Saturday, July 31, 2010

Summer Reads

The summer is just about the only time I ever take the time to read. It is almost as if June rolls around and something in my head alarms a curiosity in me that drives me straight to the library to borrow all sorts of books. So far this summer, I have gotten books on perfect porch design, waterfalls in North Carolina, preschool activities, outdoor kid's activities, and several novels.

In the early summer, I got a few novels by Anita Diamant and Barbara Kingsolver. The timing was bad, though, so I never got to read them. I also got a collection of devotional writings by Sue Monk Kidd that I thumbed through. I chose these books because of the authors' previous writings. I loved reading The Red Tent and Good Harbor by Diamant, but couldn't quite get into The Last Days of Dogtown. Prodigal Summer and The Bean Trees were good reads by Kingsolver, but I didn't have the time to dive into The Lacuna (which I hear is really good) and Animal Dreams.

Midsummer, I have more time. Due to the arrival of a brand new baby, I have time every two hours to read. Last year, I read a novel by Katherine Center titled Everything is Beautiful and loved it! So, I tried to give Center a chance again and read Get Lucky. I enjoyed this quick and easy read and was amazed at how Center is able to describe something so perfectly that I end up thinking to myself, "Ah, yes, That's it!" Sometime in the past year, I had a chance to read Kristin Hannah's books, Firefly Lane and Summer Island. I enjoyed both books, so I decided to pick up Winter Garden and give it a try. Again, Hannah amazed me with her capabilities of telling a good story. This book made me cry several times, and I'm not really a crier. It is not a cheesy happy beach read, but it is very good.

I've reserved another Katherine Center book in the hopes of reading it before the summer ends. I'm also hoping to read Eat, Pray, Love in time to see the movie.

So far, my summer in books has been a good one. If you haven't had a chance to do some good juicy reading lately, I recommend these books to get you started again!

5 comments:

helms said...

A couple of quotes from Katherine Center's book, Get Lucky...
on seeing her childhood home: "We didn't stop, since it was so early, but we slowed as we passed, feeling the kind of electricity that layers of memories can give to ordinary things."

on moving back home: "Houston was not the town I remembered. Visiting hour hometown on vacation is not nearly the same thing as coming back to stay. Everything looked different, and, in part, it was. Grocery stores, shopping centers, and movie theaters I had gone to growing up had disappeared or changed beyond recognition. Houses I'd grown up playing in were gone. Entire neighborhoods had lost their original houses one by one an become entirely new places. I had noticed these changes from time to time over the years. But wit the total immersion of coming back to stay, I got the whole picture. It was exactly the same town, but totally different, which left me in a constant state of looking for things that were long gone."

Susan said...

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll definitely check some of these out.

Jacob said...

"The Last Days of Dogtown" was that based on the Stacy Perralta skateboarding culture of Southern California (i.e. the film, "Lords of Dogtown)?

helms said...

No, Jacob. The last days of Dogtown is about a back woods village of folks and their interactions with one another.
Sadly, no skateboarding.

Courtney said...

eat, pray, love is a quick read. you'll finish in no time.
let me know if you want me to send you "trespassers will be baptized"