New Summer...New List

It was probably a byproduct of having no friends as a kid...seriously. All the available playmates in the neighborhood were my brother's age,and I was summarily shunned with regularity. Maybe it had something to do with my mother and dad who always wanted some things for their kids that they did not have. Mom couldn't swim--she was terrified of water; so, off to swimming lessons we went. Dad made it out of 6th grade, and Mom finished high school when she was in her 40s, so education was important. Fortunately for them, Fred was a good student and a mostly dutiful son. I, on the other hand, was...well, never mind. One thing that I DID get from my mother was a love of books and of reading. She tended toward Perry Mason mysteries, but I ranged a bit farther though I loved baseball books and sports books in general. I read Lank of the Little League a dozen times, easily. I'm sure I could tell you all about it even now except that you really don't want to hear it. Booth Tarkington's Penrod was another book that I wore out by reading it, as was Huckleberry Finn. Reading was the highlight of the summer...after baseball.
Our local library, like most of them, had summer reading programs for kids, and I divided my time between the diamond and the stacks every summer. I was without equal when the final tally was counted for the title of the kid who'd read the most. I don't remember if we got prizes or just the feeling of accomplishment, but I cherished every book experience. And that continues.
Nowadays, I spend most of my time reading textbooks in order to help students. This is all very fine, but I don't read for enjoyment or even to learn something: I read to help kids understand concepts well enough to pass tests. By the time my day is over, I hardly have the energy to open a book and read for fun. Not so in the summer, however, and this summer has gotten off to something of a peculiar start.
I've always considered myself somewhat eclectic in many things: I like almost any kind of music, I'm not picky about food (though raw hamburger makes me queasy), and I definitely am willing to read anything. And that's the way it has gone thus far.
I began this summer with a book I promised a student that I would read almost two years ago: Robert Jordan's Eye of the World, the first in a proposed 12-part fantasy series. I promised I would read it because John said his folks refused, and he wanted someone else to read it for discussion's sake. He, in turn, promised to read Louis L'Amour's Last of the Breed,one of my all-time favorite books. I will not be reading the next eleven in the Wheel of Time series, but for fantasy, it was OK. Actually, Jordan died before he could finish the 12th so it will be completed by an author named Brandon Sanderson (just in case you're interested).
Next came a book I had actually bought and was saving for just the right moment: Christopher Moore's Fool, an hilarious account of Shakespeare's King Lear told from the perspective of the court jester. I laughed all the way through and finished much too quickly!
People of the Book followed. It is a quasi-mystery thing which deals with tracing the history of a rare Jewish book through the eyes of a young woman whose job it is to restore the ancient tome. Saved by countless people throughout history, including several Muslims who saved it from destruction at the hands of the Nazis ("I hate Nazis") and the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition, the book is a regular Maco Polo of the literary world. I found it riveting, especially since there was so much about book restoration and the clues available that I had heretofore not known.
Then, alas, came a book I had promised to read but really had no desire to do so. However, a promise is a promise, and I trudged through Nicholas Sparks' Message in a Bottle. One of my students trumpeted this as the best book ever, and, though I feared she was overstating the case, agreed to read it. Probably for all the reasons I've refrained from reading romance novels (except the Louis L'Amour westerns which are, undeniably, romance novels) I did not particularly like this one. I found myself scanning pages of sappy dialogue, skipping through the interminable sex scenes and asking myself over and over, "So, what happens?" That one is already back at the library.
Up next, Kinky Friedman...subject of at least one blog when he was running for political office in Texas, and definitely the prototypical character. My kind of summer reading!