annexed into the Twin Cities’ suburban sprawl, gets a big-box store and a Cracker Barrel, and the lake is filled in to develop McMansions.

3.

Bad Questions: The Stupidest Things People Have Ever Asked Me

By Jason DeRusha
From “Is Amelia nice?” to “Why are the Packers so dumb?” to “Would you rather be stuck in a canoe in the Boundary Waters with Don Shelby or stuck inside Adrian Peterson’s shoulder pads for an entire game?”

4.

The Edina Diet

By Lynne Rossetto Kasper
How to have your cake and eat it, too: the no-guilt guide to the good life for those who don’t deserve it (and are okay with that).

5.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Billionaires

By Zygi Wilf
Be rich. Stay rich. You can forget the other five.

6.

Where I Hid the Money

By Dennis Hecker
Knew it!

7.

Where I Hid the Ruby Slippers

By The Wicked Witch Of The West
Knew it!

8.

Ouch!

By Adrian Peterson’s Shoulder Pads
Sample quote: “I’d rather be stuck in a canoe in the Boundary Waters with Don Shelby.”

9.

Conspiracy of Love

By Michele Bachmann and Danielle Steel
The politician’s first foray into romance novels revolves around a plot to warm the earth to the point that no one needs clothes and everyone lives sexily ever after.

10. 

Joe Mauer’s Sideburns

By Joe Mauer
A remarkably deep, almost Proustian analysis of the long, hairy strips, from shaving strategies (once a week, toe clipper!) to ideal length (“four inches—any longer and they look like two shy caterpillars trying to mate”) to their Samson-like powers at the plate (“moving my head slowly from side to side seems to hypnotize pitchers; also, they make ideal gum holders”). Brilliant.