So, as you know I do a summer reads each year, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. We’re now on week 6, which seems insane. Can you believe it’s nearly the Fourth of July?

It seems every year as the summer progresses, I add more books to my list. I’ll read someone else’s summer reads list and find something that looks good. Or I’ll think of an author I haven’t read in awhile and see they have a new book out. I can’t help myself. Then there’s those favorite old books that I haven’t read in some time that I’d really like to read again. Summer reading is the best. It always takes me back to trips to the library or bookmobile. Mom would take us at least every two weeks.

Recently Completed

So, there is a difference between “I didn’t like this!” and “It’s not good!” This book has won an award. In the case of The Long-Shining Waters, I just didn’t like it. The book goes back and forth between the years 1622, 1902 and 2000. I would have enjoyed a more specific time frame, though starting out each chapter. I’d like to know how much time has passed since we were last with the character, or if indeed it is instantaneous and you’re reading all three stories at once. I didn’t find the characters particularly sympathetic or endearing. In fact, the one in modern times irritates the hell out of me with all her smoking. It’s all she does, every other sentence. In some places, the author really does a great job of calling attention to detail, like rain that has clung to a window screen and filled in the little squares in the mesh. But the whole thing is written in a weird tense, and there are these weird filler pages that I just didn’t understand. I finished it. But I didn’t like it.

In Progress

I just started A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams. It is a perfect beach read and I’m falling right into it. I love books like that!

Summer Reading List 2014

• Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
• Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
• High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing (Voice of Witness) by Audrey Petty
• Cat Food for Thought by Warren Dotz
• The Lover by Marguerite Duras
• Box Girl: My Part Time Job as an Art Installation by Lilibet Snellings
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
• A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams
• The Last Summer of the Camperdowns: A Novel by Elizabeth Kelly
• The Swan Gondola: A Novel by Timothy Schaffer

Added in Progress

• The Long-Shining Waters by Danielle Sosin
• Bellman & Black: A Novel by Diane Setterfield
• The Book of Life: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy) by Deborah Harkness

Favorites Revisited

• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

What are you reading this summer?