School’s out, and my schedule is out the window. Everyone’s at different camps at different times. Sports are over for now. And then there are the loooong, terrifying stretches of down time, which is code for three, bickering children. Also, it’s San Francisco, so, naturally, the fog is here, and it’s freezing cold.
Still, I know we’ll have a few “real” summer days, when the temperature heats up, and we all sit barefoot on the back porch and scarf popsicles, then swim until night, and eat hot dogs for dinner.
Summer’s also reading season. I’m working on teaching the five year old to read, trying to get the older daughter into longer books, and then there are the summer reads I’ve hoarded for myself, starting with the new Alice Hoffman book, and let me remind you that Deb Kristina’s book is launching next week!
What are you all reading this summer?
I’m looking forward to Alice Hoffman’s book, too. I just finished “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”by Marisha Pessl–a really interesting book. And read “A Person of Interest” by Susan Choi. Both, oddly enough, featured home grown terrorism.
Summer reading … y’know, with all that’s going on in my life, I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ll take a list of recommendations. Who’s got some?
I’m looking forward to Real Life & Liars too!
I’ve just finished Neil Gaiman’s YA book “The Graveyard Book”. I absolutely LOVED it!! Scarfed it up in about 18 hours with a few hours of sleep in between. I also just read “Three Cups of Tea” which made me want to completely change my life and go do some good in the world. Recently read “The Time Traveler’s Wife” and loved it, too. Lest you think I’m completely slutty about my reading, I’ve been trying to get lost in a mystery that is just not doing it for me (enough so that I can’t even remember the name of it right now) despite being on the NYT bestseller list.
Hey Deb
I am reading the following for summer:
The Help
Grapes of Wrath
The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
To Kill a Mockingbird
I have been reading Grapes of Wrath for the longest while and still can’t get excited but I started so I have to finish. Great to see you on twitter!
I’m going to dive in the new Monica Ali after Alice Hoffman, and another book I want to read for fun is The City and The City, which looks interesting and weird. And, of course, I’ll be reading Dr. Seuss and Dick and Jane with the under 6 set.
Tiffany, I just read my 6 y/o a childhood favorite of mine, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH which he loved. But I’d forgotten how dark and gothic it is to start with!
I’m reading ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING by Janelle Brown, and looking forward to some books by my fellow panelists at the Printers Row Lit Fest: REUNION by Therese Fowler and ONE IN A MILLION by Kimberla Lawson Roby. I’ve also got Graduate Deb Anna David’s latest, BOUGHT, beckoning to me (I cheated on my current read to sneak a few pages) and Maggie Dana’s BEACHCOMBING.
Sheesh, that’s an ambitious pile already and I haven’t even listed all of them.
Good thing I finally finished ANNA KARENINA.
James and the Giant Peach is very Gothic. I love it! Had you never read Anna K before? It’s one of my favorites. There’s a book out in paperback now called What Happened to Anna K. Looks interesting.
We’re going through Roald Dahl with my son, too–DANNY CHAMPION OF THE WORLD and now CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Such fun to read them again! I have Lee Child and Michael Connelly’s latest books waiting on my dresser for when summer really begins for me…
My TBR is gaining by the DAY. I bought like six books last week–naughty, naughty me!
The ones that spring to mind are:
Non-fiction:
Righteous Porkchop
Turtle Feet
The Dumbest Generation
Fiction:
If I Stay
20 Boy Summer
…oh, this is bad. I have so many that I can’t remember any of them. And they’re all piled up two feet from my pillow!
Not Bought Yet But Totally Getting Bought Soon:
The Season
The Chosen One
Oh, the “Not Bought Yet But Totally Getting Bought Soon” pile is staggering. Epic.
Tiffany, I read ANNA KARENINA in high school and I remember virtually nothing about it from that reading. I read it willingly, not as part of a class. I don’t remember what possessed me to attempt it then.
Kris, I have a theory that there are certain works of literature (King Lear, Ulysses, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary) that should never be read until adulthood. I used to teach King Lear to college kids. Total, lost cause. But angst-ridden middle agers? They get it perfectly.
Just finished Little Giant five minutes ago (wonderful) and looking forward to the new book from Joyce Carol Oates. I work in a school library and shocking I had no time to read during the school year, so I spent the entire day reading today.