Summer Reading

There are a few days of school left – 4 weeks I think.  Which means besides the library being insanely busy, trying to maintain normal daily activities and closing activities really what I am thinking about is what I am going to read this summer.  On my A to Z list I have made very little progress so those books are out there to read – I have read the I, J, R but not anything else – although I have a few more to add.  But I have been adding new books to the library recently and so now I have a whole new list to read.  Of course to be honest the chance of me actually reading these is a little like this cartoon since I usually get distracted.

All that being said here are some titles I got in recently that I am interested in.

The Blind Side – probably will be my non-fiction sports reading this summer

Ironside – Holly Black

Malinche – Laura Esquivel

City of Bones – Cassandra Clare

Skylight Confessions - Alice Hoffman

Dramarama – e. lockhart

The New Policeman – Kate Thompson

Wikinomics – probably won’t get through it

The Search – the book on Google, ditto Wikinomics

The Possibility of Fireflies -Dominique Paul

Ines of my Soul – Isabel Allende

Eagle Blue – Oh yeah, more sports non fiction

Haters - Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

The Keep – Jennifer Egan

Boys that Bite

Boys that Bite is ridiculous. Out of control, over the top ridiculous. Funny, trashy, does not take a whole lot of concentration ridiculous.

She’s dressed in black leather, but don’t get the mistaken impression that she’s at all attractive and sexy in it. Let’s just say Bertha the Vampire Slayer has evidently been hitting the drive through a few too many times on her dinner break. And leather sure isn’t very forgiving when it comes to super sizing your French fries. Especially tight, low-rise leather pants that allow her stomach fat to ooze out her front. Add a greasy zit-face and the stringy blonde hair and you’ll get a good mental picture of what this “slayer” looks like.
Bertha the Vampire Slayer?!? Complete with acne?!?

Mari Mancusi takes on more than one vampire trope – I mean she takes on Hollywood, Joss Whedon (affectionately I think.), King Arthur, the Holy Grail, Anne Rice, even a little Twilight/Stephenie Meyer riff in plot. (Choosing is overrated). I mean you could say she is ripping them off, but really it is just fun and the tone is more loving and did I mention, ridiculous, than out right copying.

It is ridiculous, fun, fast, snarky – the kind of book you read when everything else puts you to sleep, or you just don’t want to read.

Why I hate sequels

That isn’t really true, if I love a book I look forward to sequels but here are two things that keep me from loving them. So the first is when the second doesn’t live up to the first (hellooo, New Moon, season 2 of Veronica Mars, I could go on) but here is what I really hate. If there is a long time between books I don’t remember what happened in the first. And why is this a problem for me right now? Because What My Girlfriend Doesn’t know is coming out. Only I thought it was already out. So I re-read What My Mother Doesn’t Know, barreled through it really – even read in the car on the way home from work. Don’t worry I wasn’t driving. And as soon as I finished it I jumped in my car, drove down to Borders (there are NO decent indie stores in Eureka, and it was too late to drive back up to Arcata plus I doubt Northtown would have had it). Anyways I get to Borders all excited to keep reading and . . . they don’t have it. Which surprises me because they have lots of the paperback of What My Mother etc. So finally I break down and look it up on the computer and ITS NOT OUT YET. Grrrrrrr……….. Now I have fairly regular temper tantrums at Borders, I can be the crazy lady talking to herself in the books. But I managed to maintain my severe disappointment and leave with no books. Now I have to decide to reread what my mother – again in a month. HMMMPF.