Summer Reading

As a kid, I adored summer reading. My mom was (still is) fabulous. She loved reading and passed her love of reading on to me. Every year when our summer reading lists came out, she whisked us away to Barnes and Noble and we got to pick which books we wanted to read.

She also got us our own library cards and I have fond memories of running around our local library, feeling so powerful, and creating a huge stack to take home with us.

Last year, I assigned my book club summer reading to shake things up a bit and bring back that nostalgic feeling of childhood in the summertime.

This was my summer reading assignment from last year. I genuinely enjoyed this challenge and proudly completed my own homework. One of my favorite days was reading at the library in the quiet room. I had no idea it was there. I don’t know why I don’t take advantage of this more often!

I had everyone send updates along the way in our group message and it was a delight to receive these random updates. This challenge allowed me to discover new authors, new genres, and new friends at the library. I also found it helped me to seek out - bookstores, book boxes, authors social media, and ways to engage with the industry I love so much.

Sam and I also had a fun addition to the challenge where we each recommended a book and a movie to the other person. We read the books separately and then watched the movies together. This summer, he and I are reading a book together for a mini book club.

I do believe that anything that gets a person to read is amazing, whatever challenge you may do. There are so many fun ideas: try and read all the books that have show or movie adaptions coming out this summer, create a list of books to read before a milestone birthday and get cracking, follow the list your local indie bookstore will certainly curate for the summer, etc. I have it in good authority that your local library will also have plenty of recommendations and reading challenges!

I’m not assigning a specific summer reading list this year, though I highly recommend our list from last year if you are looking for a challenge.

My TBR is rapidly growing but loosely my summer reading will include:

• Finishing The Odyssey

• Finishing my book on Pope John Paul the II

• Read Atomic Habits (I always choose on non-fiction to read over the summer when the kids aren’t in school)

• Read a historical fiction for book club

• Finish re-reading the Percy Jackson series

• Finish my current TBR before purchasing more books!!!!

I’d love to know if you have a summer reading list or challenge for yourself - I’m always looking for something new to try.

Bonus- I live at the beach and our book club loves summer themed activities for our socials.

Here are some fun things we’ve done over the summers together:

• Reading happy hours on the patio of a coffee shop

• Potluck beach picnics and swims

• Book swap by the pool

• Hot girl walk by all the beach houses

• Breakfast and shopping at our local book stores

• Flower arranging

I hope you all have a lovely summer filled with excellent reads!

XO

Emma