Patrick Henry College Students & Alumni Reading Group (Unofficial) discussion

So...let's talk about summer reading lists! I haven't put one together yet (shame on me - I've been too busy). I'm not sure if I'll put a specific one together or just continue on my to-read list.

What about you? Do you plan to put together a reading list for the summer? If so, please share your top few books!

Are there any books that just MUST be read during summertime, or that characterize your summer memories of prior years?

My main goal this spring and summer is to work through most of C.S. Lewis's works that I have not yet read. Three which I've read this spring and loved were Mere Christianity, Till We Have Faces, and Pilgrim's Regress.

I also have a goal each year of reading one classic book from 5-10 authors whom I have not yet read. In the past couple years, the new authors I particularly enjoyed reading were Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt, and Main Street--but I liked Babbitt best), John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men-short but good), Upton Sinclair (The Jungle--loved this one), John Buchan (the five Richard Hannay novels) Alan Paton (Cry, the Beloved Country). I also have a few authors I didn't enjoy (as much), which I can divulge if you're interested.

If you're a fan of the following authors, these books I loved last year also. The Children of Hurin by Tolkien, Oliver Twist by Dickens, Orthodoxy by Chesterton, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie, Billy Budd by Melville.

I'd love suggestions of authors or books to add to my reading list too. Also, tell me if you've read E.M. Forster and if you recommend a particular novel I should read by him. I plan to read one this year and am leaning toward A Room with a View or Howard's End.

I do have one MUST READ to recommend, and I'm serious about this. Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort-of History of the United States (by Dave Barry:). To the person educated in American History, this short rewriting of history is too fun to pass up.

Having read the "Inferno" for Western Literature I, I plan on finishing the Divine Comedy this summer (Mark Musa translation). I'll be re-reading "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder as well, in preparation for Eden Troupe's performance this fall. :)

I'll also read "King's Cross" by Timothy Keller, "Burn" by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy, "Heaven's Wager," "When Heaven Weeps," and "Thunder of Heaven," all by Ted Dekker. Oddly enough, the list is not quite as full as I anticipated it would be, so I'm willing to entertain suggestions for more reading, particularly from this group.

I really don't have reading lists any more since graduation. However, I do have some ideas for near-future reading.

I just finished Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos. I have been working off and on with Allen Tate's Of Four Decades as well as the poetry of Keats and Herbert. I plan to finish Lucan's Pharsalia/Civil War. I want to get to Trust in an Age of Arrogance by C. Fitzsimmons Allison, To Tell the Godly Man by Shirley Carter, and The Second Adam and the New Birth by M. F. Sadler. I'm also working through Francis J. Hall's Dogmatic Theology for my church's young theologians club. Also, I'd like to reread the Divine Comedy sometime this year. As you can tell, I often read essays, short stories, and poetry, which can be picked up, read in an evening, and put back. As such, it's hard to keep track of actual "finished" books.

Books about cold places have always seemed appropriate to me during summer months. In particular, I remember enjoying Shackleton's accounts of his various Antarctic expeditions (South and In the Heart of the Antarctic are the titles I'm thinking of), an escape from the sweltering humidity of my childhood in Houston.

This summer, though I've got some large books that I hope to make progress on, so I guess they constitute my summer reading list: Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Faulkner's Fable; Robert Caro's Passage of Power (the literary-political event of the season?); the back half of Updike's Rabbit novels (Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest); and the Canterbury Tales. Probably won't finish all of these, but I can dream. If I do finish them, I want to buy more Fitzgerald and Hemingway and fill in those gaps in my reading.

Kyle, if you're reading Dante, make sure you don't miss his Vita Nuova. It's short (more lyric than epic), and I found it really helpful in understanding the Comedy. I think Musa has translated it, too.

Jacob wrote: "Books about cold places have always seemed appropriate to me during summer months. In particular, I remember enjoying Shackleton's accounts of his various Antarctic expeditions (South and In the He..."

Thoughts on the Rabbit novels? Are they worth it? I've been considering them for some time.

I confess I don’t have a summer reading list. I’m hoping to get through several books I’ve started or have on my to-read list. However, I forced my kids to make a reading list of at least five books (in addition to their required reading for homeschool). Here’s my daughter Nadine’s:

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary
The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic
Blindness
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
The Hunger Games

Stewart found the following link to this epic flowchart helping you find some summer reading! I haven't read all of these yet (a decent number of them though), but from what I can tell it seems like an excellent list! Take their advice and skip the trash!

http://www.upworthy.com/101-books-to-...