The Baboon Congress, Words

Summer Reading!

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Today’s guest post comes from Sherrilee.

It’s that time of year when everyone across America trots out their summer reading list.

Newspapers, online `zines, libraries – they are all hawking their ideas for filling up our lazy summer days with reading. When do they think we’ll get all this reading done? I don’t know about anybody else, but my summer is pretty full – yardwork, graduation parties, out-of-town visitors and vacations. And in my world vacations are pretty jam-packed with not much reading time.

But who am I to go against tradition? In the spirit of the Summer Reading List, here are a few of the books that are on my list this summer.

DeathByRhubarb

Death by Rhubarb by Lou Jane Temple. This title was unearthed by Clyde last month in a discussion on the trail of toxic rhubarb.

The Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan Bordo. If you are interested in Henry VIII’s second wife, for whom he upended the country, this book challenges what you think you know and why you think you know it!

DeadVaultedArches

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. #6 in the Flavia de Luce mystery series, featuring the very precocious 11-year old, Flavia.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. A nostalgic look at growing up in another time. I have the Illustrated volume and it’s charming!

SomeLuck

As You Wish by Cary Elwes. This title takes a look behind the scenes of one of my favorite movies of all time, Princess Bride.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I haven’t a clue what this is about but it’s by Naomi Novik, so it’s on my list!

Sophia

Some Luck by Jane Smiley. The first in the Hundred Years Family Saga – promises some emotional ups and downs.

Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand. Biography of Sophia Duleep Singh.

Where’s your favorite summer reading spot?

82 thoughts on “Summer Reading!”

  2. I rarely get a chance to read these days. I choose the living room near the windows. I just started David Sedaris’ Naked. Pretty funny stuff.

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  3. i have a david sadaris book as a break room book at my office for a little relief vlve during the day. that combined with a collectio of poetry by ee cummings , bill holm billy collins, and maya angelo offer some respite in the midst of the workaday world i inhabit.

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  4. i should have a list because i tend to fill my day like gas does. if you give it all the room in universe it will expand to use it all and if you confine it in an enclosed rigid confine like a helium balloos it will pack itself in there as tight as possible. my schedule is more like the helium balloon than the wide open spaces but i guess the question is where.
    in my tub, on my patio and in waiting rooms weverywhere. i am a 10-20 page at a time guy for hte most part. my focus and attention span could use some worlk. i tend to get to thinking about other things while i am reading or for that matter while i am doing anything. else. an hour or two is a luxary that seldom comes up so i steal a chunk as it becomes available her and there now and then with this one and with that…. what is that a line from?… looking forward to the summer . the glorious weather we have been enjoying.
    welcome back krista. rock bend is on the agenda for the end of the summer. looking forward to that too

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  5. Writing more the current focus this month: do I kill off a key character in my novel or let him live? Not sure. Want to vote?
    I am in a fallow reading period. I hit these. My son forced me to read The Martian, which proves my son is a geek. I want to rewrite it to add the human element to it; massively geeky. Does the fact that I could not put it down make me a geek, not that I would mind?

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    1. Number one on my Kindle wish list is The Shepherd’s life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks.
      Not in our library or accessible by other means. $12.99 but I am in a cheap mood.

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      1. ill split the hard copy cost with you and you can read it first if your e game. i can paypal you 10 bucks or whatever half is. it looks marvelous

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    2. Twice in my life I’ve thrown a book across a room. Once when I got to the end and realized the author was leaving it unresolved for a sequel (Barbara Hambly) and once when J.K. Rowling killed off Hedwig. So Clyde, if you want your works to fly, then go ahead and kill off a key character!

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    3. let him live
      do the rewrite
      yes you are original geek
      i love geeks but it takes a deep dive to get to know them has been my exerience.
      there is a lesson in there somewhere.

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  6. Rise and Find a Book Baboons!

    So we don’t get to add books to VS’ list? Hmph. I just might anyway. Or maybe VS just assumed we would.

