Last Minute Summer Reading!

Staying up way too late to cram in some summer reading because you’ve been too busy writing and reading non-fiction (for research) still counts, right? I’m invoking the Badger Scouts We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinkin’-Rules Rule on this one.

Summer Reading Merit Badge by Merit Badger

This summer I have: written by the pool, but not read there; read numerous works non-fiction, but very little fiction; written thousands of words for my WIP, but not read many novels.

This is how it tends to go for me. There are times when I write instead of read, or when I go on a non-fiction binge and leave off the fiction for a while. Partly this is because I find captivating fiction too distracting to my process when I am writing intensively. I also tend to allot my reading time for non-fiction — research — when I’m doing a lot of writing.

I miss reading fiction when I’m on a writing/non-fiction-reading kick. When I delved into a novel earlier this week, it felt like coming home after a long journey. In a way it was: I traveled deep into my own WIP this summer, and returned to reading fiction only when my intensive-writing adventure was through.

Favorite Summer Reading Books So Far: [1]

• A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin




• Child of Fire by Harry Connolly [2]




• Death’s Daughter by Cassandra Jade




• Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann

Books in My TBR Pile That I *Will* Read Before Summer is Through: [3]

• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold




• LIAR by Justine Larbalestier




• Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

Book I Bought, Put in the TBR Pile, Didn’t Read Because I Was Writing Too Much, and Will NOT Manage to Read Before Summer Is Through: [4]

• The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa, Translated by Jim Hubbert

This is the one I was most looking forward to reading after I wrapped up writing 1,000 words a day. I’ve decided to skip it while I am working on my zombies-at-spaceports short story: not because it has zombies in it (that I know of); it does, however, focus on space exploration. I need the mental space to work out my own space-exploration issues while I’m writing the zombies story. This one will hopefully be early-autumn reading.

Your turn!

Summer reading: what have you loved, what have you not gotten to, am I the only one who strategizes reading vis-à-vis writing? (Surely not.) I’d love to hear about it.

Happy reading, everyone!

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Summer time, and the footnotes are easy:


1: If I were a kid in a library summer reading program, I don’t know if this would cut it. Also, I am counting “summer” as “starting when schools tend to let out around here (or should)”, not as “beginning on the solstice”. Remember, there are no rules in Badger Scouting! (Also, also: this list is in order read; it’s not a ranked list. Go read them all!)


2: I need to read this one again, and soon! My life got ridiculously busy shortly after I wrote that review, but it’s been pointed out to me that I may have missed some things when I read it the first time (well, the first times). ;) I hate missing things! I want to re-read it before the next one comes out later this month. Seriously: I hauled it all the way to Las Vegas and back, and sat down not long enough to crack a book the whole time I was there. What did I do on the plane? Got my 1,000 words a day done. And just barely, at that.


3: This list could also be entitled “Books I Bought for Myself That Other People in the Household Have Gotten to Read, But Alas I Have Not!”


4: And you thought my footnotes were obnoxious!* Check out the title on that list!


*: Virtual *hugs* for everyone reading this: I am so thrilled people read my (self-indulgent) footnotes! I can’t even tell you.