Recently I have signed up for my local library’s adult summer reading program. Each time I read 140 minutes I can enter my name in a weekly drawing for stuff like books, DVDs, etc. I have entered my name at least 10 times since the start date. That was Tuesday.
I read a lot. And they let me count the hours I read to my kids too. So I really read a lot.
I have been logging my kids reading time too for a couple of different summer reading programs, and I logged 100 minutes for them yesterday. That’s a bit more than usual maybe, but not too much. It’s nap time now and we’ve already read 40 minutes today…
Here are the kids’ programs we’re doing this summer:
You can do the Scholastic Summer Challenge and log minutes online, or the Half-Price Books Feed Your Brain Summer Reading Program, in which you keep track of minutes on a form you print out to earn “Bookworm Bucks.” I’m doing both of those for my kids plus the reading record for our local library. I think Chuck E. Cheese has a program too.
I have never kept track of the minutes/hours I read before, either for myself or my kids. It’s fun to see just how much time we do read in a day.
So all this thinking about how much we read has me thinking about what books I want to read this summer, and I thought I’d share a few that are on my list:
1. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill – Historical fiction about the slave trade during the 18th century. I actually just finished this one. It was excellent.
2. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom – True memoir written by a woman who survived a concentration camp after being arrested for assisting Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland. I read this as a teenager and really liked it but wanted to read it again now that I am older and might appreciate it more. Plus Super Friend read it recently and I like discussing books with her (we have our own 2-person book club). I’m about halfway through it, and I am so glad I’m reading it again.
3. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis – I have read part of this already. I’m going through it a few chapters at time and discussing them with a friend.
4. The Screwtape Letters also by C.S. Lewis – The correspondence from the Devil to his nephew Wormwood, a “novice demon.” This one sounds kind of odd to me, but comes very highly recommended by Super Friend and I trust her taste in books, so I am up for it.
5. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce – I don’t know much about this book, but it’s the choice of my other book club for June, so it’s on my list.
6. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story by Donald Miller – This is the second memoir written by Miller, which describes what happened after his first highly successful memoir Blue Like Jazz was being made into a movie and he had to discuss his life with producers, realizing it wasn’t all that interesting. This is the June book for my Super Friend Book Club.
7. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – The classic novel about a group of expats in 1920s Paris and their adventures with bullfighting in Spain. I have wanted to read this for a long time, but especially since I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (a great read, historical fiction written from the point of view of EH’s first wife Hadley Richardson)
8. These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner – Historical fiction, written as journal entries of a woman on the frontier in the Arizona Territories. July book for my other book club.
9. On the Beach by Nevil Chute – Classic doomsday book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time so I’m putting it here so I actually get it and read it.
10. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini – The newest book by one of my favorite authors. Can’t wait to read this one.
11. He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek – True story of Father Walter Ciszek who was captured by the Russian Army during WWII and imprisoned as a “Vatican spy” in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia for 23 years.
12. Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller – A memoir of early motherhood as a spiritual journey.
13. The Conscious Parent by Shefali Tsabary, Ph.D. – A “look in the mirror” approach to parenting.
14. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – Because I just read Gone Girl and loved it. I’ll probably read Sharp Objects too.
That ought to get me at least through July.
What’s on your summer reading list?
I am a huge reader too 🙂 Both of my kids and I have signed up at our library for the summer reading program too. I love that my kids love books just as much as I do !