Musing Mondays - Time

This week's Musing Mondays asks:

Do you have a set reading time (before bed, perhaps)? Do you read more at night or during the day? Is there a day of the week, perhaps, that you set aside to catch up on reading

I normally read while commuting to/from work, which is about two hours a day. While this is more-or-less okay, it gets tough if I'm reading a page-turner, or, if I really want to finish the book. If I have enough time to play with in the morning, sometimes, I find myself wandering over to a cafe, to read while having my morning coffee. Other times, I just keep giving my book wistful glances through the day...

Normally, I enter work, listening to music, my eyes glued to a book. While reading, I shrug off my overcoat, and pull out my ear phones, completely oblivious to the people around me 'til I finish the page/chapter. One morning, one of my colleagues greeted me with a 'Morning, how goes' about three times, before I even acknowledged him. I was slightly embarrassed!

I read a fair bit over weekends, and try and read a bit before sleeping, every night. However, sometimes, I'm too tired to think, and just want to slip into dreamland, as soon as my head hits the pillow.

I guess, for an avid reader, I don't read as oft' as I'd like to. I do try and make up for this during my vacation days, where I get through a book a day (obviously depending on the location, and the books I'm carrying). Just re-reading this post, and I feel quite guilty. I really should set aside some more time for reading. Oh well...

How about you? When do you read the most? And where? Do you occasionally find that you have to make more time to read? Or, are you happy with the time you devote to reading?

Bernhard Schlink - Homecoming

 This is another one of my reviews that have been pending for over a month. While I'm reading the super-chunky Midnight's Children, I thought it's a good time to get up-to-date with some of the reviews which really should have been written earlier.

Homecoming was my attempt to get familiar with Schlink's writing, before I read The Reader - Schlink's much acclaimed international bestseller, and unfortunately, I was fairly disappointed, so much so that, I've put off reading The Reader 'til next year. 

Another book that originates in the post-war Germany, this one traces the life of Peter Debauer as he struggles to find his 'home'. Born and brought up in Germany, by his mother, Peter has never known his dead father, although he spent his vacations with his father's parents in Switzerland, while growing up. 

His grandparents were editors of a series called Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and Entertainment. However, they were insistent that young Peter never read these manuscripts, and instead, they would provide him with books more suitable for children his age. However, Peter disobeyed them only the once, and coincidentally, stumbled upon a story that would change his life... 

The story revolved around a soldier who escapes from Russian imprisonment, and starts his journey home, overcoming obstacles on the way. Yet, when he reaches home, he finds his wife married, with a child. What transpires next is unknown, as the last few pages of this story are missing. 

Years later, Peter finds the story again, and is filled with an urge to determine what happened next in the story. So starts his quest to look for the novel, and its author. However, he is unable to find a published copy of the manuscript, but, he is able to identify the building in Germany which used to be the soldier's home, and he rings on the apartment. Typically, a woman opens the door, and Peter ends up falling in love with her. And in due course of time, she tells him that she is already married. 

When they meet again, a few years on, Peter proposes to her, and they decide to tie the knot. However, the legal documentation cannot be completed, as the authorities are unable to find anyone with Peter's name born at the time/place of his birth. In theory, he doesn't exist. When he goes back, to ask his mother the details of his birth and early life, he finds out that she hasn't been totally honest with him, about his father, or his early life. In fact, his father might be alive. Another coincidence: the author of the manuscript might just be the man who fathered him! 

And so he sets off to New York, to find out who he really is, where he's come from, and the mystery surrounding his father. 

The book is well-written. However, it's a hackneyed unbelievable plot, with too many coincidences; most of which seem far-fetched. Also, Schlink's tried way too hard to allude to the Odyssey, drawing parallels between the protagonist's life and the classic masterpiece. In fact, it looks like he's tweaked and tucked his plot to match the Odyssey's. I also think this might be one of those books, which suffers from losing a lot of its brilliance due to translation. The words just don't flow easily, and at the end of the day, it seems like a rigid forced novel, instead of an easy free-flowing one. 

Overall rating: 4/10

Booking Through Thursday - Sticky

 “This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Ok, going to make this a really quick one, and stick to 'adult' books (i.e. no Enid Blyton!)

1. Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
2. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
3. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
4. Lust for Life - Irving Stone
5. An Equal Music - Vikram Seth
6. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
7. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
8. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
9. 1984 - George Orwell 
10. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
12. One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
13. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
14. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
15. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Took me under eight minutes, and the list is in no particular order. How about you? Which books will you never forget?

