SUMMER READING

Easily the best reading experience of my life.  I was around fourteen and my mom and I went to the lake for two nights, just the two of us.  I had the care-worn paperback copy of The Hobbit that my sister had read years earlier.  It was just the right time for me.  I will never forget that couple of days that I gave myself completely and utterly to the world invented by J.R.R.Tolkien.  I remember laying in the bright sun with the clean air smelling of pine, the quiet... and a book I couldn't let go of.  Towards the end I started putting it down more often, reading slower.   I dreaded finishing it.  I didn't want it to end.  I knew there were more (LOTR in fact) but I hated this experience to end.  I have read them and reread them all, but that first reading of The Hobbit stands alone.

This book was given to me by a friend tattered and sun-bleached, already having seen some summer activity.  I read it on a camping trip and laughed out loud throughout the entire book.  The characters are so great and the dialogue is exceptional.  This, as well as other De Mille paperbacks, entertain completely.

I read this one summer when I was a teenager and spent the summer on a boat.  There were days when I was alone on that boat and this book was the perfect company.  It was exotic and captivating and I became emotionally invested so that going to sleep at night was more to rest my eyes and contemplate the story than sleep.

This book sat on my mother's bookshelf forever.  I must have looked at the title a million times but never thought to pick it up.  One summer day when I was around twelve and loitering around the house bored, my mother took it down and told me to give it a try.  I couldn't put it down.  I remember lying across my bed on that summer day reading chapter after chapter, scarfing down dinner and running back to my room to continue reading.  It was the first adult book I think I read.  I absolutely loved it.

A few summers ago I think it was.  This trilogy was all the rage and believe me, for good reason.  These are page turners!  I loved all the Sweden references - towns, rivers, streets... I realized I knew nothing about it.  And I loved how they were drinking coffee and eating sandwiches every chance they got.  That book would have you believe that sandwich and coffee ingestion was required many times a day in Sweden.  It was a great detective story.  Probably a better read than movie though.

This is what I am reading now.  Great summer reading - the chapters are short enough that you can keep telling yourself 'just one more chapter'.  I have, of course been watching the HBO series and loving it a lot.  But, reading the book makes a lot of things clearer especially names and backgrounds.  They all get a bit jumbled up in the show as the story moves pretty fast and of course there is much detail and back story that gets missed.  So I am having a lovely read!

Do yourself a favor and read any one of these if you haven't already!  Find a spot in the shade or a quiet corner of the house and get lost in another world.