Summer Reading | Book Chatter

I know that summer is not over just yet, but it feels like it to me. We didn’t get to take a vacation this year and I’m sure that has a lot to do with it. It’s made me a bit blue and well…rather crabby but I’m trying to rise above it.

Last week we did the back-to-school clothes shopping and although The Boy is pretty easy, The Girl is anything but! She is very particular with sizing. It has to fit just so and so we tend to get into it while in the dressing room. I don’t think that her jeans need to be painted on but apparently I am un-cool and don’t know. Oh and the shoes!! How many shoes do kids need??? BOTH of my kids have really large feet and they just keep growing and now with cross country for The Boy, I have running shoes to invest in as well. I need a second job just to pay for these shoes!

And during all of this, my husband who was walking behind me stepped on the heel of my shoe (flat tire) and broke my shoe while we were shopping. Who does that??? I had to buy shoes for myself while my shoe was just dangling off of my foot. I felt like an idiot. Of course, the shoes I bought have given me nothing but blisters all week. That’s what happens when you buy shoes out of desperation. You get the shaft.

The good note?

All of this fall shopping has made me anxious for fall. I love fall. Warm sweaters, candles, the holiday drink menu at Starbucks. I love it all. So although I sort of skipped over summer, I am looking forward to fall and my son’s first year in high school!

What about reading?

As for reading, my summer list never really looked much like a summer reading list anyway but I’ve read five out of the original nine listed and a bunch of other books in between.

This stack that you see above? This is what happens to be staring me in the face at the moment. Two of those books are for tours and I have checked Divergent out four times and still haven’t gotten to it! It’s due next week, with holds, so if I don’t read it this weekend, I will once again be turning it in.

Right now, I am halfway through Gone Girl and wondering where the WOW is. Well, I might be a little further along than that but I keep waiting for the WOW that everyone talks about. I am also reading Norwegian Wood. I am nearly done with it. It’s definitely one of Murakami’s quieter novels. I am enjoying it for its peaceful simplicity.

Not much going on this weekend. I’d like to just watch a bunch of movies and read and maybe grill something but other than that, I don’t plan on doing much. Sounds just fine to me. Do you think it will happen?

Jaws
By Peter Benchley
(Random House, Hardcover, 9781400064564, Originally published 1974, 320pp.)

The Short of It:

Nearly 40 years old and it STILL gives me goosebumps!

The Rest of It:

Last year or the year before, my student assistant told me that she had never heard of JAWS. I was rambling on about movies and when she said that, I stopped mid-sentence, looked the movie up on Netflix and gave her orders to see that weekend.

Did she listen? No. But, it was at that moment that I remembered the book. I had not read the book before and thought it might make a good summer read and boy, did it! As perfect as a book about a man-eating shark can be! The story takes place right before the July 4th holiday, in a small beach community called Amity. The presence of a shark, made evident by the aftermath left behind, forces city officials to close the beach during one of the busiest weekends of the summer. As you can imagine, most of the revenue for such a small town comes from tourists visiting for the summer so the closure of the beach is a big to-do and not a move favored by everyone. As the town digs in to find this shark, a rag-tag group is hastily formed and off they go, in search of the Great White.

The book is actually really, really good. I hate mass marketed copies of anything but if you have a copy lying around, I urge you to dig it out. The pacing is perfect, the tension is just right and there is just enough of a back story to keep you interested.

That said, there are some major differences between the book and the movie and those differences involve main characters. I won’t go into them because I want you to experience the book for yourself. A friend of mine said that the book is all about the shark but I disagree. We get to know the human characters quite well from the book, whereas in the movie… we are only given a tiny bit of their personal lives.

Still, it was the perfect summer read and even though the movie was different in some ways, I still consider it one of the best movies ever and it’s 35 years old!! So, with July 4th just around the corner, I dare you to take a dip!

Source: Borrowed
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