WordLover - Summer Reading List |
Readin', Writin', and Unravelin' has been renamed WordLover to make our tech person happy. We hope you're happy with it too. Continue to read Jodi's blogs on reading and writing and the Wednsday word puzzle every week!
Well, Memorial Day has come and gone so it’s time to compile my summer reading list. Of course my list is always much longer than my summer reading time and the list keeps growing all summer as people say, “You’ve got to read…”
There is another summer reading list that is not greeted so enthusiastically—the high school summer reading list. Nooooooo! Remember those? I happened to see one this week and it amazed me. When I glanced over this list (about 200 books for grades 9 through 12) I saw quite a few books I hadn’t read.
But it was even worse than that. There were some books and authors I’d never even heard of. Ever. I took quite a few of those college classes where you seemed to be drowning in books. You were discussing Catch-22 while you spent every spare second reading Cannery Row so you could discuss that next week. Week after week. So I’ve read quite a few of the books English teachers, librarians, and book reviewers consider the classics.
But after I graduated, the classics went out the window as I raced to read the newest authors. I have a dozen book stacked by my bed waiting - four were published between 2005 and 2007, four from 1995 to 2005, and two from the mid-80’s (P.D. James mysteries). When was the last time you read something that was your local librarian would call a Great Book - great with a capital “G”? A book, that has been enjoyed by generations of readers.
So I’m adding a few classics I neglected to my summer reading list. I have a secret confession. I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Shocked, aren’t you? Hasn’t everyone read that American classic? Well, not me. I never even watched the movie. I never really had to. It’s such a part of our culture I know the basic plot, character’s names, even the author’s bio without ever cracking the book. I’ve just been faking it all these years.
Lots of folks have lists of books everyone should read. If you want some ideas or to see how your favorites stack up, check out Random House Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels and 100 Best Nonfiction Books or the MLA’s 30 Books You Should Read Before You Die
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best.html
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
Do you have a secret confession? A book everyone should read but you haven’t. Tell me. I’d also welcome suggestions to add to my summer classics list. What classic do I just have to read? And I’ll let you know what I think of Scout.
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Jodi M. Webb |
| About the author: |
| Jodi has been leading the crazy life of a writer for over a decade--along the way she's had a 6 foot tall ostrich try to eat her camera bag, rode in a medieval cart built by high school students, and held a super-sized gold chain recovered from a shipwreck. Unfortunately the gold chain wouldn't fit in her camera bag or she'd be writing to you from a villa in Italy--not Pennsylvania. When not writing she spends her time reading mysteries and World War II histories and baking cookies.
She's also working on her first book, a mystery that reaches back into World War II for a motive. |
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