Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Summer Reading

Hey, only 7 hours and 45 minutes left of school for the year (or so my eight-year-old tells me)! Summer is nearly here. Of course we're not waiting on the official start of summer to start hanging out at the pool - we've been there the last two afternoons. Anyway, I'm excited about all the swimming and camping and boating and baseball games. But what I get really excited about as I start thinking about Summer is...reading!

Here's the deal: I'm always reading. The stack beside my bed never drops below about three books tall and usually towers higher. But a lot of that isn't light reading (see sidebar). It's "getcha thinkin'" type stuff. And I like to think. I'm hoping exercising my brain cells regularly will keep me going for a long time past a lot of other folks. Well, that and good genes.

So when Summer comes I look at that extra hanging out time - at the beach or the pool or the campsite and think: time to chill on some "just for fun" reading. Whaddaya mean, "just for fun", you're thinking? Now you're thinking I'm talking trashy romance novels. I'm not. But...well...I do have a thing for "chick lit" and "mom lit". So yeah, for me, good Summer reading involves a heap of Shopaholic, Devil Wears Prada, The Nanny Diares kind of books. Lots of light, unplug-your-brain page-turners.

Here's my problem this year: what to read. That's my criteria listed up above. Anybody got some recommendations? I'm hopin' to make a trip to the library in the next day or two to load up. Oh, I suppose if there's an excellent "thinking" book you'd like to suggest, I'll consider it. Just don't ask me to blog about it until Fall.

6 musings:

Anonymous said...

I too "rest my brain" in the summer and read strictly for enjoyment not necesarily to "learn" something. I had a summer where I read most of the Francine Rivers books sitting by the pool while the boys played. That was great. Last summer was a Ted Dekker summer, I never read (Christain)science fiction stuff before but it was good. I was surprised by how much I liked his books. Let me know if you want specific book titles.

For now...

Craver Vii said...

That sounds fine at first, but let me tell you about a friend of mine. He set his brain down momentarily, just to rest it, but immediately forgot where he placed it! Oh, it was so tragic.

hellolittlepeepers said...

Let me ponder...

Recently read Watermellons by Marion Keyes. Pretty good.

I really enjoy Sophie Kinsela, Jane Green, and Anna Maxted. I have a lot of chick lit books if you are interested in borrowing some. I am slightly addicted. More intellectual reading, but still good fiction, anything by Louise Erdrich. Probably my favorite author.

L.L. Barkat said...

I just read The Smell of Sin in a day. It really touched me. (thinking book, as it sounds)

What I always find difficult is discovering good fiction. The last good fiction I read was the trilogy of Kristin Lavransdatter. That stayed with me for a long time.

Llama Momma said...

"I just read The Smell of Sin in a day. It really touched me. (thinking book, as it sounds)"

I read this book and really enjoyed it, too.

My latest good fiction read was, "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk. Not light reading, but very, very good!!

I'll have to check out Emily's chick lit collection too!

Lara said...

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions (good to hear from you again, For now...).

I'm realizing now that every summer I vow to "take a break" by reading light, but quickly amend my ways in favor of enrichment. So in reality, every one of my summers has included some great literature. One year it was The Pearl. Last year after a trip to Monterey I read Cannery Row.

And actually, as much as I'm looking forward to some chick lit (I may take you up on borrowing some, Emily), I'm also looking forward to finding some "good fiction" as LL so aptly put it. Looks like I've got a good start here. I'll let you know if I find some good other reads to recommend too.