No, really.
In case you were wondering, it takes approximately a year to discover this – right around the amount of time it takes for you to get a second bill for your carefully chosen website name only to cock your head to the side ever so slightly and think oh, yeah…I started a blog last summer.
I guess I could blame most of this on the cross-country move and new job, but in large part it comes back to the perfectionism I referenced in my very first post. (You know – the one that happened last June but is still only two posts ago.) Unless I have the time to dedicate to making sure each post is just right, it’s hard for me to even think about starting one. In other words, the fact that I woke up this morning and started writing one is kind of a big deal. Please, hold your applause.
It also comes down to the fact that I have done a pretty dismal job of running and reading (anything that is not related to teaching, that is) over the past year, and given the fact that the name of my blog is The Running Bibliophile, posting while not being actively engaged in those pursuits seems a little disingenuous. I plan on posting later (Maybe I can will future entries into being if I mention them ever so casually?) about the texts through which my advanced students and English Learners (all freshmen) have traveled over this past school year, but for now, I will focus on the wonderful reality that is my first summer vacation sans moving or coaching in a long time, and the reading that I have planned.
So without future ado, here are the books I plan (as of this moment anyway) to read this summer:
- Calypso by David Sedaris (I finished this one last night! This is what spurred me to actually start writing this morning! Woo-hoo!)
- Caravan by Dorothy Gilman (This one was a gift at the end of first semester from the mother of one of my students, and her enthusiasm about my reading it has me pretty excited about it.)
- The Door by Magda Szabo
- Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories by Lauren Groff
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
- Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada
- The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
- What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
- You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
- California by Edan Lepucki
But for now, I’m going to just hit the blue “Publish” button before I have a chance to think about it too much.
The Running Bibliophile 