Summer Reading

Reading is my life. Reading is my ministry. Reading is my career. I actually get paid to read and talk about it.

When I was a child I was a bookworm. My sister (who is now an avid reader) and I would have the dilemma of what we were going to play for the day: Barbie, school, with babydolls, a game or reading. At some point we came up with the lottery approach. We would write all the choices on slips of paper and draw them out of a hat. When "reading" was drawn out, my sister was always suspicious...as she should have been. It probably meant I had stuffed the ballot box with many slips which said "reading".

Now, because reading is what I do professionally, I have to ration out my own reading of fiction and novels. Reading fiction is reserved for holidays and summer. I get so enrossed in a novel that I can't put it down and everything else is neglected.(By the way, that is the only clue I've ever had to the "evil" of Harry Potter. If children are reading 800 pages, without stopping, in one day, it may mean there's something supernatural going on there! Or it could be it's just great writing!)

So, this summer, though it's been amazingly busy with horse shows, reunions and trips I've been able to do a little reading (not as much as I'd have liked). I started out by going to McKay's and buying two other Kingsolver novels, as I'd enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible so much. Alas, I've only been able to read one of those: Pigs in Heaven. The other (can't remember the name of it) was loaned to the daughter of Leslie's barrel racing trainer who had read The Poisonwood Bible in Honors English at her high school and I've not gotten it back. I enjoyed Pigs in Heaven but in no way does it compare to The Poisonwood Bible. Kingsolver has definitely matured as a writer. By the way, I recommended Poisonwood to my colleague Ayo Adewuya a Nigerian. He read it on his trip to the Philippines and quite enjoyed it, seeing it as a hyperbolic, but fairly accurate description of the Congo at the time of its independence from Belgium.

In honor of the NY trip, I read The Devil Wears Prada, borrowed from my mom. Fun but shallow and a little bit disturbing.

In England, while I was studying, often I was alone at night, without television or any other form of entertainment. I always bought last year's Grisham bestseller (because paperbacks pack lighter) and a few others. I used to read all of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels, though they sometimes are too sordid. (When you're alone in a foreign country you don't won't to dwell on the depths of human deptrivation). After I'd read those, I'd scramble to find something to read in the weeks left! The library there was a theological one but had some fiction. I read quite a few Father Caedfel mysteries (a medieval monk who is also a sleuth) which I found at St. John's. Then I'd often buy a magazine which would be packaged with a "summer reading" novel. I also read some Dorothy Rendel novels while there and some Dorothy Sayers ones.

Anyway...fiction is escape but also like travel for me. It takes my mind to places I can't go physically.

I've learned about people and cultures through the creations of novelists and you'd be surprised at how often that has been helpful to me. For instance, England was fairly easy for me to navigate partially because I had read all the Miss Marpel novels and people still live in that fairly simple way in many parts of England. I never stumbled upon a dead body however.

As we near the beginning of the semester, I get excited and can't wait for Fall and cooler weather. But I also grieve a little because I know I can't just sit around and read about ordinary (but generally glamorous) people who find themselves in suspenseful or extraordinary situations. That will have to wait till Christmas break.