reading notes

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book reviews, books, reading notes

I find vacation reading very tricky. In general, I don’t enjoy stereotypical “beach reading.” I’ll never read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, nor James Patterson, nor, probably, any of those Something Borrowed books. I’m embarrassed for Jennifer Weiner every time she postures and poses and tries to take on Jonathan Franzen. This is not to say that I want to take Jonathan Franzen on vacation! (I generally don’t enjoy Jonathan Franzen much more than Jennifer Weiner, truth to tell.) I get stuck between wanting to read something with substance, while also wanting to read something that will truly entertain me. One of my favorite feelings in the world is the feeling of being aggravated every time I have to put my book down and, you know, enjoy my vacation.

Sometimes I succeed when I choose my vacation reading. More often, I fail miserably. I think this particular vacation’s reading was a whopping success, even I didn’t love every book I read. Find out which book I will be shoving in every aquaintance’s face for the rest of the year, after the jump:

reading notes

Tags

book reviews, books, reading notes

I’m a library addict. It’s official. The woman who works the circ desk at our local library sees me coming (every four days or so. What? I run out of material) and heads for the hold shelf. It doesn’t really help my anonymity that I carry around the world’s baldest, toothiest, grinniest blond toddler. Oh, us book types. We’d rather be left alone to read, but are forced into interactions with humanity because we keep running out of dadgum books to read. (Sometime ask me about my relationship with the UPS guy who brings all my Amazon Prime loot.)

As I mentioned yesterday, we just went South for a week’s vacation. So, of course, about four days before we left, all of my book holds came in allatonce. I had a huge pile of library books to finish before we got on the plane, because taking library books on vacation makes me feel squicky.

I say all this like I’m trying to justify the number of books I have to talk about this week. As if I ever need to justify myself about the number of books I read. Part I follows the jump:

reading notes

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a gay and melancholy sound, anthony powell, book reviews, books, mary wesley, nancy pearl, reading notes, the healing, treasure island!!!

It’s summer, and still, to me, that means time to laze on the sofa with a tall stack of (library? they’re free! and they take them back and put them on their own shelves!) books and unlimited Diet Cokes, for days at a time.

Alas, I can’t quite convince Lucy that’s how summer should go. I’ve still managed to work in some reading in the evening time I usually spend watching TV. Funny how many books I’ve managed to read since summer TV started; perhaps I should reprioritize when real TV comes back? Ho hum. At any rate, some notes on recent reads: