Something Borrowed, Blue, Old and New – Summer Reading!

With school and classes behind us, we are free to enjoy literature and reading again, not as a task but as a leisure pastime. Everyone should have a summer reading list for the beach, the pool, tanning, Starbucks, public transportation, road trips, etc, etc. Like a bride, every girl (0r boy) should have a summer reading list that consists of:

Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue
And a silver sixpence in her shoe (I don’t know what this is so we are going to pretend it’s not apart of the list).

This probably sounds familiar, if it doesn’t, remember it for later in life. It will be useful then too.

Borrowed: Book share! Pick someone you admire, someone who you look to for advice and ask them for a recommendation. Books are a look into another way of thinking and a fresh perspective on the world. Other people have different experiences, share others tastes. You might end up with something completely random. One of my friends got Eat, Pray, Love from a friend and wasn’t impressed with 15 chapters of some middle-aged woman trying to find herself. But you might end up with something magical and that’s why you take the risk.

Old: Pick an oldie, but a goodie. The Great Gatsby is amazing, so is Gone With the Wild. Lots of people enjoy older British or American literature. Try it! Pick one of the books from the censorship era, or On The Road (a personal fav). Read up on what books inspired people to do something great and go from there.

New: Grab a recent New York Times bestseller list topper. If you haven’t read Harry Potter, now is the time. If the Hunger Games is missing from your bookshelf, now is the time.

Blue: As in sad. Now is the time to cry. The tragic love story is the overwhelming theme for this category. I’m not talking 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight. I’m talking real, the way lonely girls love their cats, type of tragic love novel. Human bonds beyond what you could even imagine before you picked up this book. If you aren’t into love stories, sad books are there for you. Books about history’s great human sufferings and injustices, Night or Wise Blood are something to think about.