My Summer Reading List

I’m chiming in late with this theme because, well, frankly, because I sorta blew it earlier this month, but I’m grateful for the second chance to slip into the June theme—our favorite summer reads.

When I think of summer reading, I don’t think of beach reads or light romance or cozy mysteries I can curl up in my hammock (if I had one) with while I sip a cool glass of iced tea. Nope, summer is my time to reread books I’ve loved in the past. For years I reread Gone With the Wind every summer, but I stopped reading it about twenty years ago. I do however still reread All This and Heaven Too nearly every summer. That story just intrigues the heck out of me, and now I have it on my Kindle, too!

I love to reread anything at all by Barbara Michaels—a romantic suspense author I discovered in the mid-seventies, and have loved ever since. She’s gone now, but her books live on in my keeper library, and I just discovered that her books are all on digital now, so I see a large portion of my next Amazon gift card going to adding them to my Kindle. Try her out, if you never have, Ammie, Come Home is terrific, as are the other two in the Georgetown Trilogy, Shattered Silk and Stitches in Time. Really, everything she wrote was just good romantic suspense fun!

Every few years, I read the whole Little House series and in between years I read the Anne of Green Gables books. I love rereading books from my childhood, taking me back to when my mom used to read us while we camped in Michigan. I remember so clearly hearing the waves on the shores of Lake Michigan while we sat around a campfire and listened to the antics of Anne Shirley or heard about the Bird Woman and Elnora Comstock from the Gene Stratton-Porter classic, A Girl of the Limberlost. That one is free on Kindle, guys—I recommend it! As I got older, I discovered Daphne du Maurier and Agatha Christie, Mary Stewart and Phyllis Whitney. I love rereading those books that I devoured as kid.

I also love rereading some of my favorite romances—Liz Flaherty’s One More Summer, which I’ve reread at least six times; Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me is great summer reread as is Lani Diane Rich’s The Fortune Quilt. For me, summer reading means pulling out old favorites, revisiting well-loved settings and characters, and enjoying stories retold.

So, how about you? Do you like to reread old favorite books or are you a been-there-read-that kind of reader?

~Nan~

(PS: Today is Husband's and my wedding anniversary 47 years and still going strong! Click the link and check out our favorite song!)