How I spent my summer vacation
So now that I'm an adult, and I don't get three months of reprieve from work, I've learned a) to resent all schoolchildren and b) to spend my vacations wisely. For me, apparently, that means in front of a book.
Last August, I spent a week in the Outer Banks with some friends for fun, sun and ... reading. Looking back at many of the pictures taken that week, there's either a book in my hand, or very close by. Maybe a beer as well, but come on, it was vacation. So when Dave asked me about some good summer reads, I thought I'd share my list from that little week of heaven:
I read The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, during the drive down to North Carolina -- you know, before gas became more precious than gold, and people still drove to their vacation spots. Remember the backlash that James Frey experienced when we found out his memoir was a little less memoir and a little more novel? That's how I felt after reading this collection of short stories about a platoon of Vietnam soldiers. O'Brien takes me through a rollercoaster of emotions following these men, fighting and dying abroad and at home, and then he takes it all away in the last page, romanticizing their sacrifices and questioning reality, in some sort of attempt to make sense of it for himself. It just felt cheap.
The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman put me back in the festive spirit. It was fun, it was adventurous and there was a religious subtext that I could think about or ignore, depending on my mood that day. The Amber Spyglass was pretty unspectacular compared to the first two, but I've noticed that tends to happen with the last in a series -- too much packed in at the end.
I received Dean Koontz's The Watchers as a birthday present for one reason: The hero of the story is a dog. I love dogs. It was silly and fluffy, just like a puppy, and I enjoyed it as I attempted to tan by the waves. If only freckles counted as tan.
Ann Patchett's Bel Canto was the last book that I attempted to finish for the week. I still haven't gotten through it. I'm told there's a really good story there, but I feel like the author is keeping all the characters at arm's length, and I just can't get into it. Maybe this summer...
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
