Generally, I try to read all year round. I always have at least one book going (sometimes two) and it actually terrifies me to not have something lined up for when I finish reading my current book. But summer has always been something special. The summer makes me think of long afternoons in darkened rooms when it’s ninety degrees outside. It makes me think of summer reading challenges at the local library that result in cheesy plastic toys, but it never mattered because the real prize was reading all of those books. Now that I’m an “adult,” you would think that the mystique of summer reading has worn away. Well, not entirely. For some reason, the summer always makes me (even more) excited about reading.
These days it can be hard to find isolated pockets of time to do nothing but read books. I have a job now and a lot of my time tends to fill up with internet-related procrastination tools and keeping up with my subscription to The New Yorker. But this past weekend I spent about two or three hours doing nothing but reading and it just made me feel so content. This summer, we should all try to take some time away from our computers and other glowing screens to just read for a while. Unless, of course, you happen to be reading on a Kindle.
My personal summer reading list is partly planned and partly seat-of-my-pants. I have a few books in mind that I’d like to read over the next few warm months (The Name of The Star by Maureen Johnson, the final two books in the Princess Diaries series, The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde, and some classics that are languishing on my shelves), but I like to keep my reading schedule open as well.
What are your experiences with summer reading? Do you have a list of books you’d like to read this summer? What are some of your fondest summer-related reading memories? Share them in the comments!
– Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
