Summer Reading Slump

The other day it hit me. I had reached a summer reading slump. When the new year had started, I had bought myself one of those reading journals where you get to write about the current book being read, the author, the main characters, and offer a brief summary and/or thoughts and/or opinions about the whole shabang. I've been wanting one of these kinds of journals for some time now and thought, what a nifty tool to stick into my personal library collection of books I've acquired through the years. I imagined people coming to the house and being wowed by my library...and of course soon thereafter being the closet booklover that they are, start pulling books out left and right to find one that fit them just right. They'd ask questions, "Hey, is this a good one?" or "Did this one make you cry?" or something to that affect and I'd gladly share my opinion. But then I also imagine that if/when these people would be in my house that I would be such a gracious hostess that I would be a tad too preoccupied tending to my guests and curious book folk would be left to their own devices. Enter the book journal. Here, I also imagine that I have re-read every single book (not accomplished YET!) and that I have written brief synopsis (plural: synopsi?) of each. All anyone would have to do is rummage through the pages of my book journal, find my lil' summary, and see if the book they chose is for them. But I digress...

So this book journal of mine...I looked through it a couple of days ago and actually pretty impressed with myself. Since the new year, I have read book after book quite routinely....up until the last month. Understandably so, I could say it was due to the Disneyland trip and whatnot, but still, according to the recorded dates, it has been approximately a month since I've read my last book.

I headed out to Barnes the other day...I mean, really, who can't NOT spend an entire day there?! And since I am totally on a budget, I allowed myself two books. Get this, because I will be teaching in the fall (thank God!), I thought it was appropos to sign up for one of those teacher discount cards. While one of the items I bought was school related (okay, I bought THREE items, instead of two...), and technically, I'm supposed to receive the discount on ONLY the classroom item, the cashier gave me a discount for ALL the books. Score!

Back to this reading slump I started with...I think I can pretty much squash that now. Why? Because in three and half days, I basically killed off two books. Deliciously. And guess what? I'm hungry for more! I know, I know, what a freaking nerd! Someone once asked me if I ever got behind in high school when we had to go through those summer reading lists...and surprisingly, yes, I was always behind! The theory being that since I was REQUIRED to read those books, it just prolonged the activity to do so; whereas, here and now, I am wanting to read these books of my own choice at my own volition...it's a whole different ballgame.

Which brings me to another fact of the matter that I have been trying to get back to the classics...as in the ones that I HAD to read for school. Again, being that I HAD to read them for class, I didn't quite enjoy them and appreciate them as I should have. Now, being older and wiser (somewhat), I'd like to think my appreciation for the classics would be so much more powerful and deep.

In any case, here are the two latest books being added to my collection: a review to follow later.