Unauthorized Sequels

There's an article on BBC today (and some other newspapers) about a Swedish author publishing the sequel to one of my favorite novels of all times, Catcher In The Rye. I don't know why, but I love the book, and I absolutely loved the hypocrite that was Holden Caulfield, I don't understand how someone can't love him. 

Sorry, I digress, because, this isn't a post about Caulfield. If it was, I could rant on and on, for about two hours, and still have a lot to say. Instead, I find that it really annoys me that someone decided to write a sequel to one of the most controversial books of our times, without Salinger's permission. And then, then, he ends up referring to the legal action as a little bit insane. 

This isn't the first instance of someone picking up characters created by a genius, and trying to make a quick buck by riding on their success. I've seen it happen with Enid Blyton, where someone tried to extend The Famous Five, and recently, while I was walking around in Selfridges, I came across something called The Famous Five Case Files. I picked one of them up, and almost gagged at how commercial it sounded... 

Someone did the same with The Naughtiest Girl series, and I actually purchased one of the non-Enid Blyton ones. I was mortified, and said a silent prayer for poor Blyton, who must be turning in her grave - it was honestly cringe-worthy. Whatever next?

The thing with Catcher is, Salinger has made it very clear that he doesn't even want Holden Caulfield to be played on the big screen. He's withdrawn from the public eye, and whatever little I know seems to indicate that, at the age of ninety, he doesn't want to battle some bright spark who thought it was a good idea to figure out how Caulfield was doing some sixty years later. His defense is, he always wondered about it... But, didn't we all? And wasn't that the beauty of the ending - that all of us could let our imagination run away with us, and figure out how Caulfield was doing. Honestly, in my head, I envisaged two or three different endings for him, and I still can't choose my favorite. I'll leave that for another day. 

If you're interested in reading more, The Guardian has a slightly more informative article on this. 

What do you think? Should the sequel be allowed? Or, do you hope Salinger wins the court battle, and we never have to witness this travesty?

Musing Mondays - Stick Or Kick?

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about sticking with it… How much time (or how many pages) do you give a book that you aren't really enjoying before you'll set it aside? If you're reading it for a book group discussion, or for review, will you give it more of a chance then, say, a book you're reading for your own interest?

One hour two minutes to go, before I lose this opportunity to muse on Monday! Right, I'm going to race this one through...

It's an interesting question, because, I normally hate leaving books half-finished. No matter how 'boring' or 'dull' they seem, I figure they'll come good, especially if they are prize-winners, or if they've come highly recommended from a friend/fellow-blogger. However, just last week, I discarded Anne Enright's The Gathering at 89 pages, just because it seemed like pointless tripe, that I really couldn't be bothered with. I am still struggling to understand how and why that poor excuse for a book won the Booker.

Not really, I don't think. At the end of the day, I want to enjoy reading, and not feel as though it's compulsory to read. If I'm not enjoying the book, and it looks like the odds of the book improving are near negligible, with a tinge of remorse I'll place it at the back of my bookshelf. At the very back, so that I don't have to see it every day, thereby escaping that pang of guilt. Sneaky, huh? I've read about thirty-five books this year, and just shelved one, so... that's a reasonably okay statistic, in my humble opinion.

How about you? Do you tend to give up soon, or, do you wait for the book to become better? Ever been a time when you've given a book a chance, and felt severely let down?

Another Top 100 List

Someone just sent this to me via email, so, being the diligent book blogger (ahem) that I am, I decided to re-post it here. Some random source came up with its list of top 100 books, much like every other newspaper and magazine has done. About 65% of the books remain the same, as far as I can tell, but then there's that 35%..... Here's the list. The ones in pink are the ones I've read, the ones in blue are on my to-be-read list. Yay me. (Or, boo me!)

1. 1984 by George Orwell

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

7. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

10. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

12. Animal Farm by George Orwell

13. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

14. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

15. Ulysses by James Joyce

16. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

17. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

18. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

19. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

20. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

21. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

22. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

23. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

24. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

25. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

26. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

27. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

28. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

29. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

30. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

32. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

33. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

34. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

35. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

36. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

37. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

38. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

39. The Stranger by Albert Camus

40. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

41. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

42. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

43. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

44. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

45. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

46. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

47. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

48. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

49. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

50. Watership Down by Richard Adams

51. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

52. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

53. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

54. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

55. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

56. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

57. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

58. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

59. Middlemarch by George Eliot

60. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

61. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

62. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

63. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

64. The Stand by Stephen King

65. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

66. Dune by Frank Herbert

67. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

68. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

69. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

70. Dracula by Bram Stoker

71. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

72. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

73. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

74. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

75. The Trial by Franz Kafka

76. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

77. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

78. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

79. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

80. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

81. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

82. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

83. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

84. Persuasion by Jane Austen

85. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

86. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

87. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

88. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

89. Emma by Jane Austen

90. I, Claudius by Robert Graves

91. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

92. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

93. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

94. Atonement by Ian McEwan

95. Beloved by Toni Morrison

96. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

97. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

98. Siddharta by Hermann Hesse

99. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

100. Light in August by William Faulkner

To Be Read List: 22

Read: 32

Not very impressive, is it? :(

How about you? How many have you read? Or, are you planning on reading any, anytime soon?

