Summer Reading

Are you reading any good books this summer? My book club is reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett this month. I’ve read it before, but I’m enjoying it even more the second time around. Ms. Stockett did an amazing job with this book, and the fact that it took her five years to write it doesn’t surprise me. But it does make me a little tired. Five years. And that’s nothing compared to the ten years it took Rebecca Skloot to write The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which was our June book. Have you read it? Rarely do all the members of my book club like the same book, but we all thought this one was brilliant. Our book for August is Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. I read it earlier this month and loved it. A small village in England, marvelous characters, humor, and romance in the face of adversity. Just my cup of tea.

For our family bedtime reading, we’re taking a break from The Warriors (a series I’m strangely enamored of that follows the adventures of four clans of wild cats in their forest homes) to read The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. It’s the second book in The Kane Chronicles series and I’m feeling fairly lukewarm about it. The kids are perfectly happy with it, but I’m just waiting for the next book about Percy Jackson to come out in October.

Our daytime “porch-swing book” is Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. We’re only a few chapters into the book, but we’re all in agreement that Ms. Enright’s a great writer and the story is off to an interesting start. We’re reading it as a possible candidate for the 90-Second Newbery Contest. The other candidate is Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. It’ll be interesting to see which book the kids pick.

So that’s what we’re reading these days (not counting the Harry Potter books, at least one of which is being read by someone in the house at any given time). Do you have any recommendations you’d be willing to share? I always love to hear about a good book.