What I've Been Doing While I Haven't Been Reading

Confession--I haven't been reading much lately at all.  Since May, I've finished two books that I can remember, but I highly doubt I've read more.  The two books I did read were ones I really enjoyed--Go Set a Watchman and All the Light We Cannot See.  I usually spend my free time reading, but I just haven't done that.  I haven't even been reading magazines.  This has left me wondering what the sam holy hill I HAVE been doing this summer...

image from dogonews.com

Flirting.

Making lots of eye contact with him.  This was a lot of fun...

Dancing.

Playing shuffleboard.  I've actually gotten quite good.

Sitting by the pool.  A lot.  A whole lot.

Making several new friends.

Making periodic attempts to start running and/or doing yoga regularly.

Getting addicted to mai tais and Fireball whiskey.

Learning how to spell whiskey.  General rule of thumb--If the country has an "e," whiskey has an e; if it doesn't, it's whisky.  Ireland--whiskey; Canada--whisky.

Studying for the LSAT.

Taking the LSAT.

Letting him pull me around the pool on a floatie.  Seriously--best way to travel!.

A fun weekend at the lake.

Getting him to fall in love with me while I fell in love with him.  Not as difficult as I thought it would be.

A couple of baseball games.

A great Midsummer's Night party.  Champagne, lovely romantic toasts, shuffleboard, dancing with the one you love.

Waiting impatiently on my LSAT score, but also being kinda glad I didn't know yet.

An amazing trip to Indianapolis.

Working on my law school application.

Avoiding working on my law school application.  This was pretty easy...

Thinking maybe I'll just put off law school for a semester or a year.

Working.

Wishing I wasn't working.

Wishing I could just quit my job.  Seriously.

Scrambling to get my law school application in on time.

Horseback riding.

Playing the dutiful daughter and granddaughter.  Sometimes easier said than done.



And somewhere in there I did read those two books.  I've started several.  I have made some progress on Moby Dick, which I've decided I'm going to finish by the time I start law school and fun reading time as I know it becomes even more scarce than it already has been.



What have you been doing this summer when you haven't been reading?

"Book Your Trip" -- NPR's Summer Reading List

Photo from Article

I've only recently started keeping track of NPR's book news.  I know that they annually put out a summer reading list.  This year they took a different track and organized their lists into modes of transportation, as opposed to genre.  You can read the full introductory article here.

The idea came from a previous article that looked for a common thread in a variety of books.  By organizing the summer reading lists around modes of transportation, readers are introduced to a variety of books of all genres and for all ages.  For instance in the car list, both Go Dogs, Go and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas appear and on the trains list, both The Little Engine that Could and Anna Karenina appear.  The tagline for the series is that they have lists on "literary travel by train, plane, car, bike, boat, foot, city transit, horse, balloon, rocketship, time machine and even giant peach."

One of the things that stood out to me as I was reading the list was that their emphasis was on discovery, introducing readers to books that may not have heard of or thought about reading before.  By linking the books to something readers do know about or are interested in, they might read something new and different.  Naturally, these lists are not even close to being exhaustive.  And they were going for variety, so some well-known books had to get cut from the final list.

Reader advisory is something that I really didn't get interested in until the very end of my library school time.  As in, I became interested in April, then I graduated in May.  The place I went is having a class on reader advisory this summer, but I was unable to take it (stupid graduation!).  I also got the opportunity to meet Nancy Pearl at a talk she gave in Tulsa in April (which led to my interest in reader advisory).  To me, at the core of this is that some people don't like reading because they haven't been introduced to the right book.  So when you learn how to recommend books based on a person's interests and situation, you are providing a much better service than simply handing off your favorite book to an unsuspecting victim.  I've been practicing this in the past few years--just because I love a book doesn't mean my dad or Zach (my usual "Here, read this!" victims) are going to like it, so I hold some books back.

Naturally, with these mass summer reading lists, you can't be specific to every single person who looks for the list...but you can try to be general and hopefully get someone's attention by linking a couple of books together.

Personally, I find this to be an interesting and great way to organize a book list.  Mostly for the variety factor.  But not everyone would agree.

What do you think about this kind of organization?

Tahleen remembers Summer Reading at the library

As a public youth librarian, I have the great honor and responsibility of organizing and executing the Summer Reading Program, along with my director and the children's librarian. This week I'll be going to the public school to tell my young patrons all about it, and I can't help but remember the summer reading programs of my youth.

It was one of my favorite things about summer. I was a voracious reader, and summer was that magical time where I could literally lie in bed for 6 hours and read an entire book. And back then, I didn't have a TBR or the Internet to tell me which books were good or bad, or which authors were popular. I browsed freely and often, finding books on the library shelves based solely on the back descriptions, and maybe a recommendation from a friend every once in a while.

And the excitement of the prizes! I loved filling out my little sheet with each book I read, earning myself raffle entries for gift certificates and other prizes from local businesses. Sometimes I would even get the call that I had won something, and I would beg my mom to bring me to the library so I could pick it up.

Funnily enough, the summer reading program for the kids in the town where I work is similar to what I remember from my childhood. I am hoping these kids will remember this summer reading program as fondly as I remember my own.

Did you all take part in your library's summer reading program? What do you remember best about it? Or did you just love to boundless possibilities summer brought?