Bookseller Summer Reading: Part 4

It was brought to my attention that I missed posting Marisa's summer reading list, so on this Indian Summer day, here's a bit of summertime (or, really, anytime) reading for you:


1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
An otherworldly circus, open only at night, is the setting for a duel between two young magicians. The imagery is amazing and the story compelling. It's a hard book to put down!

2. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks

Budo is the imaginary friend of a boy named Max. He gives us the inside scoop on what it's like to be an imaginary friend and a close look at the trials and tribulations he goes through to save Max's life, at the risk of his own.

3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
I got so attached to the characters in this novel that when I was through, I seriously considered starting over again. A novel about baseball, family, friends and love.

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In this futuristic dystopian novel, 24 children ages 12-18 are pitted against each other in a televised fight to the death. It's now a movie but as is often the case, the book is better.  It's worth a read, even if you've already seen it.

A few other books I liked: The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai, Cutting for
Stone by Abraham Verghese and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
by Jonathan Evison.

I also read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Half the time I loved it and the other half I felt like "accidentally" losing it so I wouldn't have to read it anymore. Some classics make me feel that way. I know I'm supposed to like them, but sometimes it's hard.

Bookseller Summer Reading: Part 2

Diane Grenkow is the second bookseller to ring in with an answer to our "back to school" question: What did you read this summer? 

Here are some of the books I've read this summer.  I really did read The Pickled Pantry even though it is about pickling and doesn't really tell a story exactly.  Except maybe the story of summer.  I read it cover to cover anyway and stuck slips of paper in where there are recipes I want to try.  It turns out, it would have been easier to mark the ones that I DON'T want to try.  I have been reading Anne of Green Gables books to my daughter and wishing we could run off to Prince Edward Island.  My son suggested I read the Ranger's Apprentice series and I'll admit I picked up the first one just to be nice because he asked me to.  Then I couldn't put them down and neglected the things that should have been pickled because I was too busy reading the whole series.  Whoops!  The Man Who Quit Money provided food for thought about how to live one's life and how to relate to money and what we do to get it and keep it that might not be in our best interest.  I love Archer Mayor and Toni Morrison, whatever they write.  Birds of a Lesser Paradise, a collection of stories, and Wild took me places the way you want a good summer read to take you.  Right now I am reading Louise Erdrich's forthcoming novel, The Round House.  It tells a brutal story but I'm completely taken with it so far.