Just this morning when going through a gagillion new emails after just one weekend – one weekend, people! – away from my desk while playing a teensy bit of tennis, I came across a message from Goodreads that someone had asked a question that wanted for an answer.

Now, it wasn’t a question about my book or anything like that, which would of course have been totally flattering. It was just an inquiry about my summer reading list, which I’m sure Goodreads puts out there to all its authors. And while I’m sure that throngs of people will jump all over J.K. Rowling’s or President Obama’s reading list the minute it is published, I am under no illusions that mine will meet that kind of fate.

But regardless, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to kill two birds with a stone: One, delete that Goodreads email so that my inbox can go down to the size of a gagillion minus one, and two, to create a long overdue post on this blog. Actually, three birds – full disclosure, I get kickbacks from Amazon for posting links to their books, a scheme that gets me the occasional $21.50 gift card that my kids then use to order a new charger for their phone because they “have not lost it but can’t find it.”

So, here goes:

Aaah, summer! In theory, a great time to get to your reading list, but in practice, and particularly when you have kids in the house who need being ferried to and fro at all hours of the day, a time where you never get to any book at all. Unless you’re at the pool where you promptly fall asleep with the book on your wet bathing suit.

Anyhow, a friend recommended The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, so that is on my immediate summer reading list, though I have no earthly idea what it’s about. Some friends have that kind of clout when it comes to my reading. I also grabbed The Alice Network and Lilac Girls from a stack at Barnes and Noble when shopping for a baby gift, mainly because I liked the covers. Yeah, I know, very sophisticated given that I’m a writer. Lilac Girls also got me sold by telling me that I’d like it because I liked The Nightingale and All the Light We Cannot See (which are both must-reads if you haven’t yet), so I took that one on good faith. And The Alice Network mentioned Espionage and Great War and I didn’t need more convincing than that.  I’m a sucker for espionage and either of the world wars. Which is why I love and can highly recommend anything by Joseph Kanon (my latest favorite being Istanbul Passage). I’m currently finishing up The Other Einstein, which I can also recommend, unless you can’t stomach the idea that the Great Einstein was, basically, a jerk. Says his wife. She may come across as a bit whiney and naive, but then again you can never know what goes on in other people’s marriages. Either way, it’s a great glimpse into the early 1900s and the scientific community, and it’ll appeal to you especially if you’re a feminist.

Perhaps you might need a All-New Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa, 8″ HD Display, 16 GB, Black – with Special Offers to read any of these gems? Or maybe you need a birthday present for a friend or loved one?  What better gift than a lifetime of reading! (End of shameless insertion of another Amazon Associates link.)

The only way I seem to get any reading done these days is through my Audible Membership, which is worth every penny in gold. I never go anywhere in my car without plugging in the audio cord, which in my mind works better than Bluetooth, and plunging into my own little world, just like in the Audible ads. It works! I’ve been known to extend my listening beyond the car while unloading groceries, cooking, and lo and behold, washing all the windows. Somehow Audible is best consumed on a ladder with squeegee in hand.

My all-time Audible favorites are any stories narrated by Jenna Lamia. Don’t get me wrong, they happen to be great books in their own right: The Help, The Secret Life of Bees, The Invention of Wings: A Novel, Saving Ceecee Honeycutt. But even if you’ve read these books, they are worth listening to all over again, because of Jenna’s amazing talents as voice narrator. Another favorite audio version of a good novel is People of the Book this one mainly because of the Australian accent. And speaking of Australian accent, I have listened to all of Leanne Moriarty’s works, my favorite being Big Little Lies (which is, of course, better as a book than its TV reproduction).

For further reading, I can highly recommend the blog Bacon on the Bookshelf for great tips and book reviews that are always entertaining to read.

There you go, that’s my summer reading list in a nutshell. Please do share yours, I’m always curious!

Oh, and by the way, about that teensy bit of tennis: You’re now talking to a genuine member of the 2017 Tennessee Women’s 3.5 USTA championship team! Which might explain the lack of new content on this site lately. I promise you that many hours went into a decent serve instead.