Tuesday, June 4, 2013

What's On Your Summer Reading List?



I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.  

Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

 
 

Tis time to put out the annual summer reading list. School is out and my shelves overflow with a vast selection collected throughout the months of substitute teaching. Those of you who have followed my lists through the years know that seldom do I stay on my designated path. That I wander to the library or collect a few at book club. Or come across a good book store wherever I may be traveling and can't quite pass up the feel of a brand new book. Therefore, some of the books from one year end up on the list again the next.

However, I must report that last year was the first year I finished every single book on my list.  Not necessarily by summer's end, but year's end. You can find that list here. Amazed myself - and I rarely do that. (Or use the word amaze.)

Onward to Summer 2013 ---

The Burgess Girls - Elizabeth Strout
Winter of the World - Ken Follet
The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. - Nichole Bernier
Island Beneath the Sea - Isable Allende
Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver
Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Marla Semple
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
Home - Toni Morrison
Home - Marilynn Robinson
Of Human Bondage - W Somerset Maugham
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Woods Burner - John Pipkin
The Electric Kook-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
Giants of the Earth - O.E. Rolvaag
The Passage - Justin Cronin
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

Okay, I am now completely overwhelmed.

What's on your summer reading list?


 

12 comments:

  1. I'm on vacation and I chose Stephen King's Under The Dome to read this week. It's looks to be as big as a four pound bag of sugar. I'm on page 160 out of 1072 pages. It's not so consuming that I refuse to come up for air, but so far it's pretty good.

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  2. oops ... It's should be It. I hate making typos.

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  3. Lots of good ones there! I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am vowing to eat better-quality food.

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  4. I don't make long reading lists but I have two books I'll read this summer: Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and Louise Erdrich's The Round House. I'm in awe of both of these women.

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  5. I'll have to get my list together and return later. I have read and hope to read some really decent books this year.

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  6. Whew! That's a list!
    I'm going to finish the Cazalet Chronicles, read The 19th Wife, A Casual Vacancy, This is How You Lose Her, and Queen of the Air...for starters:)

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  7. I've given in to knowing that my reading will be limited because of all the other projects on my list. M.A.Y.B.E I can get all my projects done and then be able to have more reading time in the fall. That would be grand!

    However, I am reading my book club's selections: Defending Jacob by William Landay and How It All Began by Penelope Lively, which I'm told is a beach book.

    Great choices on your list. I read The Tipping Point years ago and have always wanted to read Gladwell's other books.

    Congratulations in completing your list last year!!!

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  8. Ambitious list! Can't say I have a reading list...I'm Netflixing.

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  9. I just downloaded a collection of 99 cent books on my Kindle and will work my way through those. Mostly light mysteries.

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  10. Okay, I want to know what Freudian blip made you turn Elizabeth Strout's Boys in to Girls. :-) I read that recently and loved it so much I checked out her older Abide With Me and am loving that, too. Flight Behavior is on top of my pile for next. I also pulled Ulysses from the shelf - again - thinking I might tackle it again this summer. I hope you have a wonderful restful happy summer. Any writing happening for you?

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  11. I heard that Gillian Flynn and Justin Cronin books were excellent! So they're now on my reading list.

    How's your summer going? I need a cocktail. Maybe next week?

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  12. Next on my nightstand is THE SNOW CHILD, which I've been told from a variety of sources will be "like nothing you've ever read before."

    I hope that's a good thing.

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Let me know what you think. Every word you write, I appreciate.

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