Summer Reading: Happened So Fast!

It's official: the days are growing shorter, the air is crisp and the equinox set our eggs on end. Summer is over and autumn has begun.

For those of us who enjoy summer reading, the turn of the season is bittersweet, but not unwelcome: sometimes it's hard to stay indoors and curl up with a book while the sun shines!

This summer was not too hot (which limited my reading) and was filled with a few adventures, including the very special wedding of a very special couple and a new feline addition to the family (different events, of course — my new son-in-law Kenny is charming, but not in the least bit feline) (I think). However, there always is time to read, even if it's into the middle of the night. (Daylight is not a welcome force the following morning, I tell you what.)

As part of the 2014 Summer Reading Club, I read 33 books:

1. A Red Herring Without Mustard
2. Second Glance
3. Centuries of June
4. A Room With A Zoo
5. The Interestings
6. Bats at the Ballgame
7. Ouroboros Ouzo
8. Extent Demon King
9. Johannesburg Cabal and the Blustery Day
10. Bats at the Library
11. I Lost My Bear
12. The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag
13. Bats at the Beach
14. Bandit’s Surprise
15. What Successful People Do Before Breakfast
16. Tobacco Road
17. Bandit
18. The Book of Life
19. Shadow of Night
20. The Fault in Our Stars
21. A Discovery of Witches
    
22. The True Story of Stellina
23. Top Secret Twenty-One
24. Toots the Cat
25. Millions of Cats
26. The Beauty of the Beast : poems from the animal kingdom
27. Takedown Twenty: a Stephanie Plum novel
28. The Eye of Zoltar
29. The Eyre Affair
30. The Goldfinch
31. American Decameron
32. The Decameron
33. Year of No Sugar

At least, that's the best list I could compile following a disasterous August List Loss. (Try to say that three times fast while panicking as the year's reading list disappears before your eyes.) (And no, "undo" didn't undo.)

A couple on the list are rather short, but the thicker tomes fill out the stack. Plus, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am not completely finished with Mustard, but I am more than halfway through it, so I will count it on behalf of Main Street.

The "Main Street" of which I write is Main Street Child Development Center, a fabulous non-profit organization that will receive $5 per book, for a total of $165, from this Hedgehog Lover.

I also donated three books to the Fairfax County Public Library:

• Natchez Burning
• Boy, Snow, Bird
• The Lorax

As promised, my fellow clubber who read the most this summer will earn a new book of her/his choosing.  

Please send your reading list by October 4 so we can compare lists and you can get your new book all that much sooner. (Of course you will win. You read a lot, didn't you?)  Remember, the time frame is May 23 (the Friday before Memorial Day) through September 28 (the Sunday following the autumnal equinox).

By the way, Reader Karen suggested something I've been pondering for a while: a winter reading club. Are you in? Let me know!