Writing

Books for Summer Vacation

 

 

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Haha…..

Does anyone else prepare lists for themselves all day long?  It would be great to know someone else out there is like me.  I create lists for everything. This time of the year is especially exciting for me because I am already thinking summer.  Summer vacation season starts at the end of May.  Every year I tell myself I will read 5-10 books between April-October.  The last time I actually completed my goal was back in 2009.  Well, this year I am doing it!  I am going to reach my goal and read 5 books by the end of September. Yay!!!

How I Chose My Books

The way I chose the books for my summer reading list : simply based on topics I find interesting.  I go to the bookstore frequently to see what they have that is new. I also get suggestions from friends or family.

My uncle suggested I read “The Shack” about five years ago – way before the movie came out.  I started it but didn’t finish.  I thought I would finally sit, focus, and read it for real this time. [I have not seen the movie yet.]

The Trevor Noah book  “Born A Crime” just sounds like something I would enjoy.  I believe he is a talented comedian and I am sure his life story has some good humor in it too.  The book is about him growing up  as a biracial child in South Africa during apartheid so I know it will have some fascinating tales.

Isabel Wilkerson’s book “The Warm of Other Suns” is the book I wanted to write years ago.  Seriously.  I learned of the “Great Migration” many years ago and it fascinated me. The “Great Migration” is a time period in American History when Southern blacks moved in droves to cities further north for a better life.  Prior to the Great Migration most of black Americans lived in the South.  Life was so hard in the South many decided to move to cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York.  This would have been roughly between 1930s-1960s.  I had many relatives on both sides of my family that moved during this time – mostly to Chicago and Detroit.  My father’s uncle moved to Chicago to pursue a jazz career around the 1950s.  On my mother’s side she had an uncle who moved his family to Detroit.  This would have been the early 1960s (way before I was born). I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. It is almost a joke among my friends and I because we all have family members from Chicago thanks to the Great Migration.  I seriously had plans to write a book about this exact topic about ten years ago. Yet, life happened and I got distracted and didn’t write anything.  This book was published back in 2010.  I was devastated when the book came out.  I was mad at myself for not writing it like I said I would.  Oh well.

My mom told me about Roxane Gay’s “Difficult Women”.  She saw a blurb about it in the newspaper and told me I should check it out.

The book, “Woman In Cabin 10” is on all these recommended lists so I thought I would try it out.

My Summer Reading List

  1. William Paul Young – The Shack
  2. Trevor Noah – Born A Crime
  3. Isabel Wilkerson – The Warmth of Other Suns
  4. Roxane Gay – Difficult Women
  5. Ruth Ware – The Woman In Cabin 10

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The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Difficult Women

The Woman in Cabin 10

My Suggested Summer Reading List 

The only book I have read from my suggested reading list is #3.  I chose these books because I had heard of them and they sounded so interesting.  I will be reading #1 myself.  The others I will read when more time permits, but I thought I would share the titles with you all.  If any of you get around to reading any of the below titles, please let me know and just leave a comment about what you thought of the book.

  1. Lilly Singh – How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life
  2. Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [I read this book several years ago and it is really good.  This one is an older book but should always be revisited.  Plus, a TV movie just came out on HBO this past week.]
  3. Agustín Fuentes – The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional
  4. Saroo Brierley – A Long Way Home [This book was turned into a movie called Lion that came out last year.  I have not seen the movie yet.]by J. D. Vance
  5. J.D. Vance- Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

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