What’s on your reading list this summer?

I decided to take a break from working on my master’s this summer because my Corps of Engineers husband got a three-month gig working in New Orleans. (That’s a whole other blog.…)  So, with some time to read non-textbook books, I’ve stocked my shelf with some old and new titles.

I’ve already knocked out “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy (bleak, but beautifully written), “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen (entertaining with some well-written passages, but I thought she wrote the main character as more mature than he would’ve been just out of college), “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines (the journal entries by the wrongly convicted Jefferson will have you crying at the end), and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini of  “The Kite Runner” fame. (Read my comments in response to the iDiva’s blog  here; I’m memgal.)

I’m slowly working through Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” which I never had to read in high school, and then will start on “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert before the final installment of the Harry Potter series hits my doorstep in July. (I’m a fan.)

I want to add something from John Updike and Philip Roth, two authors I’ve inexplicably never read. Where should I start? What other must-read books should I add to my list?