Suggested Reading: What does that mean to me?
Before there were ebooks, I often added to my personal suggested reading list by slowly walking up and down the aisles at the local Big Box Bookstore. Using this technique I would be attracted by the name of the author, the splashy cover art, the brief synopsis on the inside cover, or whether the book was on too low a shelf for my rapidly aging body to comfortably reach.
When local public libraries went online, I lost most of the triggers a book in my hand provided. But the online library allowed me to have a month full of reading waiting for me with a rubber band around it sitting on a will-call shelf near the front door of the library. Generally I heard about an author or a new title, checked if the library had obtained the title, and scheduled a quick visit in the next few days.
This month I have gone back through the suggested reading list of the first half of the year and selected twenty titles I should read to take my own suggests. I did this last year and it was quite successful; this year I’m not as optimistic.
I have recommended reading selections each month for the first half of the year and it’s time to go back through the lists and select a representation of recommendations that I’ll use to build my August reading list. I did this once before and it was effectively introduced me to some wonderful reading as well as keeping me honest and grounded in the books I recommend each month.
This is one of two months of the year when quarterly and bi-annual journals show up in my mailbox with a one-two punch of stimulating new reading. No sooner had I begun flipping through 