One of my family’s long-standing traditions is spending time at our friends’ cabin on Butler Island on Lake Champlain. It’s rustic in the extreme (though less so than the early years) with minimal power, an outhouse, and (thankfully) no Internet. It’s a great opportunity to hang out with the family, hike, swim, and read a … Read more
I have a bad habit of saving all of my heavy reading for the summer. Don’t get me wrong — I love my summer reading list, but my brain’s happier when I keep reading throughout the year. Starting around Thanksgiving and continuing through to early March, I aimed to do exactly that. I put together a short (well, short for me) reading list.
Summer is long over, and the end of the year is looming large. Fortunately I can look back on a summer and know — despite all the long work days — that I read a hell of a lot of books.
I ended up reading all but one of the novels on my summer reading list, while adding several additional tomes. I planned to read 12 books and five graphic novels. I succeeded in reading 15 books and nine graphic novels.
It’s November. Summer is long gone, and so is my summer reading list.
There were 15 books and four graphic novels on my official Summer 2014 reading list. I read 13 of the novels and five graphic novels, beating last year’s total of 11 novels and an equal number of graphic novels.
My annual vacation to Lake Champlain is still a ways off, but I’ve begun attacking my summer reading list with a vengeance. I’ve completed one book — Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold — have have launched into two more: Fractions by Ken MacLeod and Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve also found one of the books on my list is caught in the Amazon/Hachette crossfire.
Late winter and early spring are my long dark teatime of the soul when it comes to books: I want to read, but I just don’t have time (or when I do have the time, the motivation) to do so. Fortunately, I have audio books, a daily commute, and a dog that needs walking. All of these combine to insure that I keep reading in the winter months.
It’s a slow time for reading at Nuketown. The frenzy of the summer reading list has given way to the crush of my fall work load (and, if I’m honest, too much time spent playing Civilization 5). Much of my reading these days is of the audio variety, on my way back and forth from work, and it continues to be dominated by science fiction … though I have snuck in a Lovecraftian spy novel.
For the first time since high school I may actually finish my summer reading list, or at least hit the 90% mark. Of the 17 novels, graphic novels, and audio books on my 2013 reading list, I’ve completed 14.
It’s spring and I’ve been trying to get back in shape in anticipation of three months spent coaching my daughter’s softball team. This in turn has led to a resurgence of book reading as I download new audio books to listen to while working out at the gym or taking the dog for 45-minute walks.
I’ve been able to make a serious dent in my summer reading list over the last few months, knocking out four books in two months.
Given how busy work has been, that’s not to bad. Of course, it helps that I was on vacation for 10 days, which allowed me to knock out two of the books (Dreadnaught, In Death Ground) and most of a third (The Shiva Option, the sequel to In Death Ground).
The 8-hour road trip to get our vacation spot also allowed me to make a serious dent in the audio version of The Letter of Marque by Patrick O’Brian, one of his Aubrey/Maturin novels about naval warfare in the early 1800s.