11 Jul Dana’s DO LIST: Summer Reading – Back To Classics

It’s funny, summer is the time of year when everyone grabs for the easy beach read. I totally understand this: It’s summer, you’re checked out, you don’t want to have to think too hard. But, what if you used the summer – when it’s slow, work is quieter, perhaps the kids are away – to actually tackle those books that have been on your forever list?

You know the ones I mean – perhaps they are considered “classics” or just the books or authors that may have passed you by in high school, college, or when they first came out. Perhaps these reads need a bit more concentration, but wouldn’t you rather spend your precious slow time reading something guaranteed to be great rather than waste your time reading something that was maybe just ok?

Ever since I got out of college, I have had a list (I’m sure you do, too) of all the books I have been meaning to read, but haven’t quite gotten to yet. This is partially a mental list, partially an amazon wish list, and partially a list in my “notes” on my iphone. (I suppose I should consolidate them!)

I actually look forward to the downtime to be free of distraction so that I can get some serious reading done. Summer is the time there is nothing on TV, my book club goes on hiatus for a couple of months, and there is, hopefully, some plane travel involved. Time to dig in to that tome you just keep putting down cause it’s too long!

Here are some suggestions of books/authors (in no particular order) that I’ve read over the past several years and some that I plan to tackle this summer:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2.  To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

3. 1Q84 by Haruki Murikami

4. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

5. On The Road by Jack Kerouac

6. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

7. Middlemarch by George Eliot

8. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

9. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

10. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

A bonus (besides how much more interesting you will be at summer soirees having read great literature) is that the older books are all in paperback – much easier to tote to the beach or on your travels (if you still read actual books, as I do)!

Will you join me?