Self sabotage of the seasonal variety

I can’t stop thinking about summer. Or, okay, let’s not get too greedy: I can’t stop thinking about spring. I see a book with a picture of a girl with short sleeves on the cover and crave the ability to go sleeveless (I’m too much of a freeze baby for that to be anything close to a possibility right now). I’ve been cleaning to the Beach Boys hoping their good vibrations along with all the chemical cleansers will create some sort of time warp and let me go just a few months into the future. And it’s still January!! I haven’t seen grass for like two weeks, and it’s not like the sun’s melting the inches of snow on the ground any time soon. I’m tired of offering books for you to cozy up to a fireplace to read. I don’t even have a fireplace!! When will the cold awfulness be over?!? *Sigh.* Here are some summer reading suggestions from high school that actually turned out to be some of my favorites.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I remember being so worried about this book, that it was going to be impossibly boring. But it turned out to be intriguing and surprising.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
I love the cross generational style that Tan uses. We understand where the mothers and daughters are coming from in their own lives, now if only they were able to communicate this to each other.

The Brethren by Bob Woodward
It’s about the Supreme Court in the 1960’s and 70’s, what’s not to love? But instead of the snooze-fest that I predicted, I got this whole big male drama story which was sometimes better than the scheming and troubles of the Beverly Hills 90210 gang (Ok, I wouldn’t go that far).

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Remarque humanizes each character with such clarity and perception. It doesn’t matter that the characters are the German “bad guys;” we’re rooting for and mourning the loss of the individuals.