Summer Loving

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they own. When I'm visiting friends I'm often caught, in the other room, staring down their shelves, looking for a common thread, or at least another title to put on my own list. I love books and I especially love summer reading. It transports you even if you never leave your house. There's something about the summer that encourages reading to be loose, free, and fun. Forget War and Peace! (Although it's on my list this year thanks to library book club.) It makes me want to buy cheap mass market paperbacks and short Agatha Christie novels on my Nook to devour in an afternoon spent on the back patio. I consider re-reading Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, my first summer-novel love, which captured my heart on the shores of Lake Michigan when I was 16. I want to savor Summer Sisters by Judy Blume (again!) which takes me back to summer 2001 spent on Miami Beach with my own sister. We would ride our matching bikes to the library on 24th and Collins to exchange our baskets full of books. Afterwards, we'd sit on the beach or ride home to lay on our beds, in the air conditioning, absorbed in our books. They were ALL good that summer.....It tempts me to create a list that I swear I will get through this year and it's fun to wish and hope and dream of a summer well read.

My sister, Emily, bought me this in hardcover and it's beautiful! Thanks to the e-book, I won't have to carry a 5 lb. tome to New England or Africa!

This summer, we're headed to the Cape, not to "summer", but to spend a week which, at this point, I'm eternally grateful for. I'll let you in on a little secret.....when I was a teenager, I dreamed of summering on Cape Cod. I had never been there, but I knew families who spent time in Chatham and Nantucket and those places seemed so dreamy, beautiful, and exclusive. On the other hand, my family, transported by our conversion van, spent 2 weeks of summer in eastern Tennessee. It was a wonderful, but quite different experience, I was sure. Somehow, I knew I was going to marry someone who would take me to Cape Cod at least once. This dream would surface from time to time, but I never told anyone or thought much of it myself. Fast forward to 2003 and I met a wonderful guy. He was funny, warm, smart, adorable, and much too old for me. He also had a magnet on his refrigerator. It was a clock with the caption "I'm on Cape Time." Could this be true? Yes, he confirmed, his parents lived on Cape Cod. To be fair, his generosity, kindness, and beautiful smile stole my heart, but this revelation confirmed that our relationship was meant to be. And it has been for the last 10 years. I love him so and visiting his great family on Cape Cod is something I look forward to every chance we get!

This year I have big hopes for my summer reading list which will commence on our trip to Cape Cod at the end of this month. In fact, it's so long it will probably take me all the way through our winter trip to Cape Town. Three words: War and Peace. The good news is it will be summer there, too. My home is filled with paperbacks I have yet to read as well as many books I love. My Nook is stacked with titles I've been collecting all spring. So, here's what I'll be (hopefully!) reading in all forms of Summer 2013:

Some from my own collection that made the list.

THE LIST
1. The Moving Finger (Agatha Christie)
2. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
3. The Distant Hours or The Forgotten Garden (Kate Morton)
4. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
5. Aunt Dimity's Death/ Aunt Dimity and the Duke (Nancy Atherton)
6. The Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)
7. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (The Countess of Carnarvon)
8. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCollough)
9. The Viscount Who Loved Me (Julia Quinn)
10. The Ugly Duchess (Eloisa James)
11. Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)
12. Personal History (Katherine Graham)
13. Murder on the Links (Agatha Christie)
14. Organized Simplicity (Tsh Oxenrider)
15. The End of Your Life Book Club (Wil Schwalbe)
16. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
17. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sister, Two Rabbits, and..... (Jeanne Birdsall)
18. In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson)
19. The Language of Flowers (Vanessa Diffenbaugh)
20. The Rules of Civility (Towles)
21. She Walks In Beauty (compiled by Caroline Kennedy)
22. Mistress in the Art of Death (Arianna Franklin)
And whatever else my heart desires....

What will you be reading? Here's to happy summer reading wherever it will take you....whether around the world, in your favorite armchair, or just in your imagination!