Guys, I love reading. In case you didn’t know that already. It’s the perfect escape from reality that simultaneously stretches my imagination and my worldview.
Reading is like therapy for me.
A significant amount of my homework is reading as well (which means I’m spending SO much on textbooks on every semester). Because of all that heavy reading I do for class, sometimes it’s hard for me to sit down with a novel after, and instead I just want to watch the Office.
Enter summer. The three months a year where I devour all of the books that have been on my “to read” list for the last semester. And then it all ends when I go back to school.
But not this semester!
It’s my mid-year resolution to spend a little time each day reading. Not novels that have no substance – my dad always called those “fluffy” – but fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc. that have real meat to them. That really make me think.
And so far it’s going well, y’all! I read 4 whole books last week, and now I want to share a few of my recent reads for #WhimsicalWednesday.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells
This is one of those that stretches and changes the way you think. The injustice of the story will make you angry and you’ll be desperately rooting for Jeannette to conquer all that’s against her. I think it’s on the same level as To Kill A Mockingbird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I now want to reread!).
44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith
All of Alexander McCall Smith’s novels (and there are A LOT of them!) are so delightfully typical of a writing style that I associate with non-American works of literature. They depict small town life, with all of the traditions, love, quirks, faults, gossipping, petty fights, and eccentricity that that entails. American literature that’s been written recently seems to be to be almost all action, and much less character development. So to those that are used to that style of writing, this series could seem slow or boring, but I love it because each character is so real.
The Lake House by Kate Morton
I have a weird thing about mystery novels where I feel so intrigued by them and absolutely cannot put them down, BUT I’m absolutely terrified the entire time I’m reading it. And then as soon as it’s night and I’m walking up the stairs alone, I CANNOT get it out of my head. So I tend to stay away from mystery novels for the sake of my sanity. But The Lake House was perfectly suspenseful and lovely, and not too scary for my timid self. I got it for my 20th birthday in California and then read it while I was at the beach, and I was just blown away. Kate Morton is a wonderful writer, and the characters and the story are just so deliciously thrilling. I’ve recommended it to all of my friends, and now YOU should read it!
Up next on my To Read list:
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Anything by Alexander McCall Smith
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Outlander by Diana Gabaldan
- The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
