SUMMER READING

I was one of those kids who took their summer reading list and raced to the store to buy the books and then shoved them on a shelf and forgot about them till the end of July. I was also that kid that spent the last two weeks of summer reading non-stop, eight hours a day, finishing my required assignments only the night before school started.

My older sister would encourage me along. She’d bring me an ice-cold Coca-Cola and promise me that even though I could hear all the others kids outside swimming and playing no one was really having any fun. Of course, she had finished her reading weeks before and savored her Halloween candy well into December.

Now, all grown up, I can think of no better way to spend the summer but to plop myself down on the beach and read. Since I no longer live in LA, the beach part is harder to pull off, but I still love the idea, pleasure and reality of summer reading.

My list is long this year — Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind, Khaled Hosseini’,s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Randall Kenan, Let The Dead Bury Their Dead, Patricia Marx’s Him Her Him Again The End of Him, Ann H. Gabhart’s Orchard of Hope and Virgina Boyd’s One Fell Swoop — and many, many more that have found their way to my bedside table now forming a wall between me and the bathroom!

But I find it rather fitting, or possibly ironic, that the very school I went to here in town has placed my book on their summer reading list. I can’t help but wonder how many girls will be reading about Catherine Grace and the folks in Ringgold — well into the night the day before school starts!

Posted June 5, 2008 at 7:56 am · 4 comments

Comments

  1. My esteemed brother Johnny, the editor of Baptists Today, Made me aware of your book. I got it today from Amazon and read it at one sitting. I was touched and blessed. We Ringgoldians know it was really the Chow Time. Thanks, Rob Pierce, Pastor, Trion United methodist Church, Trion, GA. Ringgold High School, Class of ‘72

    Rob Pierce, June 9th, 2008, 7:44 pm

  2. Ooh, must be so weird to see your own book on your alma mater’s reading list! That’s so cool, though. For me, there was something about being assigned a book that automatically made it less appealing than the ones I picked out myself. It’s why I ended up reading many of the classics of my own volition — and avoiding many others simply because I was “supposed” to read them.

    Caryn, June 13th, 2008, 10:04 pm

  3. I was the opposite of you. I would use my library card, have my sisters and brothers who didn’t want their limit of books and read all my books and their books for the summer. My summer was spent sitting on the porch under the shade trees reading. My sisters never wanted to play with me much so I found adventure in those books. I grew to love Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Seuss, and I loved play books (I would use my dolls to do them).
    Have a blessed day.

    Jane Squires, June 17th, 2008, 9:55 am

  4. I see my book, Orchard of Hope, is in great company on your bedside table. I have book everywhere that I want to read. That I need to read. That I’m going to read. I know I am someday. Of course by then I’ll have a dozen or so more added to the pile. But I’m glad I read yours. It was a great read and how neat is it to be on a required reading list. That has to be an ego booster. Great also to see you go book number 2 finished. I’ll look forward to it.

    Ann H. Gabhart, July 19th, 2008, 8:10 pm

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