Summer Reading Extravaganza Day 5: Oh, the Places You’ll Go (With a Book)!

Our final topic is books that transport you. It’s hard to take a trip with rising gas prices so thank God we can travel through reading! What are some of your favorite books that transport you to a new place?

I mentioned some of my favorite literary travel destinations in yesterday's post, so today I'm going to write about places that you can only travel to inside the pages of a book. Namely, other books.

I love a good sci-fi/fantasy novel, and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is one of the best examples, especially if you love books and reading - my friend DeAnna and I describe them as "English major porn." If you haven't read them, you are seriously missing out. The titles include: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, and First Among Sequels. The series takes place in 1980's Swindon, and the protagonist is Thursday Next, a Jurisfiction detective who works inside books to help "maintain narrative stability." This includes finding a kidnapped Jane Eyre, living within the narrative of obscure books, talking on a "footnoter-phone," and other silly, book-related adventures. The stories can get confusing at times, but they are always fun. I would also recommend checking out Fforde Grand Central, which has information about the books, "Special Features," and a Dodo Emporium (re-engineered extinct species being a popular pet, naturally).

Visit The Friendly Book Nook for more fun places to visit with a book!

Summer Reading Extravaganza Day 4: Summer Reading Activities

Today’s topic is summer reading activities. What we love so much about reading is that it expands our world! If you have any fun traditions or activities that you share with your kids or students that have to do with reading, today is the day to share them.If you don’t have kids, maybe you have a bookclub that does has some fun traditions or you enjoy organizing your books in the summer. Be creative and share with us!

I don't have any kids, and I don't really have any summer reading traditions (yet), so today I'm going to talk about one that I would love to start.

The summer between my Sophomore and Junior years in college, I participated in a Study Abroad course. We actually had two classes (British Romanticism and Spirit of Place in British Literature). For two weeks, we read a bunch of books and came to class every day to discuss them. Then we traveled to the UK and spent two weeks visiting the places mentioned in the books! It was amazing! My two favorite places were Lyme Regis (I'm sure many of you remember the Cobb that Louisa Musgrove fell down in Persuasion) and Arthur's Seat (site of a rather sublime scene in James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner). Spending three hours climbing to the top made the idea of seeing God in the clouds a lot more believable.

We also visited the moors of Haworth (Wuthering Heights), Wales (Tintern Abbey), Hampstead (home of Keats), Newstead Abbey (home of Byron), Dorchester (site of pretty much anything Thomas Hardy wrote), and various other literary locations. It was the most fun I've ever had reading.

I've been talking with friends and family about saving up some money this school year and going on a trip to Italy next summer. I probably won't be able to go for very long, but I'd love to make it a literary tour! Any suggestions for books set in Italy? I'll definitely be re-reading John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels, because Venice is so on my list of places to see.

Visit The Friendly Book Nook for more fun summer reading activities!

Summer Reading Extravaganza Day 3: Magazines

We all love books, but how about magazines? Magazines are perfect for the shorter flight or poolside (so your book doesn’t get wet), don’t you think? What are your favorite magazines or what magazines would you recommend for book lovers? Or is there a magazine we should stay away from?

I discovered Marie Claire a few years ago, and I've had a subscription ever since. I used to read Cosmo, but got tired of the repetitive and ridiculous articles. (I also used to read JANE before it got cancelled. I refused to let them switch my subscription to Glamour out of principle. I want JANE back!) I picked up MC one day because it had Maggie Gyllenhaal (one of my favorite actresses) on the cover, and I was hooked! It has all the fun stuff that you would normally find in girlie magazines - (affordable) fashion, makeup and hair tips that I rarely use - but also book and movie reviews, political pieces, and an "Eye on the World" segment that interviews women from different countries to show problems they face and how they handle them.
I always learn something new after reading an issue.

I also read a few magazines for teachers, to help me get ideas for my class: Teacher Magazine, Instructor, and I have a digital subscription to EdWeek, which is probably more like a newspaper than a magazine.

My mom had a subscription to Newsweek for years while I was growing up, and I would always read it before her. Ditto for Reader's Digest (I still read this one when I'm at her house). I'll flip through Entertainment Weekly occasionally, or Wizard if I'm at the comic book store (which is rare now a days). And...that's about it!

Visit The Friendly Book Nook for more fun summer magazine suggestions!

Summer Reading Extravaganza Day 2: Summer Reading for Children

Yesterday we talked about what we would be reading, but what will your kids be reading? You definitely want them to use some of this free time they have on books! We need suggestions for all age groups! If you don’t have kids, you can still share some of your favorite books from when you were kids, that you read to your grandkids, or your nieces and nephews. Today is the time to talk about books for kids from age 0-18!

Disclaimer: I don't have any kids myself, so all of these recommendations are based on what my students read at school.

The most popular series for my sixth and seventh grade boys was Hank the Cowdog. It's about a dog who is head of security on a ranch. There are quite a few books in the series (Powell's has 52 available, although there weren't that many at the school's library), and some of my students read the same one multiple times. The graphic novel-lite Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its sequel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules was also a huge hit with the middle school boys.

My female middle school readers tended to like series set in high schools, such as Gossip Girl, Sweet Valley High, and The Princess Diaries.

The middle schoolers also really enjoyed Mildred D. Taylor's books, especially Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, but that might be a little too heavy for summer reading. Ditto for the Twilight saga; each book is 500 - 700 pages! Other popular books for middle schoolers: The Uglies Trilogy, Harry Potter (of course!), The Warriors, The Guardians of Ga'hoole, Artemis Fowl, The Clique, and anything by Gary Paulsen.

Visit The Friendly Book Nook for more fun summer reading for children!

Summer Reading Extravaganza Day 1: Fun Summer Reads

Welcome to the Summer Reading Extravaganza! Our goal today is to get a bunch of reading ideas to help pass these hot summer days!
So we’re asking…what’s your favorite beach read or what’s in your beach bag?

Summertime is when I usually break out the chick lit or YA novels. Last year, I reread the Harry Potter series (who am I kidding, I do that pretty much every year), and before that it was Jane Austen. This year, I'm participating in three different reading challenges (the 1% Well-Read Challenge, A Midsummer Night's Challenge, and, starting next month, the Book Awards II Challenge), so I have a few books in my to-be-read pile specifically for them.

Those books aside, I love Amanda Grange's historical romances; I just read Captain Wentworth's Diary while at the beach earlier this month, and I'm looking forward to Edmund Bertram's Diary, even though he's my least favorite Austen "hero." I've also moved recently and have found a ton of old books that I read when I was younger (the Baby-sitter's Club series, Sweet Valley High, random choose-your-own-adventure novels), and I've enjoyed reading them again. My sister's picking out the ones she wants to keep, and the rest will be going on BookMooch later this summer.

Other books that I'd like to read this summer (based on recommendations from friends and other reading blogs): The Baum Plan for Financial Independence, Gifted, The Green Glass Sea, and The Clique Summer Collection (don't judge!).

Visit The Friendly Book Nook for more fun summer reading suggestions!

Summer Reading Extravaganza!

The Friendly Book Nook is hosting a Summer Reading Extravaganza! Each day next week, they will be posting a topic about summer reading that I will then be posting about here on casual dread. There are prizes, too, so go sign up! You don't have to write a blog yourself to participate, as long as you comment on what others write.