Summer Reading

I was listening to NPR the other night and there was an essay by someone, her name escapes me, about summer reading. In particular, the choice she made between catching up on New Yorker issues or reading some summer novels, memoirs, etc. It made me think about my own summer reading/viewing. I got out of my car, opened the door to my house and stared at the coffee table. Lying there, in the most accusatory manner possible for inanimate objects, were 2 months of New Yorker issues. I walked past and tried to ignore them. Just like I ignore on a daily basis the 2 borrowed books, the library book (book club reading material, Feasting, Fasting, the 2 borrowed dvds (The Hunting of the President, The Fog of War, the official 9/11 report and Jon Stewart's America. Sigh. The guilt is almost overwhelming. I can barely manage to read Salon, Slate or the front page of the NYT. I come home and know that there are good books waiting to be read. Informative and fascinating articles. I now have a free subscription to Wired and I've only managed to remove the plastic wrap. My free subscription to the digital version of The New Republic? Well, I've printed them out and they too are on my coffee table.

Salvation is on its way - vacation. A 2 week vacation. A 10 hour flight one way. Train rides. T.v. in a foreign language. All of which means that I might get 2 issues of the New Yorker out of the way and maybe a chapter of the Time Traveler's Wife or Saturday read. But first, I have to finish my book club book so I don't have a late fee at the library!