Summer Reading: Hitting the Books

When my "summer break" began last Friday (at roughly 3:00 p.m.), I set a few goals for myself; things I hoped to accomplish this summer. This is a ritual as ancient as the New Year's Resolution, but this time, I meant it. One of my "goals" is to do more reading, and in doing so using my time more wisely... translation: less time surfing the net or playing X-box 360.

Of course, as a conscientious English Language Arts educator who will be teaching two new grade levels in September (and the content that goes along with it), I have quite a bit of "required" reading to work through in anticipation of delivering good lessons. Beyond that, though, I want to make the effort to be "better read," whatever that means. In the interest of working toward this personal improvement goal, I have already finished three books, and having made progressively better title selections, the rate with which I am noodling through each text is growing shorter.

Last week I read both Planetwalker by John Francis and At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft. The most recent book, one I am currently taking a break from wrapping up to write this post, is Farewell, My Subaru by Doug Fine. As you might notice, I'm something of a non-fiction fan...

So, what do I do with this as I post about these things that I read here? More important than telling you how great I felt a book is or isn't (one man's trash is another man's treasure), I'd rather briefly share how the reading I've done fits into my own developing world-view. A lofty goal for sure, but I am a simple person and what I have to "say" will likely be pretty "simple," too ;)

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!