June got here surprisingly fast and summer is nearly underway. It's the time of kicking back and relaxing. Days of doing things that bring rest, renewal and joy to your heart. Things that are lifegiving and soul-filling. The sun is shining and books are calling...at least for me, that's how it is.
These last few months, I have found myself delving headfirst into the world of fiction books. This was a totally unexpected joy that I find myself now absolutely loving. Nonfiction books used to be my go-to, always what I loved. Now I can hardly get a nonfiction book to keep my attention longer than five minutes. I consider this a gift...and a most welcome gift at that. For the past several years I have tried so hard to like fiction. I wasn't trying to love it, for I knew that was near impossible, but I just wanted to like it...even if just a little. At the changing of the seasons, as the grey winter skies and deadness of the world transformed into earth thriving in lush green and blooming forth in rainbows of color, I found myself loving the unexpected...fiction. Now I can't keep my hands off it and am nearly every day finding new titles to add to my to-read list.
I'm not putting pressure on myself this summer, nor did I at the turn of the calendar to a new year. However, my one goal for this year was to read more. It's why I chose "bibliophile" as my word of the year and it's why I am continuing on with that goal this summer.
My to-read stack is as tall as Mt. Everest and my list is a mile long...and growing by the day. GoodReads informs me that I have over 140 titles that I "want to read". This excites me! Reading is fun again...and I feel like I've discovered the gift of the reading life all over again.
So as we welcome summer, I encourage you to pick up a book, or two, or ten. Just this weekend, I finished reading a brand spanking new book entitled, The Printed Letter Bookshop. It's by Katherine Reay and was the second book of hers for me to read. While I was highly anticipating its release and while it did deliver in several areas, there were a number of things that I didn't like about it. Several of which greatly bothered me. But...more on that later in my June Bookish Ramblings post coming later this month.
While I do love to fly by the seat of my pants when picking a book to read, I also find pleasure in creating a small list of books that I don't want to forget about. A few books that I hope to read this summer are:
♥ The Quilter's Apprentice (book 1 in the Elm Creek Quilt series)
♥ At Home in Mitford (book 1 in the Mitford series)
♥ Death by Darjeeling (book 1 in the Tea Shop Mysteries series)
♥ The Awakening of Miss Prim (confession: this one's been sitting on my shelf for almost 3 years)
This year has also found me reading books from some new-to-me authors, and has had some wonderful results. I have found two new authors whose writing and stories I love! I want to continue that this summer, so I plan to read books by:
♥ Denise Hunter
♥ Becky Wade
♥ Jennifer Chiaverini
♥ Laura Childs
While fiction is becoming my first love when it comes to books, I still want to read the occasional nonfiction book, especially focusing on fun ones, including:
♥ My Life in France (Julia Child's bio)
♥ Julie and Julia (this is one of my favorite movies of all time!)
♥ Placemaker (Christie Purifoy's newest release...her writing is beautiful)
I'm not holding myself to any self-imposed rules or a set number of books I want to read. I do have a gentle goal in mind, but it's more for fun than anything else. I'm not out to prove how many books I can read in a month...adding pressure sure isn't going to make this girl here want to read anything at all. There are also several books that I've started and never finished, so I'd like to get those crossed off my list as well. I don't like having half-read books sitting around.
So I am considering June, July, August and September my summer reading months. Technically summer ends in late September anyway, so that fits perfect. And we're going on a vacation in the autumn and I'd like to hold to this fun "challenge" until then. After that, it will be Christmas books and time for the holidays.
In case you couldn't tell, talking about books and the reading life is very exciting for me! I want to keep sharing monthly reading posts and about the books I enjoyed that month. And I'd love to hear from you...what do you plan on reading this summer? Do you have any favorite summer reads? I'd love to find a good summery book to enjoy this season...something beachy, on the water, etc. So if you have any recommendations, let me know!
Until next time, happy summer...
and happy reading!