What to Read to While Away the Summer Hours?

Okay, so vacation has not even begun and already someone is telling you to read something over the summer!! You are tired! You have been reading nothing but textbooks and information for your courses and research projects! You do not want to think about reading! I figure that will last about a week. Then, unless you are really busy with a stressful summer job, you will need to have something to do that requires just a little brain power. Doing, “Absolutely Nothing!” never feels as good as it sounds! So, here are some suggestions from a Librarian who has several hobbies—one of them being reading for pleasure.

	If you have not read Twilight, then get with the program. Everyone who is anyone has read it! It is an easy and entertaining read. The characters are engaging with lives that are so much more interesting than our own. You get lost in their world for a time. It is thoroughly enjoyable! If you think vampires are scary, then this will convince you that they are not all that way.
	I am reading a new non-fiction book, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. Two of the subject headings for it are: emotions in animals, and animal behavior. It is available in print as well as an Audio Book through NetLibrary. This is the first time that I ever started a book at the end. The afterward is titled: “Why Do I Still Work for the Industry?” That grabbed my attention, so I started reading there. The author, Temple Grandin, works for the meat industry. She discusses the fact that there are those who raise animals for food that are doing it the decent, humane way. In the end, she relays the fact that many cows have better lives than a supposedly pampered dog that is left alone all day. Dogs can suffer from separation anxiety when left on their own while the owner is at work. A good life for pets requires: health, freedom from physical and emotional pain, and lots of interaction and activities with humans. Read it to learn how to treat your pets and give them the best life possible.
	Are you serious? You have not read any of the Harry Potter books? Even if you have seen the movies, you are missing out. The book is always better! Take time this summer to read the first one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is available at Steen Library. The Nacogdoches Public Library also carries print and audio book versions. Your local Public Library is likely to have a copy as well. It is the shortest at 309 pages. I promise you will be hooked! You will understand how Harry Potter became sopopular.
	One last suggestion is called The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It would be a great “take on a week at the beach” as it is over 500 pages. However, it is so well written that it is hard to put it down! It is about a girl who loves books and is sent to live with an older couple during World War II. It does not sound too exciting, but it is! Try it out.

Have a Great Summer!

Do you have any summer book recommendations? Post a comment and share some of your favorite summer reads.

Tina Oswald toswald@sfasu.edu rm. 202f 936.468.1861 Subjects - Elementary Education, and Secondary Education/Educational Leadership

Ransom Seaborn: Book Review

Singer/songwriter Bill Deasy http://www.billdeasy.com/, captures the essence of the freshman year in his award-winning first novel, Ransom Seaborn. Deasy recounts a college coming-of-age story with a troubadour’s love for the music of language.

Dan Finbar, aka Fin, struggles to find his place as a big-city Catholic freshman attending a rural, small-town, conservative Protestant college. From “meet the roommate” and parting with his parents to the stunning ending, this slim book recalls the new freedoms, turmoil, and longing to fit in common to the first-year college experience. Humor, poignancy, and mature themes abound as the author stirs memories of each readers’ college experience.

All references to persons living or dead are purely intentional. Deasy’s fictional Harrison College is Grove City College, in western Pennsylvania, where he graduated in ‘88. He dubs The Gedunk, Grove City’s popular student hangout and snack bar, the Podunk. Despite the name changes and decades since I graduated (‘75), his descriptions of the locale and Dr. Exley’s provocative classroom challenge ring true (flashback to the lone C in my major; Dr. Donnelly’s not-so-Romantic Lit at 8:00 A.M). For the source of the title character’s name plus campus references, read an article profiling Bill Deasy in The GēDUNK: Grove City College Alumni Magazine .(p.16, Fall 2007)

Ransom Seaborn won the former literary blog POD-dy Mouth’s 2006 Needle Award for Print-On-Demand books (out of a field of over 1,600 entrants).

At last count, 21 out of 23 customer reviews at amazon.com gave this book five stars with two four-star reviews.

Attention: once and future college English professors, if you teach a course on The Campus Novel, Creative Writing, or American Literature, this is one for the syllabus. To mashup lit crit speak, Ransom Seaborn is a timeless Bildungsroman á clef in the academic novel genre complete with road trip quest (via Greyhound), intertextuality, and a powerful denouement.

Warning—it will take willpower not to devour this book in one sitting.With its echoes of and critical comparisons to The Catcher in the Rye, Deasy’s work will whet your appetite to re-read J. D. Salinger’s novel and have a second helping of Ransom Seaborn.

Carol Scamman cscamman@sfasu.edu rm. 202e 936.468.1710 Subjects - Art, English, Modern Languages, Social Work, Sociology, Theatre