So, I’ve finally come up with a summer reading theme: Seeing as both the Olympic Games and the European Football (Soccer) Championship have been pushed back to this year from 2020 due to the pandemic (and 3 of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments are also set while it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere), I hereby present — * drumroll *…
Summer Games!
The theme doesn’t only include sports games, though, but also card games and any other activity coming under the heading “game” (or “gam(bl)ing”). Here’s my (very tentative) reading list, culled from my TBR:
Nancy Marie Brown: A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse (new)
Italo Calvino: The Castle of Crossed Destinies (tarot; new) – 07/25 
Agatha Christie: The Seven Dials Mystery (whist) – 06/07 
/ Cards on the Table (bridge) – 08/03 
/ The Sittaford Mystery (crossword puzzles, acrostics, a seance as (de-facto) parlour game) – 08/05 /Murder in the Mews (golf) – 07/31 
(all rereads)
Michael Connelly: Murder in Vegas: New Crime Tales of Gambling and Desperation (new)
Gary Corby: Sacred Games (Olympic Games; new) – 07/05 
Colin Dexter: An Inspector Morse mystery: The Daughters of Cain (crossword puzzles; TBD but definitely a reread) – 07/31
Brian Flynn: The Five Red Fingers (horse racing; new) – 08/31
Dick Francis: A horse racing mystery: High Stakes (new) – 07/02
Stephen Fry: The Stars’ Tennis Balls (school sports, cricket, sailing, chess, backgammon; new) – 07/06
Elizabeth George: Playing for the Ashes (cricket; reread) – 08/01
J.M. Gregson: Murder at the Nineteenth (golf; new) – 07/18
Leonard Gribble: The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (football / soccer; new) – 06/29
Cyril Hare: Death Is No Sportsman (fishing; new) – 08/17
Tony Hawks: Playing the Moldovans at Tennis (tennis, football / soccer; new)
Georgette Heyer: Duplicate Death (bridge; reread) – 06/09
Elmore Leonard: Tishomingo Blues (high diving; new)
E.C.R. Lorac: Checkmate to Murder (chess; new) – 07/25
Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (horse racing; new)
Bernard Malamud: The Natural (baseball; book new to me, though I’ve seen the movie) – 08/12
Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (competition dancing; new)
Michael McGarrity: The Big Gamble (casinos / gambling; new)
Sara Paretsky: Deadlock (hockey, sailing; new) – 07/12
Robert B. Parker: Small Vices (tennis) – 08/09 & Hugger Mugger (horse racing) (both rereads)
Otto Penzler (ed.), Various Authors: Murder at the Foul Line (basketball) – 08/14 & Murder is my Racquet (tennis) – 08/11 (both new)
Arturo Pérez-Reverte: El maestro de esgrima (The Fencing Master) (fencing; new) – 08/07 & La tabla de Flandes (The Flanders Panel) (chess; new)
Nicholas Pileggi: Casino (gambling / Las Vegas; book new to me, though I’ve seen the movie)
Dorothy L. Sayers: Clouds of Witness (card sharping) – 06/08 & Five Red Herrings (fishing) (both rereads) – 06/10
Diana Secker Tesdell (ed.), Various Authors: Horse Stories (new)
C.P. Snow: Death Under Sail (sailing; new) – 08/08
Mary Stewart: Airs Above the Ground (dressage / Spanish Riding School; new) – 07/10
James Swain: Grift Sense (blackjack / Las Vegas; new)
Julian Symons: The Players and the Game (tennis, psychopathic LARP; new) – 07/15 
Peter Temple: Black Tide (horse racing; new) – 07/19
F. Tennyson Jesse, Lassiter Wren, Randle McKay: The Baffle Book: A Parlour Game of Mystery & Detection (new) – 07/23
Walter Tevis: The Hustler & The Color of Money (pool; books new to me, though I’ve seen the movies)
Molly Thynne: He Dies and Makes No Sign (chess, ju jitsu; new) – 06/25
P.G. Wodehouse: The Clicking of Cuthbert (golf; new) – 07/17
Marilyn Yalom: Birth of the Chess Queen: A History (new)
Addendum (skiing / winter mystery, so only if time allows):
Carol Carnac: Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery (new)
