Summer Reading List



Summer Stack: fiction, foreign language & fun.

So far this Summer's stack is pretty light on serious topics. The only thing missing in here is the Martha Stewart book I told you about. But Summer reading isn't really supposed to be all heavy and heady and junk. Light and airy keeps the gear box from binding with too much information in its teeth.

I really liked The Last Dickens. Much like Stephenson's System of the World, I am reminded that the people that I admire from history aren't pale synopsis of a life lived. These were real people. Sure I didn't much like Newton when I got done with Stephenson. But I don't think that we were supposed to like him. Dickens, with all the historical reference and the wealth of anecdotal information comes to life in this book in ways that help set the rest of his work in a finer context.

Happiest Days of Our Lives is plain old fun. And after the Winter of my discontent, I need all the fun that my meager earnings can provide. Which means borrowed books and revisiting the best of my personal collection. Uncle Wil just makes me happy. Though I will grant that I am responsible for finding my own happiness; its good not to be the only geek in the room.

And yes, those are Romances on the top of the stack. Not for their relative importance in my literary diet but because this was the best composition. I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. I really do think that art is the thing. Kenyon has a series that, for my money, embarrasses the Living Hell out of anything Twighlight can do. It isn't just vampires and werewolves. It is the scope of all mythology. Each Pantheon, much like Stargate, gets a nod. And if that sounds suspiciously ambitious.... that's because it is.

Uncle Hugh.... just in case you missed the post in which I gushed over this book is in here with his Evil Plans along with some good inspirational fun from Lynne Perrella and the folks at Somerset Studio. Just in case you were wondering, the German usage book does discuss the naughty bits. But it is so much more about getting the feel for informality and fitting in than that. Germans like to make friends. But they don't like making friends with posers. Which, I guess, explains every clique on the planet.

Juices are starting to flow in the direction of productivity. Now I just need to get to a place where that can come to fruition.