After an accidentally lengthy hiatus from the blog, I’m back! The last ten or so days were not an accident: I was on a beautiful vacation and I wanted to be fully present for it. BOY, was I. A bridesmaid in the gorgeous wedding of two fantastic soulmates, and a co-traveller with three adventurous friends, I’m stateside and invigorated, crossing my fingers jet lag won’t last long.
And I only read one book! In 10 days! I’m so proud!
Now, I know most people are not like me, and don’t get enough reading time in their daily lives, but my goal for this trip was to go forth into the world and to read as little as possible. Check, and check.
But this is not to say I did not bring many books. After all, I usually have to read a little bit to unwind before going to sleep. But what to read on vacation? The term “beach read” exists because I think many people want something fluffy that they can put down and come back to easily and don’t want to read anything serious or heavy on vacation. (At least, that’s what my mom told me when she didn’t bring the books I gave her on her beach trip!) And I read an interesting article (and subsequently put the author’s book on hold) that discusses how books with the categories “guilty pleasures” or as “beach reads” are more often than not written by women, about women, which may serve to trivialize the books and authors.
All this to say, read whatever you want to on your precious vacation time! There is no “should” here!
The books I brought on my trip were:
- The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro (finished! She is highly entertaining! Though, this was written in 2002, when it was still fashionable to use the “R” word)
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (still in progress) about his life’s work with prisoners on death row. It brings up many questions about the implications of bias and racism in the justice system.
And the ebooks I checked out but they expired before I could read them:
- Surpassing Certainty by Janet Mock
- There I Go Again by William Daniels (aka Mr. Feeny!)
Based on the death row book alone, you can see I don’t really subscribe to the beach/vacation reads. (Though, maybe I’d have a different story if I actually sat reading on the beach.) I don’t know how all these normal people prioritize what one book they’ll read over the summer. We book people will read whatever speaks to us, anytime, anywhere! BUT, I do like to recommend what one book you should read over the summer, so feel free to ask for recommendations and tell me what you like.
I’ve had a bit of writer’s block lately, so I’m going to wrap up here by saying happy birthday to my BFFMLLP and I’ll write more soon!
The Angry Librarian 