Day 291 - Reading for Pleasure?

background information, procedure and conclusion sections remain

Alright, this is NOT a picture that represents reading for pleasure.  I just need to finish grading three sections in this stack of lab reports and my grading will be done.THEN, I can move onto a different stack.

I went through my bookshelves and picked up a couple of things from the library to keep me busy over the summer.  Many of you will probably look at the stack and think it's not very big but I read very slowly, digesting every word and I'm pretty picky about what I read.  If I'm not interested in the first 50 pages, I probably won't bother.  Here are my choices.

1) Best Women's Travel Writing:  Picked this up because there is a story written by a former student of mine and because I'm naturally drawn to any travel tales. Now I'm on the hunt for the editions published in previous years.  Watch for a new segment coming up on my blog entitled "Travel Tuesday".

2) Ape House and Riding Lessons:  I loved Water for Elephants so I picked up Riding Lessons at Half Price Books and splurged by purchasing Ape House on Amazon.  Ape House is about a scientist working at the Great Ape Language Lab, a research lab that is rocked by an explosion.  Riding Lessons tells the story of a world-class equestrian whose life is turned upside down as she returns to her dying father's horse farm in New Hampshire.

3) Assassination Vacation:  Pretty sure a friend passed this on to me and it should be funny.  "It is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture".

4) The Birth House:  I found this book after searching online for stories set in Nova Scotia.  It takes place during World War I and is about a young midwife. It portrays the "struggles that women faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine".

5) Last Child in the Woods:  Bought this at the Seattle Audubon Society Nature Shop.  The author believes there is a direct connection between the absence of nature in the lives of our children and many of today's alarming childhood trends like obesity, depression and attention disorders.

6) The Other Side of Mercy:  When the 4 Lakewood police officers were shot in November of 2009, the event shook me to my very core (and still does).  This authors of this book worked for the Seattle Times and they won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.

7) Moonlight Mile:  Years ago, I discovered mysteries by Dennis Lehane and I was immediately hooked because they are all set in the Boston area.  I've read almost all of his books and find him to be a good writer.  He's not so prolific that he churns out junk every year like a number of folks out there. Right now, I have a novel of his on my nightstand that is very different from his typical genre.  It's called The Given Day (still set in Boston) but it is set at the end of World War I and tells the story of two families (one black, one white) caught up in the political and social unrest.

What's on your summer reading list?