Summer Readin'

One of my favorite pasttimes is heading to Barnes and Noble, preferably with a good friend, buying a chai tea latte, and wandering the aisles to my heart's content. It's relaxing, interesting, and I inevitably come away with a new addition to my reading list. Every time I set foot in a bookstore or library, I'm reminded of just how much I love to read.



Luckily (maybe?) for my parents, this has always been the case. I would behave myself for hours if I had Laura Ingalls Wilder to keep me company.



(Of course, I also tried to read at the dinner table, so maybe the whole reading-is-good-for-you has its limits.)



Anyway, something I love about summer and only working part-time is having time to read. I have a running list on my phone of all the books I want to read, so if I'm ever in the library and not sure what book to check out, I know where to look.



A few books currently on my list are:

• 1984, by George Orwell 
• Peter Pan, by J M Barrie
• The Dante Club, by Michael Pearl
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer 
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place, by Aaron Ralston
• The Plantagenets, by Dan Jones

(This is only a sample...)

I showed this list to a friend recently and she gave me an odd look when she finished reading. That odd look made me realize what an eclectic mix of reading I do. Of course I love the classics (Count of Monte Cristo), but I'll also read biographies and histories (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot) with gusto equal to contemporary novels (The Sweet In-Between, by Sherry Reynolds). I'll tackle fantasy (Game of Thrones) and children's literature (Jerry Spinelli and Beverly Cleary). Recently I've even tried out some theological books. 

Reading has always made my life better, more interesting, and certainly teaches me things I never knew. 

What about you? What kinds of books do you like? Do you struggle to answer "what's your favorite book?"