June 16, 2022

I can read and am happy to read in any location, but on these June days I most enjoy sitting on our patio with a full view of the garden; a garden developed and tended by my husband. I receive its beauty every day.

The only setting better for my reading pleasure is a view of water, preferably big water. Water where I can hear the sound of waves, gentle or with more energy. The first COVID summer my husband and I packed up outdoor chairs, cold drinks and snacks and our books and headed to nearby lakes where we could sit at a distance from anyone else and enjoy a “vacation day.”

When we lived at Sweetwater Farm, I stretched out on the sectional in the area at the front of the house we called “the nest.” When the windows were open, I often heard the clop-clop of Amish buggies passing by or I might hear our donkey, Festus, signaling that it was dinner time NOW.

As a child, I remember reading on a blanket spread out on the beach of the resort where my family spent one or two weeks each summer. It was one of those old-fashioned kind of resorts with individual cabins and not much, if any, in the way of amenities, but we loved it there. At night or if it rained, my book and I moved onto the screen porch, and I was just as content.

In one house we lived in for only a short time when I was in the 7th grade, there was a window seat in the closet of my room. Guess where I read? When our kids were young, we sat on the front porch swing, and I read aloud the next chapters in the current family book. Our house in Madison, WI, had one of those large, livable porches, too, and I often spent the whole day there reading or writing, only stopping to make dinner, which we would eat on the porch and then read there until bugs interfered with our comfort.

One of my favorite reading memories is reading in the adult pool at a country club. We lived in Dallas, TX, for two years when I was in junior high school, and we often spent hot summers weekend days at the club. My father and brother sometimes played golf, and my mother sat near the kiddie pool, watching my younger sister. Nobody, and I mean nobody, used the pool designated as the adult pool. That pool had wide steps leading into the water, and I sat on the top step, the water lapping against my legs and waist.

Once a lifeguard told me to get out of the pool because it was just for adults, and a man I didn’t know told him to leave me alone. “She’s not bothering anyone.” I suppose I thanked him and just kept reading.

More important, of course, than place, however, is the book. Right now I am reading a long and absorbing novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fannonne Jeffers, and I will need many more hours of reading in favorite locations before I write about this book.

Looking Back: Favorite Books of June, 2021

I will list my favorite June books in a couple weeks, but in the meantime here are a few of the books I read a year ago.

• I re-read two favorites and loved them even more the second time around. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
• The Other Black Girl by Zakiyu Davila Harris, a debut novel, was a summer sensation. OBG stands for “other black girl,” and is used when there is more than one black woman in an office. Now think about that! In this case the office is a publishing house. I can imagine this book being the basis for a television series.
• What Could Be Saved by Liese O’Halloran Schwartz is set in Bangkok in 1972. That interested me since I spent a semester in Thailand the fall of 1968, and I recognized many of the place names. The dysfunction of the American family whose son disappears reminded me of Ann Patchett’s themes at times. An engrossing read.
• I only read two nonfiction books last June. (I think that will be true this June, too.) One was The Seeker and the Monk by Sophfronia Scott, in which the author explored her own spirituality by studying Thomas Merton. The other nonfiction title was Morningstar, Growing Up With Books by Ann Hood. I am a sucker for books about books, and this was a good one.

An Invitation

Where do you like to read? I would love to know.