Summer Break and the Reading is Easy

I have been doing quite a lot of reading lately, some pulled from the summer reading lists of my various students and some from my own prep for next year's classes.

So far, I have read

1)  City of Glass by Paul Auster but this is the graphic novel version

2) The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir written and drawn by Thi Bui

3) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

4) Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deveare Smith

5) Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

I liked #1 but loved #2 -- it was a surprising find about the life of a woman born in Vietnam who family came to the US as war refugees! Both are summer reading for other classes in the English department. #3 was a re-read but it was just as good as the first time around. #4 has been on my list for a while, and it just made me reaffirm my belief in ADS's genius. #5 is not as good as Operating Instructions -- probably because when I read that I was a young(ish) parent and that book saved me in some ways so it is up on a pedestal unreachable by other books in comparison -- but AL always has some gems about life that I'd write down in an inspirational quote book if I had one.

Next on the list is Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables. I am reading the unabridged version translated by Lee Fahnestock. It's quite the undertaking and may take me all summer, and I may intersperse it with other things. I am taking notes as I go to help me thinking about the direction of the winter musical.