Hello, fellow Reader! I have missed sharing my reading adventures with you, but I needed to take a real break this summer. So I put a pause on EVERYTHING and enjoyed some time in meditation, personal reflection, and watching baseball. (Go Braves!) I didn’t completely stop reading this summer, but I did stop providing weekly updates on that portion of my life. Now that I have recovered from COVID — yeah, that wasn’t how I wanted to begin the fall semester — I’m finally ready to begin blogging again about my reading life. So here is a list of the books that I read this summer and a brief description of my thoughts on some of the works.
#12: Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart) – Not one of my favorite reads and not something I would recommend to anyone else.
#13: They Both Die in the End (Adam Silvers) – This was a recommendation from one of my students and turned out to be a very enjoyable YA read. The title says it all, but there is SO MUCH that happens before they both die. Check this quick read out for yourself.
#14: Pick Me (May Archer) – I enjoyed the other audio book by Archer that I listened to earlier this summer. Her attention to romance details are astounding. Not for the faint of heart though; read this as part of the LGBTQ+ challenge for my 2022 reading project. Things get steamy…..you’ve been warned.
#15: The Messy Lives of Book People (Phaedra Patrick) – Several months later I don’t remember a lot of the details about this book, but I remember that I liked it.
#16: Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty) – Fun mass market read. Trigger warnings for domestic abuse, but wonderfully written.
#17: Miller’s Valley (Anna Quindlen) – This was probably my favorite read of the summer. Amazing story about a small forgotten town and the people who populate it. Worth taking a look at by any lover of literary fiction.
#18: The Lifestyle (Taylor Hahn) – This was NOT what I expected when I read the book jacket, but I laughed out loud throughout this cute romance. A marriage on the rocks decides to explore the lifestyle of swingers in order to fix their problems. Once again, not for the faint of heart, but not as graphic as Pick Me.
#19: The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle (Jennifer Ryan) – This novel from the Book of the Month Club looked like something I thought my mother would enjoy. Of course, I had to read it first. It was a beautiful story of friendship and survival set against the Nazi bombings of London and the English countryside in the days of World War II. Possibly a little longer than it needed to be, but an enjoyable novel nonetheless.
#20: A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood) – This short novella explores a single day in the life of a man after the death of his longtime partner. Considered one of the important early works of gay fiction, I was asked to read this alongside a young man I mentor who is struggling with his self-identity. There were some beautiful expressions of friendship, community, and the desire to be accepted expressed in this short work.
#21: The Viscount Who Loved Me (Julia Quinn) – I just finished the second of the Bridgerton novels early this morning and enjoyed every minute of it. This installment focused on Anthony and his developing relationship (and ultimate marriage) to Kate. I enjoyed the shift to seeing the struggles of romance from a male perspective. I think Quinn was in better form here than in her first novel of the series, The Duke and I. I’m looking forward to making a return visit to Bridgerton before the year is out.
There you have it…..that’s everything I have read since returning to the Geriatric Ward in early May. What’s on my reading table now? I felt a bit of nostalgia as I was selecting my latest read, so I’m heading back to high school momentarily and looking at A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I’ll let you know how it goes in a few days.
Reading for Me 
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