Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Tag Archives: Summer Reading


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BATTER UP! 10 Summer Hits & Misses

Woof-hoo! It’s summer time, summer time, sum-sum, summer time! Doo-whop, doo-whop.

Kimber here. Mom and I are celebrating August with something a little special. I was lobbying for filet mignon. But nooooo! Mom decided on a quick run-down on recently read titles. To save you some time. So you can avoid the clunkers. And enjoy the goodies.

Public domain

And hey. What’s summer without baseball, right? So I suggested we categorize titles as either Hits and Misses or as Strike Outs and Home Runs. Brilliant huh? (Mom helped a little. But it was mostly me.)

So here are five kinds of each book. Five duds. As in, swing-from-the-heels strike-outs and don’t waste your time. And five awesome-dawsome, tail-wagging, bonafide home runs. (One is somewhere in the middle, depending on which bat you choose.)

So… batter up!

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Rockin’ It This Summer With Reading

Kimber The Reading Dog.

Mom’s at it again. She’s skipping merrily around the house, opening every window in sight.  Humming that Temptations song. You know the one. About sunshine on a cloudy day.

Here in the ever-soggy Pacific Northwest, we take whatever we can get in the “sunshine” department. Maybe that explains Mom lately. Why she keeps crowing, “Summer’s comin’! Woo-hoo!”

Has anyone found my frisbee? Cuz frankly, what’s summer without a nice, chewy, frisbee?

Well. According to Her Mom-ness, “summer” also means the library’s summer adult reading program. Last year she read 136 books in 92 days. This year there’s a “limit”: Twenty books.

What’s up with that?

Anyway, this year’s theme is Libraries Rock. Some brain surgeon (The Powder Puff?) decided to combine the adult program with the children’s and teen reading programs. A one-size-fits-none kind of deal.

The sign-up form for tracking your reading progress includes stuff like coloring, singing a song or learning five new words. You write this down every time you finish a book.

Is there a shortage of grown-up Taste of the Wild in the building?

Not to worry. You know Mom and me and books. We’re not going to let something this silly slow us down. No siree, Lassie!

We’ve read eight books and one audio book since we signed up on June 1. Coloring notwithstanding, we’re gonna “rock” this summer. Reading highlights so far:

And a re-read of an old favorite: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

Another stand out: Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin.

It’s post-WWII Europe with a catch. A big one: Hitler won. Now a survivor of Nazi experimentation in a death camp, Yael is on a mission to win a race and kill Hitler.

“I couldn’t put it down!” says Her Mom-ness. “It’s a barn burner.” Maybe I should grab a fire extinguisher?

I’d say more, but I feel another skipping session coming on.

 

Meanwhile, have you signed up for your library’s summer reading program? What are your reading goals for this summer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rock skipping photo credit: Flickr – Creative Commons License


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10 Ways to Read More Books

Sample

How do you read so many books?

Mom and I? We get that a lot. Like, when we read 403 books in one year, 2023.

Short answer: One of us is Simply Brilliant. And reads at warp speed.

“Simply Brilliant.”

The other has to work at it (Hi, Mom). So if you’d like some ideas about how to read more and fit more books into your day, here are some tips. (Mostly from the Simply Brilliant one. Mom’s just sorta along for the ride, if ya know what I mean).

10 Ways to Read More Books (the Mom-ish Shor-ish Version):

1. Turn off the TV.

2. Multi-task. Read audio books while cooking, doing dishes, driving, etc.

3. Use voice mail. Prodigously.

4. Ask the library staff for help. A lot. They’re a huge help, from placing inter-library loans to suggestions for every category and genre.

5. Realize sleep is over-rated. I don’t really need 8 – 9 hours of sleep a night. I’m usually fine with 5 – 6 hours.  That’s an extra 3 – 4 hours a day to get busy.

6. Get a ‘reading buddy.‘ As you know, my good dog, Kimber, happily joins me through thousands of pages. (A golden retriever/black lab/border collie mix, Kimber isn’t really a ‘lap dog.’ She just thinks she is.)

“You gonna eat that?”

7. Set up “reading roosts” – places where you can disappear (or almost disappear) for a while and read, undisturbed.

I have a recliner off a living room window with lots of light, pillows, a big fluffy quilt and a snack stash. Or a closet off the spare room upstairs. I cleaned it out, moved in a rocking chair and ottoman, added a space heater for early mornings, and cleared shelves for books – in – progress. I grab reading lists, munchies and a note pad, and close the door. No electronic devices allowed. (A library cubby hole also makes a pretty good “roost.”)

8. OverDrive. (Now Libby.) Library ebooks and audiobooks via Amazon. If you don’t have the app, now would be good.

9. Prioritize. Like, I cut out unnecessary meetings. This frees up about 4 – 6 hours a week. I dial back on social media, limiting my time to no more than 30 minutes a day. Often less. I evaluate my endeavors and drop those with limited ROIs (return on investment), like regular posting to other blogs/guest posting.

10. Re-read.

Some titles are better or quicker than others. For example, the sparse free verse of Karen Hesse’s Out of The Dust or Calvin Miller’s The Singer read much faster than the detail-laden, history-heavy style of Robert Matzen’s Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, or Dinesh D’Souza’s magnum opus, Stealing America: What My Experience With Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party. Since I’m already familiar with the plots, re-reads are also swift.

The Real Secret

Now, the real secret to reading more books? I. Love. Books. And I love to read. Always have. Ever since I was ‘knee-high to a grasshopper.’ For more, see: Hard Night: Growing Up in the Land of Endless Summer.

Is the library open yet?

How do you fit more reading into your day?