summer BOOKS

Like many of you I'm sure, I always have a "summer book stack" piled up by my bed for the summer months. Summer seems to be the time when everything slows down, and I get the urge to escape to another world. Not that I don't read throughout the year, but summer is a time a save to get caught up on all those books I may have bought and even started but never gotten around to really delving into them.

The first thing I picked up off my "stack" was the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay. I started it in March {I know...took me a while to pick back up} but I couldn't seem to get into it. I vowed not read anything until I finished that book. There were so many books I wanted to get to, so I made this top priority. So now I am officially done with District 12, Katniss, & President Snowe. I loved the first and second book, but I never could get super pumped about Mockingjay. I tried but I just couldn't.

One down, the next book I picked up was Someday My Prince Will Come: The Adventures of a Wannabe Princess. I randomly came across this book at Barnes & Nobel last year sometime and bought it with a stack of other books, but I never got around to reading it. I started it Sunday night and finished it this morning. It's a memoir by Jerramy Fine a 32 year old American girl from Colorado who was raised by hippy, eccentric parents, but longed to be of British nobility with boarding school breeding. Jerramy, longed from the time she was 4 years old to live in London and marry Phillip Phillips, son of Queen Elizabeth II's daughter Princess Anne. That goal didn't end as she grew older, it went with her throughout college, to studying abroad in London  and seeking permanent  employment there after grad school at the London School of Economics. I didn't identify with her on the basic level of wanting to marry a prince {but lets get real, who doesn't wish for that at some point} but more so on how adamant she was in pursuing her dream in life, no matter how far fetched. Also the way she felt about London from a small age was the way I always felt about Washington DC. I was happy to read about someone who could love a city and a way of life in such a deep way that I very much related too and aspired to. I strongly recommend this book, if not just for the funny situations and string of Englishmen that come into Ms. Fine's world along the journey.

The rest of my stack:

The Buccaneers: I started this book briefly a few months ago, but then got sucked into The Hunger Games and never made my way back. I bought this on recommendation from Amazon and an interview I saw with creator of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellows,  who was reading this book at the time that he came up with the idea for the show. This book inspired the character of Cora, who is one of my favorite characters as well as the only American on the show. The book tells the story of 5 American heiress who fled to the UK in the late 1870s to participate in the London season in hopes of marrying members of the British nobility. In exchange for the title, the girls have hefty inheritances that would then belong to the fledgling estates. It was the last book Edith Wharton ever wrote. I'm excited to get back to the 19th century intrigue and way of life.

American Wife: This was also an Amazon.com recommendation. It tells the story of Alice, a shy girl born in 1940s Wisconsin in a small town, who grows up to marry the future President of the United States. From the description on the book Alice seems to be a Laura Bush type character who marries her own rowdy George W. named Charlie. The author of this book is Curtis Sittenfield who wrote the very popular Prep.

I also think I'm going to reread the last three books in the Harry Potter series. I started a trek of reading them all again last year and got through number 5. There is nothing better than the world of Harry Potter.

I'm always open for suggestions to add to my stack. Please feel free to offer any. I'm usually open to anything, but I read a lot of Biographies, Historical fiction, or what I like to call "mindless beach fun" Hit me up!