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Summer reading, the ghost of summer
Teens look forward to a summer of lounging by the pool, hanging out with their friends and going shopping.
But not summer reading.
I try to forget about it, but I know I have to complete it. The sooner, the better.
So I grab the more than 400-page, seemingly never-ending novel, grab myself a lounge chair by the pool, and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.
However, as I try to decipher the cryptic language of the novel and identify symbolism and imagery, my mind wanders- to eating ice cream on a hot day or swimming in the clear, refreshing pool.
Knowing this, I sequester myself outside until I have read a certain number of pages (usually around 70) that will allow to finish the dreaded literary "masterpiece" in two weeks or less.
The worse summer reading I was ever assigned was the summer before freshman year: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. If you ever wanted to know about how animals and plants were domesticated, then this would be the book for you. But since the majority of people do not, the novel is only helpful in curing insomnia.
Being a naive freshman, I took notes on every chapter of the novel, thinking that they might come in handy in a few months when school starts. Little did I know, we would never discuss the novel in class, so I wasted hours of my life that I will never get back.
The best summer reading I've ever had?
None.
Summer reading, by nature, is a kind of punishment for having weeks off from school, although it does cut back the number of novels we have to read during the school year. There are so many better things that I could be doing with my time, so I dread any school-related novel that is assigned to me.
Probably out of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jane Eyre, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (see any resemblance to Diamond's novel?), I'd have to prefer the last. It was by far the shortest, which is really the only way to categorize good "summer reading."
With my divide-and-conquer summer reading strategy, I hope to finish my last novel tomorrow. I have 70 pages left until summer reading will no longer be on my mind, and I will be able to spend my time as I please.
So have fun with your summer reading...I'm done.
But not summer reading.
I try to forget about it, but I know I have to complete it. The sooner, the better.
So I grab the more than 400-page, seemingly never-ending novel, grab myself a lounge chair by the pool, and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.
However, as I try to decipher the cryptic language of the novel and identify symbolism and imagery, my mind wanders- to eating ice cream on a hot day or swimming in the clear, refreshing pool.
Knowing this, I sequester myself outside until I have read a certain number of pages (usually around 70) that will allow to finish the dreaded literary "masterpiece" in two weeks or less.
The worse summer reading I was ever assigned was the summer before freshman year: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. If you ever wanted to know about how animals and plants were domesticated, then this would be the book for you. But since the majority of people do not, the novel is only helpful in curing insomnia.
Being a naive freshman, I took notes on every chapter of the novel, thinking that they might come in handy in a few months when school starts. Little did I know, we would never discuss the novel in class, so I wasted hours of my life that I will never get back.
The best summer reading I've ever had?
None.
Summer reading, by nature, is a kind of punishment for having weeks off from school, although it does cut back the number of novels we have to read during the school year. There are so many better things that I could be doing with my time, so I dread any school-related novel that is assigned to me.
Probably out of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jane Eyre, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (see any resemblance to Diamond's novel?), I'd have to prefer the last. It was by far the shortest, which is really the only way to categorize good "summer reading."
With my divide-and-conquer summer reading strategy, I hope to finish my last novel tomorrow. I have 70 pages left until summer reading will no longer be on my mind, and I will be able to spend my time as I please.
So have fun with your summer reading...I'm done.
5 Comments
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Comment by teenlink south florida on June 16, 2009 at 6:03pm - "a kind of punishment"...lol
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Comment by Alex Beck on June 19, 2009 at 4:23pm - I hate summer reading because I'm a bookworm and save piles of books to read over summer break, but they've ruined that for me!
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Comment by Anne Preuss on June 19, 2009 at 7:33pm - Of course, if you have good, exciting books as summer reading, then that's a different story!
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Comment by Hana Engroff on July 13, 2009 at 5:39pm - Anne, at least you didn't have to read Our Kind. It was for Social and Cultural Anthropology. Five hundred pages of torture.
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It was captivating, to say the least.