Summer Reading List

I don't read as much as I would like to.  I'm not sure why.  When I was little, I read "Boxcar Children" and "Little House" books like there was no tomorrow.  (I was going to say that I ate those books for breakfast, but it seemed like a weird metaphor and not at all what I was trying to say).  Anyway, I think that college and grad school stamped the reading-for-pleasure gene out of me.  But, seeing that I'm not in school anymore, I want to try and get that reading gene back...particularly since I am in the habit of browsing bookstores during my free time, which leads to a lot of impulse purchases that get half-read before they start collecting dust on my overcrowded bookshelves.

So, because I like projects and to-do lists and similar endeavors, I have created a summer reading list.  Not just a list, rather...I've created a summer reading stack, which is now living on my dining table waiting to be devoured (there, that's a better food metaphor).  Let's have a look...

Here's a bit more information about each book, and why it has shown up on my summer reading list...

1) The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - This one is on the list by default, because I borrowed this book from a coworker (at her insistence that I would like it, not because I asked for it) sometime around last October, began reading it lazily around January, and now it's getting to the point where I'm embarrassed that I still have it and must return it to her as soon as possible.  Happily, since the creation of this list two days ago, I have finished this one.  A review post will be forthcoming.

2) The Age of Magnificence: Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon - A collection of memoirs of Louis XIV's court at Versailles, written by one of the courtiers.  I read bits of this book for research in 2010 for my senior thesis, and I'm super excited to read the whole thing.

3) Love Wins, by Rob Bell - Like The Shadow of the Wind, I borrowed this book from my friend Amy a shamefully long time ago, wanting to read for myself the book that caused so much theological controversy several years ago.  

4) My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me, by Hilary Winston - Like the title suggests, Hilary Winston's boyfriend wrote a book about her, a discovery which led her to write a book of her own recounting her dating woes over the years.  My friend Miranda sent it to me and said it's absolutely hilarious, if a bit raunchy from time to time.

5) Paris to the Past, by Ina Caro - I found this book randomly while browsing Barnes and Noble one day, and read it right there in the store for half an hour before buying it.  It's a travel essay that tells the history of France through weekend train rides from Paris to various cities.  A French major's dream.

6)  How to Be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life, by Melissa Hellstern - I got this for Christmas from my parents, and just haven't gotten around to reading it yet.  It's a biography-esque coffee table book about Audrey Hepburn, who I love, and who you probably love too (and who you should love, if you don't).

7) An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - A young adult novel by one of the Vlogbrothers, a pair of YouTubers whom I have followed since my sophomore year of college.  This is one of his earlier books, which I started reading but never finished.  John Green also wrote Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, both of which I have read and found to be phenomenal, particularly for their genre.

8) Celia Garth, by Gwen Bristow - I found this book completely by chance at a thrift store, and picked it up because it had my name in the title.  On the spot, I decided to start collecting books featuring lead characters with my name (I have only one other, a beautifully illustrated children's book called Celia's Island Journal which I have had since I was 3 years old.)  It's about a young woman named Celia living in colonial South Carolina, who apparently engages in espionage during the Revolutionary War or something.  Awesome.

9) Cinderella Ate My Daugther: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, by Peggy Ornstein - About how commercialized gender stereotypes affect young girls' perceptions of themselves, what it means to be a woman, and limits their vision of who they could become.  All topics that I've been interested in for quite some time, and am eager to learn more about.

10) French Lessons, by Peter Mayle - My aunt gave me this book years ago, and I never got around to finishing it.  At the time, I think I was too young to really identify with anything happening in the book, which is written by a man who moved to southern France and learned to appreciate the various nuances of the French way of life.  I want to read it again now that I've traveled more and grown up quite a bit since I first received it.

So there's the list!  Like I said, I finished The Shadow of the Wind today, and will write a review of it in the next couple days, which I plan to do for all these books.  Let the reading begin!