    My favorite place to read is in bed. Or on my feet at the gym with the earphones in my ears and Audible.com selections droning on in my head. Heaven.

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  7. So I get all snitty cause I perceive that we can’t add books, then hit post before I add the books! Hmph.

    Harper Lee’s book is first on my list!

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    1. The Harper Lee is still listed as “on order” for the Hennepin County Library system. 1500 people on the waiting list right now (I’m #176).

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  8. Later at night in bed.
    Now I lay me down to read.
    For a mystery I have a need
    And if I die before I wake…
    “How’d it end, for St. Pete’s sake?!”

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  9. As You Wish is a great read – lots of good stories, especially about Andre the Giant (when you get to the bit about the scene on the wall overlooking the castle…well…it’s good). I haven’t heard how they divided it up, but the Wits episodes they have from Mr. Elwes’ appearance on the show earlier this month will provide some extra depth – especially his impersonations of the rest of the cast and Rob Reiner…

    As for where I like to read – anywhere I can is the short answer. Time to read is precious, so before I go to bed, waiting for Miss S during a piano/clarinet/circus lesson, while I brush my teeth…a favorite spot this time of year is on the front steps in the afternoon. I can watch the neighborhood go by, enjoy the sunshine and be lazy with a book. Dog will go out on his leash and bask along with me. What’s not to love?

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    1. One of my favorite parts of As You Wish was the scene aftr they left the fire swamp and Wesley gets hit on the head by Count Rugen!

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  10. For a long time now, my practice has been to always have a book along. It’s the only way I get to read (that and listening to books on cd while working).

    I’ve always thought that we need a reading list that is just that- list of books with Baboon comments. Can we do that on BBC, Anna?

    Hoping to figure out the technicalities of a WordPress blog of my own, but easy as tim seems to think it is to just write wherever (like a read), I find I cannot do it.

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  11. I like reading in the bathtub. It does put a limit on how long I will read, as the water gets cold, though.

    From time to time I go out to eat, just by myself, and bring a book. Khyber Pass is a nice place to do this. It’s quiet. It’s a little dark, so I bring a booklight when I go there. Cafe Latte is another good spot if it’s not crowded. Sometime between 1:00 and 4:00 is a good time.

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    1. I go to The Fillin Station, a nice seedy local coffee house with nooks and old stuffed furniture. Mean to read, sometimes do. Was there yesterday and wrote a guest blog.

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  12. On the screen porch in summer, and “my” chair by the (fake) fireplace in winter. Also in bed, nice way to get drowsy.

    Thanks, VS, for another fun post and question. I’ll bet you knew we’d tell what we’re reading, so you didn’t have to ask that…
    I currently have these sitting around:
    “What Comes Next and How to Like It” by Abigail Thomas – this one stays on my nightstand (She also wrote “A Three Dog Life”)
    “Life Worth Living: How Someone You Love Can Still Enjoy Life in a Nursing Home” by William H. Thomas
    “Resistance” by Agnes Humbert (WW II France)
    “The Inverted Forest” by John Dalton (just looked interesting on library shelf)
    hope to get to this summer:
    “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating” by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (b’day present from Robin)
    and the next in the various series by Laurie King, Anne Perry, and Louise Penny

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    1. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating was fasinating. I loved it. Also a big gan of Laurie King and Louise Penny!

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  13. Competely OT but close to everyone’s heart. Our Late Great Morning Show Revival is moving ahead. Mike has gotten the go-ahead to actually record the “session” and then he’ll be able to put it up on Radio Heartland – that way if you can’t tune in initially, it will be there for you later! As soon as I have a date, I’ll let you know!

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    4. excellent choice.well done
      i have a vision of having the tlgms playlist available like setting on your pandora radio where the stuff thats played all ties in to our group loves.
      the technology exists but we need to find the geek who can give us a button to push. ill put that on my to do list

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  14. I’ll be off the trail for a couple of hours – taking the dogs (yes, all three) to Yappy Hour at my office. I have the day off and already went down to Northfield and picked strawberries but thought the “Take Your Dog to Work Day” celebration might be fun. Freezer jam this afternoon. Back in a while!