Philip Roth - The Plot Against America

This review has been outstanding for about a month and a half, and for that I apologize. I read it back when I was working towards a big deadline, and I just didn't find time to review it back then. But here it is, now...

I stumbled on to this book by chance. One of my colleagues recommended The Man In The High Castle to me, fleetingly, and it sounded quite interesting. However, by the time the day had come to a close, and I got home, I just couldn't remember the name of the book. So, I googled something like 'World War II alternate reality", and guess what I found: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I still haven't read The Man In The High Castle, but this, this was fantastic! Is this what they call 'serendipity'? A fortunate mistake? Because, it sure was. Barring the classics that are Gatsby and A Clockwork Orange, this has been my favorite book in 2009. 

The premise of the book is both, credible and simple: what if Lindbergh had won the 1940 Presidential election, instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt? In an interview, Roth says he stumbled upon a sentence in Schlesinger's notes, which stated something along the lines of: Some Republican isolationalists wanted Lindbergh to run for President in 1940. And so, the book was born.

Roth has gone to great lengths to keep all the other events as historically accurate as possible, so much so that the book actually seems like real history. The political characters, the speeches, historical events - they all seem to add up. He even chose Winchell to lead the opposition against Lindbergh, as he hated the latter; calling him pro-Nazi from the moment Lindbergh propagated the cause of America not intervening in events geographically far away from them. I concede that the thought of Winchell ever running a political opposition against the President of the United States is scary, but, then again, you can say the same about Lindbergh becoming President. Nonetheless, one can also see why Lindbergh becoming President was not as incredible as it sounds: an aviation hero (making the first transatlantic flight in the late 1920s), he gained public sympathy when his child was kidnapped and murdered. He said 'Hitler was a great man,' but simultaneously voiced what must have been a very popular opinion: No American should die on foreign soil! So, yes, what if Lindbergh occupied the White House in 1940... 

While some of the historical accuracies makes the book 'real', what makes it magnificent is that Roth chooses to write it in first person, in a direct way, where the narrator is Roth's younger self - all of seven when the book starts. Living with his parents, his older brother and his cousin, Roth's narration is a mixture of childhood pains and adult intelligence.

The book opens with:

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear. Of course no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been President, or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews. 

One of the so-called pains is when one of the neighboring kids tries to befriend him, but Roth only has disdain for him, even after Seldon saves his life. In fact, the greatest tragedy of the book is orchestrated by Roth, inadvertently, and one ends up feeling the greatest sympathy for Seldon's loss. 

While Roth is fighting these childish personal battles, he is also aware of the political environment, that seems to be pulling his family apart, as all its members are dealing with Lindbergh as President in their own world. His cousin runs away from home, to fight the War, and comes home with a prosthetic leg and anger - anger at how things turn out. His brother idolizes Lindbergh, and uses his artistic talents to create amazing portraits of him, which he keeps hidden under his bed. His father is furious with the turn of events - specially, when he takes his family on a holiday to Washington, and their hotel room is rendered unavailable. Bess (his wife) is embarrassed, as he reminds the people around him of the Gettysburg principle : All men are created equal. It's no avail, and they are forced to find another hotel room. They live the dream, Philip's father says, and we live in a nightmare.

As the book progresses, and more anti-Semitism is introduced through programs like 'Just Folks', which encourages Jewish city boys to go and work on a farm for a summer. Philip's older brother, Sandy, is one such member, and he is later requested to encourage other Jewish boys to do the same. Bess' sister, Evelyn, has a boyfriend who is a Rabbi, a Rabbi who propagates Lindbergh's cause, insisting what's happening in Germany is completely different to what's happening in America; i.e. the Jews should enter into a country life, and disappear into it. This adds more friction to the family relationships. 

Can you imagine this? A fascist America? The President of the Free World being anti-Semites? America siding with Germany during the War, and signing non-aggression treaties? I can't, not for the life of me. But Roth, he's managed to a spectacular job of bringing something we can't imagine to life, and making us grateful that for once, the 'what if' didn't quite pan out. 

Overall, a 9 on 10.

