Well, let’s see. Last summer, there was quite a bit of reading and quite a bit of other stuff (which is to say everything that’s not reading!). For my first time through a faculty summer, I found it to be an enjoyable and relaxing experience (although I might rethink the “taking a class + teaching a class” paradigm for next year).

In lieu of a book-by-book-review post, I thought I might just hit the highlights of the titles that I did read. That way, you get the cream of the crop and I get to catch up. Win-win for all!

Fiction was a pretty good haul overall. One or two stinkers, but I won’t mention those. Good thing about most of this is that they were off the TBR and therefore, are now out of the house. (Just in time for the FoL Library Sale that’s coming up…) 🙂

Did a flurry of reading two books by Nina Stibbes (whose book, Love, Nina, I had loved on an earlier read). These were both solid Stibbes’ efforts: The Man at the Helm was about how two teen daughters are trying to find a new husband for their newly divorced mum with varying levels of success, and the second read was “Paradise Lodge” (no blog post) about a young teen working her first job at a retirement home in England. Both very British in setting and tone, and thus fit the bill for me very well.

(This is our off year for going home to England [i..e. unlikely that we’ll get there by the end of December], so instead, I’ll read some Stibbes. Funny, relevant, and just like hanging out with my own family over there!)

Read the very lovely title, “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion, an Aussie author. An easy (but still enjoyable) read with a plot that revolved around a man who lives a very controlled life (rather similar to an Aspie and/or OCD) and how he wants to find himself a girlfriend with the end goal of getting married.

Using spreadsheets and questionnaires, the guy starts the search only to meet a young woman who is the opposite of predictable and detailed. How does this process go? You’ll have to read it, but if you know any Aspies in your life (diagnosed or not), then you’ll enjoy the story. Funny without being at all mean. (I’m on the lookout for the follow-up title now. I’m curious how the story evolves!)

Then lined up some multicultural titles with a short fiction anthology, “Mixed” (from authors who are of mixed descent and how that impacts their lives) – edited by Chandra Prasad and left me lots to think about. Then, some fiction by the oh-so-talented Paule Marshall (this one called “Timeless People, Chosen Place” about the culture clash of a white academic research team on an unspecified Caribbean island community). No blog post, but very good, as per.

Read some Colm Toibin whose writing I happen to love. Set in Ireland and usually pretty domestic in setting (and revolving around family), “Nora Webster” (no blog post) was a really good read. (Plus it was a cold weather setting which was nice in Texas summer).

For non-fiction, I read some corker titles. I travelled to the moon and back with “Moondust” by English journalist Andrew Smith (no blog post). This title searches for the remaining U.S. astronauts who have seen the earth from the moon (a number that is reducing as the astronauts get older). Smith is trying to answer the general question: “What do astronauts do/how do they cope when they’ve been to the moon and then have to live on earth for the remainder of their lives? How do they handle the ordinariness of earth life after having traveled to space?”

An absolutely fascinating read (whether you’re into space or not). Smith is a great writer with a dry sense of humor and tracks down the pilots while delving into the Space Race of the 1960s and 1970s. I remember being woken up in the middle of the night to watch the moon landing, but I was only six years old so didn’t actually have a thorough understanding of the whole thing. I understand a lot more now, and realize that it wasn’t just about getting to the moon first.

Read a harrowing title by Luis Alberto Urrea called “By the Lake of the Sleeping Children”  about the people who live in the community that borders San Diego and Mexico. It’s actually a rubbish dump, but people live their whole lives in this awful place. I was astounded that this would happen so close to the Land of Milk and Honey, but it was true (probably still true).

However, despite the grim subject, Urrea is a gifted journalist who treats every one of his characters with dignity and respect while informing the reader of how truly hard their lives can be. (This was a bit of a hard read for me.)

Changing tack a bit (!), I finished up a biography of Princess Diana by Sally Bedell Smith (whose other work about the Queen and Prince Charles I’ve also read). Closer to a long People article than an academic treatise, it was still an interesting read and yet, even when you finish, you’re still no closer to the answers than before you started reading it. Interesting though.

Staying on the topic of royalty, I tracked down a title called Victoria and Abdul (about the “scandalous” [for the time] relationship between Queen Victoria and an Indian servant she called the Munshi. Fascinating reading and took me down all sorts of rabbit holes for a few days after that. I wonder if the accompanying film is any good…

Did some traveling around the world via some titles: Canada guidebooks (where I visited avec la famille), and also an old classic travelogue about England in the 1930’s: “In Search of England” by H.V. Morton. Adored this read, both because it was like going back in time and also because it is one of my mum’s favorite titles. Just loved it – like a traveling “Cider with Rosie.”

Speaking of going back in time (but this visit to a startling different place) was my read of  the graphic novel, “The Harlem Hellfighters” by Max Brooks and illustrator Canaan White (no blog post but trust me, it’s good), which is a fictional account of the (true) harrowing tale of the 369th Infantry unit of the U.S. Army who were the only African-American soldiers to travel to France during WWI.

This unit of soldiers was given exactly the same (and sometimes more) responsibilities as the white U.S. soldiers, but then, upon the unit’s return stateside, the soldiers were expected to slide right back into the segregated racial divide that was life in America in the early twentieth century. Another rather harrowing read about a topic of which I was woefully unknowing, but important just the same.

And then I started my second all-the-way-through read of the AP Style Book (as needed for work and class). I’m getting there, but have learned to expect very little logic in its rules. :-}

And now, I’m reading a library loan called “The Book of Books” (from the PBS TV series and the Great American Read project) which covers 100 titles that are popular in America. I’m not sure who chose them (or how they were chosen), but it’s an interesting and diverse list of books ranging (so far) from “Gilead” (Robinson) to “Catcher in the Rye” (of course) to “Pride and Prejudice” to James Baldwin and the “Fifty Shades” series (!), so it’s difficult to know what’s coming next from page to page. Its actually really fun to turn the page and see…

Lovely production values and pretty diverse in fiction titles, so enjoying a browse through that. Plus, it’s fun to see which titles I’ve read and which I’ve not… (I seem to have missed that whole related PBS TV series though… Did anyone else see it? Is it worth tracking down?)

And now class has been back in session, the slightly manic first week is over, and I’m developing loads of PowerPoint presentations since I’m teaching a lecture class for the first time this fall. It’s all fun and games though, and I’m very happy to be back in the classroom again!