Five on Friday: A Book Maven's List of Summer Reads

This week I can't really say "tgif" because it's my turn to work the Saturday shift. But that's okay, because I'm not stuck in a job where I'm counting down the minutes until the weekend.

And at least I have weekends, usually. In my last job--which was also my first official librarian gig--I didn't have weekends. I had days off: Sundays and Wednesdays. Absolutely brutal, and not exactly inducement for exploring the Southern California region.

But I digress.

It's been a fairly busy and productive week, all things considered, except in one very important area: reading. I didn't finish any books this week, nor did I make too much headway in Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in This House or The Dead Travel Fast. A cardinal offense for a librarian! So, to begin atonement, I present this week's Five on Friday: A Librarian's Summer Reading List

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
It's non-fiction, which is a weak point of mine. I feel compelled to pause every 30 seconds and take notes, a most disturbing and lingering habit from college. But this has a certain memoir-feel to it; combine with that the distinct flavor of self-help and the fact that there's a rather intense blog about it and it's very orderly, and oh yes, the cover is a lovely shade of blue (librarians' collection development secret revealed!) and I give up, it's going to be the first book in the book group that I will establish this summer!
(Note to self: Establish book group this summer).

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron
My eldest sister Thing One and I will both be reading this book and the accompanying workbook this summer. She's a frustrated artist, and I am a deeply intimidated artist-wannabe, and again, the self-help nature, combined with the planned lesson format (and did I mention there's a workbook?) make this a deeply appealing read for a very Gemini person.
We'll be starting it on the Summer Solstice.


Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay.
Okay, so this one actually is assigned reading. The Library's book group invited me to lead a discussion on Atonement last year, and I didn't suck! I didn't suck so much that they invited me back this year to lead the discussion group on this WWII historical. Um, yes, please? Book group is in August, so I've got a wee bit of time to read this and work up another not-sucking discussion.


The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Confession time: I never read this. Come on, High School English could only cover so many books! And anyway, how many of you have read Bleak House AND enjoyed it? So there. I kind of intensely dislike Salinger and suspect that he was a very wily sexual predator. But what the heck, I'll read his stinkin' book. I'm a librarian, after all. I'll rise above. And possibly grumble a little as I'm rising.


The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
We're all about the positive around this here blog, so this is a good one to hitch on to. Randy Pausch wrote this little gem--based on his final lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", delivered at Carnegie Mellon University as he was dying of pancreatic cancer. We're also all about the tear-jerking around this here blog, too, apparently. I've heard a lot about this book, and figure it's a nice way to round off the reading list.



Of course, I'll read other stuff, but these five are the primary goals for the summer.

What's on your list?