Summer Reads

Since I could not find a book club that meets when I’m not working, I decided to join the Seasonal Reading Challenge on Goodreads. Essentially, each season, there is a long list of “challenges” for participants to complete. The “challenges” vary in difficulty and number of points awarded for each. There is not much to win besides bragging rights and the ability to choose the next season’s challenges, but it is a lot of fun.

The summer tasks were just posted and here are a few of them:

• Sun, Sea and PIRATES! Read a book about pirates.


• The Long and the Short of It. Read a short book (100-200 pages) with a long title (5 or more words) or a long book (400 or more pages) with a short title (fewer than 5 words).


• What’s Next? Choose a 5-star book from your GR read shelf. Go to What Should I Read Next? and type in the title (DO NOT hit enter!). Choose the correct title from the list that appears below the box. If the title appears more than once, choose the one closest to the top. Choose a book from the generated list to read. Required: Include the title of the 5-star book you chose from your GR shelf when you post.


• In The Eurozone The Euro is used by 327 million Europeans, but not all European nations use this currency.

As you can see, the tasks can get pretty challenging to find books that fit the criteria.

Another one is:
Don't Stop Reading. Since school's out, it's a great time to read a good book. Read a book from The Ultimate Teen Reading List.

I perused the teen reading list and there seem to be a lot of good looking books on there and not all of them are for teens. After I looked over it, I felt that as a librarian and lover of books, I should write a post about the list so I can have it for future reference.

Here are a few of the books I am going to be reading for the Summer challenge:

• Pirates!


• The Art of Racing in the Rain


• The other Boleyn Girl


• Apple Pie


• The book Thief


• Soulless


• Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World


• Wicked Lovely


• The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir


• My Little Red Book


• Am I Blue? Coming out from the Silence


• Jersey Tomatoes are the Best


• Room


• Library: An Unquiet History


• The Handmaid’s Tale


• The eyre Affair

Now that I type it out, it seems like a lot and that is not even half of the challenges! We’ll see how many I get through. I’m just thankful that I have the time and luxury to do all of this reading!