”Indiana Jones and the White Witch,” by Martin CaidinBantam Books (paperback, 1994, 329 pages).Those of you who saw my review (which you can see HERE) of a previous installment in this series of adventures based on the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg movies may remember that my standards aren’t very high.

I don’t ask for much.

Just don’t bore me.

This one failed on that score.

Btw, these paperbacks were reissued this spring to capitalize on the latest movie.

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The First Monday Book Club took a bit of a hiatus this summer. We decided not to read specific books and skipped our June meeting, but a group of us got together recently to sip wine at Davis-Kidd and catch up on what’s on everyone’s nightstand.

We thought we’d choose the best books from the summer as the basis of our book list when we officially get back together next month; each person chooses their favorite book and leads the discussion when the time comes.

In the past, we’ve mostly looked at a few summaries from online sources and tried to agree on something that sounded good. We’ve mixed in a classic (need to do more of those), some books that were getting a lot of buzz, and several books I’d already read so I could keep participating during an especially demanding grad class. It was time to change it up a bit.

I’ve heard all kinds of ways in which book clubs choose their titles: drawing titles out of hat, taking turns, voting. My co-blogger Bill Frazier (read his posts on American history here) recently gave me a few copies of Bookmarks magazine. In one, a club describes choosing books by “walking the plank” — walking down a book aisle, closing your eyes, reaching out to touch a spine and reading the book you touched. Might be a good way to find a hidden or forgotten gem.

How does your book club choose its selections?

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?