Weekly Geeks - Guilty Pleasures

This week's Weekly Geeks was sent in by Maree, and it revolves around those things that we do when we're not reading. So. Weekly Geeks, we're going into the confessional this week.

What's your non-reading guilty pleasure?
Trashy TV?
Trashier movies?
Junk food?

I'm not a big fan of TV or movies. Never have been, to be honest. I always preferred curling up with a good book, and some music, instead of watching TV - even cartoons. So what are my guilty pleasures (barring chocolates, which, I would say is more of a necessity, than a guilty pleasure!). Well, three things:

1. Gadgets - anytime I see something new, that looks funky, I want to buy it. Even if I don't need it. I just have to have it! I probably subscribe to more techie blogs and magazines than book blogs. And some of it really blows my mind away. Ok, so that's +1 on the Geek-o-meter for me!

2. Football - as in, proper football. I'm a Manchester United fan (ok, stop rolling your eyes. I am not a glory hunter!), and watching them play football is heavenly, most of the time. The Wednesday just gone by was painful, but if something gives you infinite pleasure, it's bound to cause you pain as well, right? I hate the summer, because the lack of football means I end up twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do on weekends. 

3. Swimming - is amazing. You can lose yourself in the water, and as you cover length after length, all your worries ebb away, and you just end up feeling really relaxed and happy. While at university, I used to swim twice a day - first thing in the morning, and in the evening... specially during exam time (it might have had something to do with procrastinating...). Now, I barely get time to swim thrice a week... but, when I do, it's always like a brand new experience. Of course, when I slip in the pool and my back bumps off all the steps, it's not that much fun. Luckily, that happens rarely! 

So, how about you? Non-reading pleasures? 

Another Challenge : Take A Chance

Jenners at 'Find Your Next Book Here' is hosting a really fun challenge. Lasting June 'til November, it's basically encouraging you to 'take a chance' on your reading. I'm hoping to stumble upon something breathtakingly good, as, you know what they say: life's all about taking chances! If Abba could have a song about it..... 

Anyway, here are the ten tasks associated with the challenge - the first seven involve finding a book to read, randomly, whereas the last three encourage you to get in touch with the literary genius in you. 

The background/fundamentals/whatchamacallit as described in her blog are:

The challenge will run from June 1, 2009 through November 30, 2009 (6 months)

One winner will be drawn on December 1, 2009 and will receive a grand prize of $25 worth of books from Amazon (any books you choose!)

Each completed task earns you one entry into the drawing for the grand prize.

To earn an extra entry, blog or Tweet about this challenge and let me know in the comment section.

To earn 5 extra entries, complete all 10 challenges.

The total number of entries that can be earned is 16 (10 for each challenge, 5 for completing all tasks and 1 for blogging/tweeting about the challenge).

You can join the challenge anytime before the November 30 deadline but only tasks completed by November 30, 2009 will be counted as entries.

To have your entries count, you must publish them on your blog and leave a comment with a link to your entries in the comment section for this post.

All participants must sign up in Mr. Linky below so I can keep track of everyone who is participating.

And here are the ten tasks:

1. Random Book Selection. Go to the library. Position yourself in a section such as Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Children (whatever section you want). Then write down random directions for yourself (for example, third row, second shelf, fifth book from right). Follow your directions and see what book you find. Check that book out of the library, read it and then write about it. (If you prefer, you can do the same at a bookstore and buy the book!)  
2. Random Word. Go to this random word generator and generate a random word. Find a book with this word in the title. Read the book and write about it.  
3. Birth Year Book. Find a book that was published or copyrighted in the year of your birth. Read the book and write about it.  
4. Judge A Book By Its Cover. Pick out a book based SOLELYon the cover. First, write about what you expect the book to be about based on the cover art. Then read the book and write about how the book was different from and/or similar to what the cover art led you to expect.  
5. Phoning An Author. Pick a random last name out of the phone book. Find an author with the same last name and read a book by them. Write about it. (I'm flexible ... if the first random name you pick is Xprxyrsss, you can pick again!)  
6. Public Spying. Find someone who is reading a book in public. Find out what book they are reading and then read the same book. Write about it.  
7. Random Bestseller. Go to Random.org and, using the True Random Number Generator, enter the number 1950 for the min. and 2008 for the max. and then hit generate. Then go to this site and find the year that Random.org generated for you and click on it. Then find the bestseller list for the week that would contain your birthday for that year. Choose one of the bestsellers from the list that comes up, read it and write about it.  
8. Lit Riff (inspired by the book Lit Riffs by Matthew Miele.) Choose a song and then write a brief story that is inspired by or further explains the lyrics of the song.  
9. Poetic Review. Write a book review in three different forms of verse: haiku, limerick and free verse. (You can pick any book you want to write about.)  
10. Movie/Book Comparison. Find a book that you haven't read that has a movie based on it that you haven't seen. Read the book and watch the movie within a few days of each other. Write about your reactions to both the book and the movie and compare the two.

