Summer is a blessing to teachers! In addition to the increased bone and emotional strength from the sun, a more healthy urinary tract and some much needed rest, summer brings time to do something almost unheard of during the nine months of the school year – read for pleasure! Yummy! Sometimes the only thing that gets me through the long, dark, damp days of the year is the fantasy of sitting on a beach with a book in my hand. And now it’s here. At least the book part. So I have put together my reading list for the summer, and here it is!

First, I always start with escape! It is a ritual for me to downshift my teacher brain with a totally escapist book that has no purpose other than to let me slip into another life. This year, I’m starting the summer off with Alice Hoffman’s Faithful (not pictured, above.) I can always count on Hoffman to deliver on a completely absorbing story, and this one is starting out with all the right stuff (yes, I couldn’t wait and have already started reading it!) The book is about Shelby Richmond, a teenager living in a small New England town, trying to find peace and meaning in life after a car accident changes everything. There are ghosts and angels and miracles – just what I want in my first summer read!

Next on my list is finishing The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness, by Jill Filipovic. I have learned so much about the history of women’s issues, and am looking forward to ruminating over the systemic changes needed to reach full equality for all people in the final chapters. . Jill has changed my life. She is the reason for this blog. She and her book have reignited the spark I was missing, and I am going to finish the last few chapters of her amazing book next!

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood is next. I always reread one book I love over the summer. I had such an amazing time teaching The Handmaid’s Tale to my senior AP Lit students and watching the HULU series, so I’m excited to slip into the dystopian world of post-biological apocalypse once again. Unlike THT, Oryx and Crake is from the point of view of a male protagonist. It’s an interesting companion to THT. And when I’m done with that, I’ll read Hag-Seed, also by Margaret Atwood, because, well…it’s by Margaret Atwood! Shakespeare, betrayal, revenge, oh my!

By this point in my summer, I’ll be well rested and well restored by lovely fiction, and I will turn my sights to Thick Nhat Hanh and At Home in the World to recharge my spiritual life. Hanh, along with Pema Chodrin, have guided and inspired me for the greater part of my adult life. This particular book leans in to the tradition of teaching Dharma through stories, Hanh’s stories, spanning his life from childhood through his apprenticeship as a Zen Buddhist Monk, to his current teachings. I am eager to experience the progression of his thinking and writing.

I’ve never read Don DeLilo, and I think it’s time I did. So I have Zero K in the line-up next. This novel explores the tension between seeking immortality and living life, now. I constantly have students who love DeLilo and tell me I need to read him, so my expectations are high!

Other People’s English, by Vershawn Ashanti Young and Rusty Barrett is an anticipated read. I’m fascinated by the way people use and change language, both within and among languages. I think the language we speak dictates the way we see the world, so what happens when people switch and mesh the languages they speak? This is the most teaching oriented book I’ll be reading, even though every book seeps into us and affects who we are, but this one in particular is important to me, professionally, as I try to increase the safety students feel in my writing classes, and increase my awareness of diversity and equity and the role I play in it all. Whoosh!

And then, finally, in a last gasp to hold on to summer, I will round out my reading list with Into the Water, by Paula Hawkins. I was enamored of The Girl On The Train for Hawkins’ ability to create characters with such diverse voiced, and especially the way she captured the internal monologue of an alcoholic. We talked about it a lot in my creative writing class, about creating an intentionally unreliable narrator to add drama and suspense. I’m interested to see what comes next. And I’m always interested in the story behind the story, the character outside of the spotlight. So this book, about a girl orphaned by a murder and her reluctant guardian, should give me lots of fun trails to follow!

Okay, that’s my list. Do any strike your fancy? What are you reading this summer?