A lovely friend, who I used to be in a book club with, had a practice of creating a summer book basket. The imagery is so beautiful. And it speaks to being intentional about how to spend the season. It always sparked such a great conversation: “So, what do you have in your summer book basket?”. Even though I don’t use an actual basket, I’ve followed this practice too, ever since.
It can take different forms:
- a pre-summer trip to the library
- shopping my own bookshelves for things I haven’t read yet, or to re-read
- stopping in at the independent book shop
- *adding to cart* books from an online bookstore
- putting audio books on hold through the Libby app
My Summer Book Basket
So far, these are the books I’ve collected.
- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Recommended by my sister who knows what I’ll like. Also, I loved The Great Alone by the same author. It’s one of those books that stayed with me long after I read it.
- The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys, recommended by my daughter. She also knows what I’ll like.
- Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. Emily St. John Mandel is a popular author this summer. Sea of Tranquility is her most recent book that also looks great. (Both are set in Canada, sort of.)
- The Carbon Almanac, by hundreds of volunteers from all over the world, including me.
- Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González. Highly recommended by Caroline Weaver when she was on the Erasable podcast. A reliable source, and it’s rated 4+ on Goodreads.
That should keep me busy.
One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by.
Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle
Stationery in the Photo
- notebook
- pen
- felt tip pen
- rubber stamp
- photo, a screenshot from tumblr I printed out, couldn’t find a source
- skeleton clip
- glue
- alpha-numeric wooden stamp set
P.S. The photo is of the second, blank, page in the section of my Reading Journal where I keep track of recommended titles, and who recommended them. So … not showing the first page for privacy reasons, but I love having this list, it’s so helpful.