Now, that sounds like a whole lot of fun! I'd say, skip along to her blog and sign up - have fun, folks!

Musing Mondays - Gift Certs

Do you give gift certificates to book stores as presents? If so, do you give for actual stores or online stores? Do you like to receive them yourself?

Nope, I don't. Not normally, anyway. Most of the people for whom I need to buy presents don't really like books. The couple who do... I find it much more personal to go and buy them a book myself, and write them a little note on the first page (with a pencil, before you accuse me of vandalizing books), as to the occasion, and why I think they'll like the book. Or, it just might be a quote I really like. 

Yup, I do like receiving gift certificates as presents, or books themselves. When I was growing up, my birthday present from my parents was always book-related. I remember dropping hints from a month before, and continuously changing my list. My poor parents almost always got it right! 

My predominant issue with gift certificates is that I never know what a good sum to put on them is. And sometimes (depending on the recipient), it seems as though not enough thought has gone into it. As one of my friends says, I'd rather get a 5 quid present, which shows a personal touch, as opposed to something just for the sake of, like a gift certificate. It takes a book lover to appreciate just how personal gift certificates to book stores are.

Anne Enright - The Gathering

I'm trying to read all the Booker winners, in the next couple of years. This painstakingly dull book, filled with unengaging characters and a pointless plot adds a serious blemish to my plan at the very outset. I struggled through the first thirty pages, and struggled some more 'til I hit page 89, in a week... And then... then I just gave up, and figured this book is not for me. I mean, what a gigantic waste of my reading time! 

I wonder if the Booker judges even read this book, and if they did, did they have exceptionally low standards? I must read the rest of the shortlist for 2007, for I really can't fathom how this book won any kind of prize. 

I mean, what kind of a person imagines the sex-life of her grandmother, and starts off a chapter saying she thought her grandmother was a prostitute? That's the narrator for you. She also judges her mum, and talks of the 'endless humping' in her family, which led to the number of siblings she had being in double-digits. 

I feel terrible, but, 0/10. If negative ratings work, I'd probably give this a -10. Argh! Ok, rant over. 

PS: I was almost tempted to create a new 'genre' called pointless reading for this!

Weekly Geeks - Here Comes The Sun!

And here's part two of this week's Weekly Geeks:

Again with Memorial Day Weekend here in the U.S. starting traditionally on Friday evening, it also is unofficially the start of summer. You've probably been asked this in other meme groups in which you participate, but do your reading habits change over the summer? Do you choose lighter fare? What do you enjoy to take to the beach, for example? What is the ultimate summer book? OR what are your favorite travel guides -- official or unofficial guides? Again, an example, I think of Holidays In Hell by P.J. O'Rourke, of places I'd rather not vacation. Along those lines, where do you vacation? Any places you recommend or even don't recommend?

Gone are the days when I get a summer vacation, and can contemplate a few weeks of blissful laziness. I miss school. I miss university. I miss sitting in the summer sun, as you see the odd tulip sprouting, the grass looking greener, and the skies bluer. Adulthood. It's overrated. 

So nope, my reading habits don't tend to change over the summer. I still read what I normally would, as I try to strike off a name from my TBR list, without adding another eight on. 

However, when it comes to vacationing, and beach holidays, I have a very simple rule: paperback fiction. Ok, stop judging me. Buuuut... on a beach, a Grisham or a Mary Higgins Clark will work beautifully. It's essentially easy-reading, as you sit on a deck chair and watch the waves coming in. I love the waves, I love the ocean, and I just adore sunrise and sunset on the beach. It's breathtaking. It's stunning. It's almost like being in paradise. 

This year, I'm planning a trip to Barbados or Florida with some friends, as my 'summer' holiday, and a trip to Egypt or Morocco as my 'end of summer' break. None of the plans are definite yet. It's all tentative, but hopefully, something will work out. 

Happy Weekly Geeks, folks, and enjoy the summer. 

C'mon, sing one of my favorite Beatles melodies with me...

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,  and I say it's alright 

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter  Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here  Here comes the sun, here comes the sun  and I say it's alright 

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces  Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here  Here comes the sun, here comes the sun  and I say it's alright 

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...  Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...  Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...  Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...  Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... 

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting  Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear  Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,  and I say it's alright  It's alright.