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  16. today is a mervelous day for news
    obamacare is not unconstitutional
    gay marrage is legal and a right that all states must acknowledge
    the timberwolves got two great players who should set them up to be a great team for the forseeable future
    northern lights are alive and well this week in our world
    what a great world we live in.
    obama biden and boener aree all attending the funeral in carolina.
    the world can work the way it is supposed to
    let scalia stew in the corner its humanities day

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    1. One commentator describes Scalia as “foam on the lips” furious. Another cites a dozen phrases in his dissent that suggest he was almost ready to call the majority opinion “bullshit” but stopped just a wee bit short of using the word he preferred. Any day that makes Scalia so angry is a day for all of us to celebrate.

      A good day for us. We should, however, put aside hysteria about the institution of marriage and try to save what is left of our planet.

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      1. “Hysteria about the institution of marriage”???? Seems like a rather cynical assessment of a ruling is nothing short of life-changing for a lot of people. I’m overjoyed that this has finally come to pass.

        I agree that there are lot of other important issues to work on,

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  17. Favorite place to read? This is interesting only because it is another example of how aging limits us. I can only read these days sitting in my favorite chair in the living room. I need good light and access to reading glasses. The younger me could read almost anywhere, but I’d now struggle to get up from some places I might once have used. The CPAP machine makes reading in bed impossible.

    My daughter shares vs’s passion for reading, but life has severely restricted her chances to read. Since she spends many hours on the road driving to client companies spread around Oregon, Molly listens to Audio Books. This is her main place to “read.”

    I’m currently reading Six Feet Over It, a young adult novel that is remarkable for the pitch-perfect voice of the 14-year-old girl who is the protagonist and narrative voice of the book. I remember being startled at the accurate rendition of a teen-aged voice when i read Catcher In the Rye. This book is better, even, at that.

    I’m trying to read Lila by Marilynn Robinson. And mostly failing at it. Next up will be a highly rated mystery: Girl On the Train.

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    2. Good light and glasses are a given for me too. But the light cannot be too sharp. I’d love to read in the back yard on a nice sunny day, but the light is too sharp and hurts my eyes. Do you only need glasses for reading?

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  18. My son listened to The Martian while driving a truck pulling a car on a trailer through one of the worst storms in CA history. He got a little tense.

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  19. I read in bed or I use the large comfortable chair in my bed room. When I was a kid I read under my bed covers with a flash light at night when I should have been sleeping. I bet many Babooners did that when they were kids.

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    1. i never had an issue with needing to read under the covers. 15 minutes of reading in bed and im gone. if i wake up in the middle of the night and want to read i do. if it doesnt make me tired again it wasnt meant to be.

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    2. I tried doing reading under the bed covers with a flashlight when I was a kid, because I thought it sounded cool. But I couldn’t stand not being able to breathe.

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        1. I was picky…why I got so bothered by feeling like I was smothering, I’ll never know.

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    4. You’re right – I was an under the covers reader as well. My parents never had an issue w/ my reading per se, but they did try to get me to sleep at a regular time!

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  20. It’s my first summer to be retired and I am reveling in doing everything (almost) in my screen porch. The porch is over my garage and just the right height to catch birds close-up in the trees. This morning the Yellow and Yellow Throat Warblers serenaded me. In the evening I hear the Catbird and Veery…and sometimes after dark, the coyotes.

    I’m reading Prudence by David Truer for our little book club. It takes place in NW MN near a reservation and German POW camp during WWII. Fine writing, good story, likable characters. Other books “on deck” include (Out Stealing Horses) Per Petterson’s I Refuse, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.

    Every summer for the past few years, a friend and I have shared reading a story in Norwegian. This year we are tackling a short story by Jørgon Brekke which led me to find more by Brekke…a couple fun mysteries in English: Dreamless and Where Monsters Dwell. Hoping more come along soon.

    Happy reading wherever you be, y’all!

