Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
But I've been thinking about my summer reading "wish list" and I realized that summer is the time of year when I read mostly "fluff" and "beach books" since those seem to be the ones that are so heavily marketed. And in the winter I tend toward "heavier" stuff. Now I'm thinking that I might be better off reading more challenging books in the summer, since I am fortunate to have off and won't really otherwise use my brain. Maybe I'll mix it up this year.
Nice thread idea.
I know what you mean about taking advantage of time off.
These days, I work part-time year round.
I used to always have summers off, and it does get hot, and sometimes it is nice to let my brain rest and go for the lighter stuff. My book club tends to follow that plan.
But if there is something good (and challenging) that comes up, I read it.
One thing I always do around Christmastime: Read seasonal stuff like A Christmas Carol, and my favorite collection of (very different) short stories relating to that time in December.
Interestingly enough, I do see some pattern to what I read at certain times of the year. Like BlueWillowPlate, I enjoy what I refer to as Jesus stories during the Christmas holidays, and again around Easter. Reading something along those lines may spark an interest in yet something else in a similar vein, and that is when I have picked up Margaret George's Mary Magdalene or Anita Daimant's The Red Tent.
Spring often led me to read romances, or romantic works, and I blame that on using Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Mallory's Morte d'Arthur in my HS classroom. Summer came, and I could let my hair down, put on a hat, and sit on the beach, so I often hid the book jackets of the trash I chose to read during my own summer break. I'd also use some of the time to research/read possible new titles for my classroom, especially if I had been assigned a new grade level, or literary subject, to teach; say, American, World, or British lit.
Now that I am retired and my reading choices are largely my own, I am still doing what I call my heavy reading during the more traditional academic months -- nonfiction, generally, and one book will lead to another, generally based upon an interest in a particular subject area, or related to a topic, or person. Come Christmas, it's holiday reading like Baum's The Life of Santa Claus or Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Then, back to serious tomes, or the bestsellers from any number of published lists. These are interspersed with titles from the Book Forum here, and selections made in a neighborhood book club. Spring brings lighter fare, and summer is reserved for my trash as I call it -- generally books I might be embarrassed to have others know I read, for whatever reasons I can't even explain.
And lastly, because I am cooking and entertaining during the holidays, I'll be reading cookbooks, and looking for ideas for a new or different menu. Dragging out my copies of Julia Child's two volumes on French cooking made me decide to read about Child, and then to read the book that was the basis of the cute film this year starring Meryl Streep. Now I'd like to read Julia Child's account of life with her husband in France.
I don't think it is strange either. I tend to go through phases, in the Winter I tend towards more Norse related reading and historical fiction. In the summer, I go after the sci fi and biographies. Don't know why but it has just worked out this way. Intermixed are all kinds of books on history as well and some sports books too.
I like to read long, more involved books in the winter. . . .and more non-fiction, too. In the summer, lighter, "fun" fiction mostly, and short stories. . . .maybe because in the summer I have a lot more energy and have a harder time curling up with a good book for extended periods.
I belong to a nonfiction book discussion group of retirees and those books are scheduled by the group. Maybe because every day is a vacation when you are retired, there is no special time to read.
As far as my own choices go, since I read nonfiction, primarily about current events, I pretty much read books as they are released or the info in them gets stale.
In fact, it had just occurred to me to start a thread asking exactly the same question.
No, in my case, I read a book in my spare time, and when I''m finished, I take it back to the library and get another one.
I wonder if "summer reading" was a construct of the newspaper supplements and review magazines, who wanted an advertising hook to appeal to publishers. But, I suppose, in the era before working moms, the blocks of time available for reading differed according to whether the kids were in school.
Or maybe, from school days, you read what you want to in summer, and what you have to, in winter.
Not strange at all..like the o/p I tend to read more fluff in the warmer months and the heavier tax my brain books in the winter
This is me, too. I picked up a thick book the other day and thought to myself "no, this is a winter book."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
