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What's on your Summer reading list?
There isn’t much better than sitting outside and reading a good book, but that really isn’t an option come January in Milwaukee. Now that we’ve finally got warm weather, it’s time to dust off that list of books you’ve been dying to read.Â
For me, the summer means it’s time to read for fun, for once, since textbooks have a tendency to take over the fall, winter and most of the spring months.Â
To start my summer off, I read "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live," by Tom Shales and James Miller. While I can’t wait to read Shales' and Miller’s new ESPN tell-all book, "Those Guys Have All the Fun," I prefer to support used bookstores (apologies if that sounded as pretentious to you as it did to me), so I’ll wait it out until people finish reading it and it gets to a used bookstore. What I did do, however, was find a great deal on "Live from New York" from a bookstore in Washington thanks to Amazon.Â
I recommended "Live from New York" in a previous OMC Recommends, but it’s worth noting again that the book spends a lot of time on the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, including a history of that name. This is easily the best portion of the book and only the stories about Chris Farley's stint and Norm MacDonald's firing were as entertaining.
After finishing "Live From New York," I’ve started George R.R. Martin’s, "A Game of Thrones." The book is the first in what will eventually be a seven-book series, the fifth of which, "A Dance with Dragons," was just released on Tuesday. I’ve become a huge fan of the HBO show based on the books, and I can’t wait for whenever the next season begins.
There’s no way I’ll get through all of those books this summer, so my list for next year is already building up. I’ll have to catch up on Martin’s series, and then I plan on reading "Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1."
Also coming out next May is John Green's next book, "The Fault in Our Stars." That might get a bump to the front of the list considering how much I've enjoyed Green's previous work.
Given the size of Twain's autobiography, I've now got a list that should get me to fall 2012.
What are you going to be reading in the limited sunshine we are treated to over the next few months? Â
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jrwolf | Aug. 8, 2011 at 11:17 a.m. (report)
Chelsea Chealsea Bang Bang by Chealsea Handler. Its been published for about a year and after looking at all the cook books @ Boswell (bookstore on eastside) I was in the mood for a good laugh & this book has not dissapointed me yet :)
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bigjohnstuddx2 | July 15, 2011 at 2:34 a.m. (report)
The People that Shaped the States by Mark Stein. The second book based from the tv show How the States got Their Shape on History.
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d1johnson | July 14, 2011 at 5:02 p.m. (report)
Love John Green! He recently Tweeted that he's going to sign every copy of the first printing, so I've got mine on order already.
I also want to point out that you needn't wait to purchase books through your favorite used bookstore; we have these great things in Milwaukee called libraries where you can read books FOR FREE! It's really quite awesome.
Speaking of libraries, I just finished the latest Janet Evanovich book (which I checked out from the library), I absolutely loved I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan and the audiobook version of Keith Richards' Life.
Coming up: The Help, a bunch of childrens' & teen literature (I'm a school librarian) like Incarceron, Matched, and Mockingbird and maybe another biography or two like Steve-O's book Professional Idiot or Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends.
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