A Summer Adventure!

I decided to participate this year in the Cincinnati Library’s Summer Adventure. You probably know I read a whole lot, like, maybe egregiously, if that’s possible. But I haven’t done a summer reading program since I was a child and visited the Mid-Continent Library in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. Then and there, if you read twenty books, you could choose a free one of your own to bring home. The first year I did it, my mom wrote the titles for me, because I could read far better than I could print. Mom got tired of returning to the library so often because of the book checkout limit, so they lifted it for us, allowing me to bring home great stacks at a time. And I received five free books that summer. 

In the summer these days, I tend to read what some people impolitely call trash, because they’ve got no sense of balance, and also are snobs about things they haven’t bothered to examine in detail, or that weren’t listed in the articles they skim over in The New Yorker. Because what is summer for, if not to indulge in a bit of light-hearted pleasure? Mine usually takes the form of “cozy mysteries” and historical romances. But I do try to add in some “improving” material, as well. (Isn’t it funny to realize you can do a doctorate now on authors whose material was featured in weekly penny papers 150 years ago?)

I thought a good way to do that this year would be to follow this eight week program. (Click pic to see details.)
So at least one of the books I read each week will relate specifically to the week’s theme, and I’ll do a few of the suggested activities, as well. Then I’m going to write a weekly update in this blog. I might briefly review the books, and I’ll include a photo or three of whatever else I did on the list.

For a long time, I thought a summer reading program for adults might be really dull, like you’d be made to read those heartstring-tugging books about a sister's death, with discussion questions at the back of them, or something worse, like I don’t know, memoirs of baby boomers who take motorcycle trips across Indonesia to “find themselves.” (Again.) But this one isn’t like that at all, and I intend to have fun with it. It starts on my birthday! I think it’ll be an amusing way to start on my second deck of cards.