Summer Reading and More

I've been wanting to post about reading and all the great books I've read this summer.  I usually have a summer reading list but this year, I actually have been reading all year, because I've had the extra time to do so. (current total 13)   Reading lists can be divided up so many ways.  To borrow from the book I am currently reading,  Italo Calvino's  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler", there are books you've always wanted to read, books you can borrow from somebody, books you mean to read, books that everyone else has read so it's like you have read them, books that you might read this summer and, my favorite, "books that if you had more than one life you would certainly also read but unfortunately your days are numbered."

You can also categorize them by how you came upon them.  There are books you have already read and are re-reading, books that someone you know has read and suggests them to you, books that you find on lists, Amazon suggestions and books you pick up on vacation.  

So, where do I start?  Let me start with my favorites:

MOBY DICK.  Hands down my favorite book ever.  Love this book, have read it several times and keep it handy to just randomly read parts of it when I feel like I need a dose of Melville.  It's not easy reading. It's a chore really.  But this year I did read it all the way through....yay!

Anything by Haruki Murakami.  Most recently it was his collection of short stories in "The Elephant Vanishes".

Need some super easy reading? My favorite is Daniel Silva.  I have read every single one of his Gabriel Allon novels, including the latest.






And lastly, an old favorite that I had to dig around to find and ended up getting a cheap ($3) edition from Amazon that is a bit off, but for $3?  Why not? It's
D.H Lawrence's "The Man Who Died, or The Escaped Cock", in which a man who died (Christ) does not die, is not resurrected because he wasn't really dead when they buried him .  He wanders and has a relationship....

Next time, books recommended by people I barely know, a book I can't decide about, and the rest of the list.  Pick up a book! Tell me what you are reading!