Good ol' summertime

I had a lot of fun reading your last post, Captain Criticism. Like you, I don't change my reading patterns during the summer - except that I probably read outside more. And I, too, went through a Nancy Drew phase in my younger days. Usually I checked the series out from the library, but once in a great while, I actually got to buy one at a bookstore.

My "growing up" years were spent in the Southwest - New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. The first thing my mom would do whenever we moved to a new town was to locate the library and get us signed up for library cards. My first library memory happened in Santa Fe where I was born. We had to go down a flight of stairs to get to the children's area (which I thought was so cool - my books were so special that I actually had to take stairs to get to them!), and one of the first books I remember checking out was an alphabet book titled "A Beastly Circus" by Peggy Parish. I loved that book so much that my mom went to a bookstore and had it special ordered so I could own my very own copy. I still have it, and whenever I look at one of the letters (the letter Y: Yodeling yak yogis yank yellow yams), I can still feel myself climbing down those stairs in the Santa Fe public library.

Summer reading lists always intrigue me. The NPR list is a great one, and I'm anxious to read the Ethan Canin book displayed in the last blog, America, America. Mr. Canin is one of my favorite authors, and I highly recommend two of his other books as good summer reads: Carry Me Across the Water and For Kings and Planets. When looking for other summer reading lists, I stumbled across one from the Bookslut web site. Of course it lists some books to read, but it also gives tips on how to choose good "beach" books, including the advice to not buy books at the airport (full of Mitch Albom and books about guys and their dogs, is the opinion offered). Instead, readers are advised to think about choosing books at truckstops (supposedly a better selection...hmm...) or even better, the library (wow, what great advice!)

SUMMER READS 2008

It's nearly summertime again, and NPR has published it's "Critics' List" of good summer reads. I'll get to their list in just a minute. Since I work with books every day, and reading is such an ingrained part of my life, I don't really notice a difference in my summer reading. I just read, read, read all the time. When I was a kid, though, summer was great. I grew up in the cornfields of Indiana and lived outside of the taxing district for our local library so I couldn't get a card without paying for it, and lived too far away to walk or bike to the library on my own. My grandmother was a hairdresser and she took Mondays off, and used that day to go to "the mall" in Terre Haute. I went with her quite often and would save any money I could get my hands on in order to buy a book at the bookstore in the mall.

My first book obsession was Nancy Drew. My great grandmother (the hairdresser's mother) gave me a copy of The sign of the twisted candles, and from then on I would buy another in the series when I went to the mall. Another fun summer series when I was a kid was the "Choose your own adventure" books. These have made a comeback recently, and FVRL has several titles in the series such as Journey under the sea. The books are old-school interactive. At the end of a section, the reader is given two (or more) choices and told to turn to a specific page to continue the story based on the choice that they have made for the characters. I really enjoyed them when I was a "tween" (8-12 year olds). I progressed from the Nancy Drew obsession, to an Agatha Christie obsession when I was 13. I spent my teenage years reading every book she ever wrote (more than 80!). And now that I think of it, this obsession was also started by hairdresser grandma who gave me two books that year, Agatha Christie's Peril at End House, and Danielle Steel's Palomino. Agatha stuck, but Danielle didn't! Hmm...actually both of these were kind of interesting choices for a thirteen year old.

Now back to the NPR list of good reads for Summer 2008. Their recommendations include Now you see him by Eli Gottlieb; Let the Northern Lights erase your name by Vendela Vida; Mudbound by Hillary Jordan; America America by Ethan Canin; Wrack & Ruin by Don Lee; and City of Thieves by David Benioff. (Click here to see the entire list at the NPR website.)