Monday, September 13, 2010

My Summer Reads

Since this has been an extra hot, high humidity summer, I've spent a lot of time indoors reading. Of course, I'm also a night owl so I always stay up late and read. Soooo ... I've read a fair number of books this summer and, I must say, quite a variety.

June was primarily a Janet Evanovich month, a month to catch up on Stephanie Plum's adventures in Plum Lovin', Fearless Fourteen and Plum Spooky. I figured her books were a great way to start the summer off right. I also started catching up on my Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series by reading Flashback. Of course, I enjoyed every one of these books. Since June provided a few days with a cool ocean breeze I could also sit on our trellised patio to read.

On July 1st I got my Kindle as an early birthday present, as my birthday is actually later in the month. A lot of classic lit is free on Kindle, so I "bought" bunches of old classics that month and started reading: Alexander Dumas' The Black Tulip, Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, Willa Cather's My Antonia and The Song of the Lark. In paperback I read: Nevada Barr's High Country and Hard Truth, and ended the month with Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. Obviously July was a very hot month as I read a lot of books.

August was an even hotter month, but I didn't read quite as much. This was an all Kindle month. I started with James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers, which is the 1st of the five "Leatherstocking Tales" which I never had gotten around to reading (I'd only read the 2nd, The Last of the Mohicans, way back when). I followed that up with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: a Novel, which I had read many years ago when it first came out. The cost was only a few dollars on Kindle. Then I read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and The Reef. I finished up August with Robert Louis Stevenson's essays: Across the Plains. What a wonderful assortment of reads.

We're only halfway into September and summer will be officially over in another week. On my Kindle I've read Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth and just last night finished her classic, The Age of Innocence. Obviously I'm on an Edith Wharton kick. In the meantime, I've dug into my TBR shelves and am re-reading James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and Jane Austin's Mansfield Park. I'll probably finish up the summer with Edith Wharton's appropriately titled book, Summer. I have to admit I've had a rally enjoyable summer reading lots of great books.

***ALERT -- DO NOT BUY A KINDLE! PLEASE READ MY POST DATED 9/18/10 REGARDING THE PROBLEMS WITH KINDLES. Note - a Kindle is fun while it works, but when it stops working, you're out a lot of money. So please read my ALERT before you consider buying a Kindle.

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