I’ve stayed away from the blog the last several weeks, trying to be a good grad student. But now that my papers are done and my house has been returned to some acceptable level of organization, I can get back to reading some good stuff.

Summer reading is the best. Long road trips, two weeks at the beach, no required textbook reading. I confess that during the time set aside for writing the final papers for my Comm Law class, my mind would wander, followed by my feet, to the wall of books at the south end of my sun room. Squeezing in 12 books over the summer months seemed doable, so I’d choose a dozen and put them in two horizontal stacks in front of the properly shelved paperbacks. An hour or so later, I’d be back, rearranging them.

I have a pretty good mix of old, new, fiction, non, YA and a collection of short stories. I’ve already knocked out “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusack (trip to Arkansas over the long weekend), and had intended to start “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson, but I got an unexpected gift-loan of “Lush Life” by Richard Price (Thanks, Scooter!), which I’ve so been wanting to read that I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to wait for the paperback. I’ll start it this weekend, after I let “The Book Thief” marinate a bit — never been able to pick up something new right after finishing something else.

And even though there’s a shameful mountain of books on my TBR shelf, I’d happily make room if “The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao” mysteriously appeared at my desk…

What’s on your summer reading list?