Beach, mountain, and other summer reads

Preface: I completely forgot to post my thoughts for the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour this week. Fortunately, I’m only a few days behind. Can we all pretend I posted this on Tuesday when it was due? No? Ah, well.

So this month’s post is all about planned summer reading or rereading — what’s in the TBR pile, what am I reading, that sort of thing. I do try to talk about my recent reads in my newsletter, but one thing I have discovered is that if I talk about what I’m in the middle of reading, or (sometimes) what I’m planning on reading, that can take the fire and interest out of my reading, and I don’t wind up finishing the book. We’ll see if that happens this time.

A couple of rereads on my summer agenda: Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (first book in the Wheel of Time series), audiobook read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer; and Riddle-Master by Patricia McKillip (entire trilogy: The Riddle-Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind). The audiobook is for vacation driving; no one else in the family has read any of the books, and epic fantasy is a solid choice for everyone. The other is a long-standing favorite of mine, more of a comfort read than anything.

Also on the audio end of things, except not really: I grabbed both Ivanhoe and the Man in the Iron Mask for me to read aloud to the family. Not light reading perhaps, but good adventure stories.

I picked up the epic fantasy book bundle from StoryBundle, with lots of interesting looking books in it, so there’s that, too. And I have some urban fantasy reads sitting in my Kindle app, including some shorter work from Kevin Hearne in the Iron Druid series. The only real questions for me are what order I’m going to read things in, and how much will remain untouched at the end of the summer.

Oh, and I have a couple of samples I’ve picked up, too, to decide whether to read the full books. I’ll probably talk about them after I read them and make decisions.

What’s in your TBR (to-be-read) pile?


Today’s post was inspired by the topic “Beach Reads” — June’s topic in the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour — an ongoing tour where you, the reader, travel around the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. We have all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy. Be sure to check out the next posts in the series, by Sandra Barret, D. M. Bonanno, and Margaret McGaffey Fisk.

If you want to get to know nearly twenty other writers and find out their thoughts on first stories, check out the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. You can find links to all of the posts on the tour by checking out the group site. Read and enjoy!


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4 Comments

  1. As I suspected, not as different as it might seem. I’ve read a lot of Patricia McKillip over the years though not recently. Same with Ivanhoe and The Man in the Iron Mask :).

    For the record, I would love for it still to be Tuesday.

    • I’ve not read much McKillip lately (some a few years back for one of my women in SF&F posts), but this is a comfort read, one I adore. I can still feel the cool stone of downstairs in the Washoe County library, as I sat tucked away behind one of the mushroom planters, reading Heir.

      The other two you mention, I’ve actually never read, but wanted to.

      And yeah, if it were earlier in the week and I had this much done, I’d feel on top of the world.

  2. The good thing about Tuesdays is there’s always another one just around the corner! 🙂

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