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  21. If I had a screened porch, I would read there. It sounds so lovely to be out of the hot sun and feeling the (hopefully cool) breezes while reading a good book and sipping something cold. But I don’t have a screened porch and I do most of my reading in bed.

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  22. Depending on the time of day, I have three favorite places to read. In the morning, our front porch has the most wonderful light. It’s the ideal place to sip a cup of coffee while reading the newspaper. My wonderfully comfortable recliner in the living room is great anytime, and late in the evening, I read in bed until I’m ready to go to sleep.

    Just finished Alexandra Fuller’s “Leaving Before the Rains Come,” and have started on “All the Light We Cannot See.” Next in line, Isabel Allende’s “My Invented Country” ; Helene Cooper’s “The House at Sugar Beach,” and Albie Sachs’ “The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter,” two memoirs about growing up in Africa.

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      1. I did, vs, and what I like was that she seems to get a new perspective of her life experiences as she ages. She has processed the experiences more. I do think, though, that at this point she must have exhausted that material.

        I do look forward to what’s next. The two memoirs I mentioned above are books that Alexander Fuller considers among the books that have most influenced her.

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  23. anybody interested in meeting down at the saints ew stadium tomorrow for the dr john concert? doors open at 1ish for a 3 pm concert. im figuring on heading over there about 10 for breakfast on my way to the line. ( one of my favorite places to read)

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  25. For awhile I thought my summer reading would be about cerebral palsy. My two year old CA grandson was fully evaluated yesterday. He is fine. Tortucullis and does not pick up his feet, like me and my mother and many others on that side of my family. I may still just read about it. Who thinks a 23 month old child needs to be evaluated. I had two colleagues with sons in wheel chairs from CP. Turns out it can show up late and be very mild. Dr. Told of a child who liked to keep his left hand in a fist. So he was evaluated at age 2. It is his only symptom. Did not know it could be like this. D-in-l has a sister with it (it would just be a coincidence) who has had many surgeries to be a self-functioning adult, so much concern drove the evaluation.

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    2. So glad he is okay, Clyde. My youngest nephew (2 years younger than the s&h has had it pretty much since birth. Much surgery, therapy, frustration.

      It is hard, hard, hard.

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  26. The gazebo at our cabin was a sort of screened-in porch, with screens on all sides. There wasn’t a better place to read, especially if you read in one of our rainbow-colored Mayan hammocks. It was chilly out there, so before getting in the hammock you had to slide a sleeping bag over your shoulders, then do a silly cocooned caterpillar hop to get in the hammock. Then you could swing in the breezes, enjoy the distant toots of foghorns and listen to public radio while reading. It was a bit of heaven until, inevitably, you had to pee . . . and there you were deep in a hammock, enveloped in your bag.

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    2. speaking of peeing…. no one mentioned reading on the toilet.

      But that’s what works for me. I guess I wouldn’t say it’s my ‘favorite’ place to read… but it is where most of the reading gets done. That seems to be a guy thing more than female thing. Why is that?
      I think I learned it from my Dad; he was always in there with a Louis L’Amour book.

      Ah, Except newspapers. Either standing at the kitchen counter or sitting at the kitchen table is how I read the papers.

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      1. Oh, well – I thought that was a given! (And my dad was a Louis L’Amour fan as well. And Edgar Rice Burroughs!)

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  27. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve virtually given up reading actual books. It’s all my 15-year old grandson’s fault too since he set up free Netflix two weeks ago. It didn’t take long to become an addict to Netflix series. First, Grace and Frankie; then House of Cards; then the New Orange is Black, and now Scandal. It’s impossible when watching series to stop. I watched all of the House of Cards episode in just four days.

    Yesterday, I got an email from my ISP notifying me that I’ve almost used all of my GBs. First of all, I don’t even know what GBs are; secondly, I’ve always had unlimited use of the internet. I now watch my unending series with dread that I’ll exceed my allotment because each 15 minutes over costs an extra $10 a month. And just when I thought my entertainment was free!

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