Many people have a summer reading list and it is populated by all manner of genres. There is the flop-eared beach novel, a technical tome, a work from the NY Times best seller list, or a selection just reviewed on the radio program. For me, the direction of my reading changes from year to year. I might be interested in asome particular scholarly slant, an area I want to understand more deeply. Recommendations are good, especially from people I think might have similar interests. When some people I know say, “You’ve got to read this,” I generally do. At least I skim the interesting ones passed my way. And of course my reading cues on my own fascinations of the moment.
So the Summer 2012 list goes something like this:
11/22/63 by Stephen King. I’m almost through it. It came highly recommended by a friend.
Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This is an oldie but goodie. The extended saga poem tells the Arthur legend. I caught a snippet of the last quatrain and wanted to read the whole thing. I’m in the first chapter.
Two books come out of the mystical Jewish tradition:
All Breathing Life is by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and is a reflective piece on poetry and prayer.
The Poetry of the Kabbalah by Peter Cole is more of an analytical approach to the poetic structure of the most esoteric of the Jewish mystical writings.
What Money Can’t Buy is Michael Sandel’s moral analysis of markets. The Harvard professor of government pushes on the limits of any economic system.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson’s tour of the universe which explores everything from the cosmos, earth, new science, environmental perils and our human destiny. It’s ten years old now; call me tardy.
Happy reading, fellow book worms, adventurists, escapists. It’s all good.
vitalwholeness 