Summer Reading

I just got back from a weekend at the cottage in Harbert, Michigan-- lake and lake house country! I love it there. My great grandparents built the lake house in a heavily wooded area a half-mile from the beach back in 1929, right before the stock market crashed. My great grandfather died shortly thereafter and my grandmother worked her butt off to hold on to a house and apartment building in Chicago and the cottage in Harbert, while also caring for her bedridden mother. Quite a feat. Thankfully, she had some help from my grandfather, a painter from Sweden. They eventually married, of course, and my mom spent every summer hanging out in Michigan. We didn't spend the entire summer there, when I was growing up, because my uncle and mom split the time between them but we spent a week in June, the week of 4th of July and the three weeks before school started there.

You 'd think we'd be boat people, but we aren't. Boats always required too much maintenance and money. I was a teacher's kid. My parents were frugal. So, we were beach people-- and I still am. Nothing beats hanging out at the beach. Beach people float on air mattresses, anchor a diving raft just past the sand bar, play frisbee, walk down to the dunes and climb them, build sand castles, collect seashells, get very tan and read, read, read.

Hanging out at the cottage this weekend got me started on my summer reading list. It's that time of the year, no? Summer Reading lists are busting out all over:) Macy actually posted on summer reading before she left for London. Check that out along with the following--

1. Fave authors tell us what books they have in their beach bags at USA Today.
2. The NY times claims, "Summer reading has more to do with charmed lives, blue skies and location, location, location."
3. NPR's summer reading list
   
4. A great summer reading list from a A Gaggle of Book Reviews
5. Greenopia's favorite "green" reads
   
6. Rebecca Blood's round up of summer reading lists
   

Okay, so all of those are lists of books. Even better, check out Patricia Woodside's blog, Hot Fun in the Summertime, over at Romancing the blog. She discusses what makes a good summer read-- beach/water/seaside setting, fast pace, light, fun, frothy but filling plots. I wholeheartedly agree although, I confess, I read Brothers Karamazov, Beloved, The Sound and the Fury, Gone With the Wind and The Poisonwood Bible at the cottage, in summer, sometimes on the beach. Not exactly light. I guess I like an eclectic mix.

I started my summer reading list this weekend with Lost and Found by Jacqueline Sheehan. I inhaled it. If you love dogs, read it! Other books on my summer reading list include--

Life's a Beach by Claire Cook
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
Evening by Susan Minot
A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux
Sea Swept, Rising Tides, Inner Harbor and Chesapeake Blue by Nora Roberts
Bewitching by Jill Barnett
The Accidental Witch Trilogy by Annette Blair
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase
The Department of Lost and Found by Allison Winn Scott
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion & Daring by Richard Preston

That looks pretty good for starters. A couple are rereads. A lot are fun and light. A couple are research for the two novels I'm working on. A couple are supposed to be brilliant. A couple are non fiction. One has beach in the title. It's a good mix. And I'm sure it will change a bit as the summer progresses. In the mean time, what's on your reading list and why? AND what do you think makes a good beach or summer read? I love recs and suggestions (hint, hint.)

Cheers and happy reading,
Alyson