Update on Summer Reading

So I thought it would be of benefit to post a quick update on my summer reading.  Again, it's the whole thing about having goals (see post dated 17 May).  This morning, I finished _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_.  For those of you not in the know, that's the second of seven in the Harry Potter Series.  I've also read about 2/3 of Wilkie Collins's _The Woman in White_.  With my mom here for two weeks, I didn't get as much reading done as I might have liked, and that's OK because spending time with mom was so great.  I do have in my possession most of the books I'd like to get to this summer.  I've refined and prioritized my list a bit.  So here's the revised list in the order in which I think I'll be reading.

1.  Finish _Woman in White_.

2.  Mrs. Dalloway

3 and 4.  Start the Old Curiosity Shop and An Abundance of Katherines (Dickens requires being broken up by light reading)

5.  To the Lighthouse

6.  Vanity Fair

7.  The Waves

8.  Trollope's The Warden

9.  Till We Have Faces

10.  Eliot's Middlemarch

11.  Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

12.  Anna Karenina

13.  Intersperse the rest of the Harry Potter Series with the above, just to break things up

14.  Intersperse a variety of feminist literary theory, which I'm reading in part for an independent study.  I need to get started on deBeauvior's The Second Sex.  I'm really not feeling up for this.

I'm enjoying revisiting the Harry Potter series.  I've been watching the movies on DVD too, partly in anticipation of The Half-Blood Prince opening this summer.  I do not think that the Harry Potter series is great literature.  But I do think it's clever and interesting.  And clearly, what Rowling does speaks to our culture in a way that few literary works seem to have done.  I could go on and on about it, but I'll spare you that.

I'm not feeling so enthusiastic about the theory I think I'm supposed to be reading.  I mean, it's just feeling a little depressing at the moment.  And what I really want to be reading is fun stuff, mostly from the YA section at the library.  And just because I have this whole list going does not mean that I can't and won't be reading fun stuff from the YA section.

One more observation about summer reading.  I really enjoy sitting on the deck and reading.  So completely relaxing.  It's supposed to rain later, or I might be tempted to spend the day reading outside.  But I also like getting up early (this morning, Fen woke me at 5:15) and reading all morning, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the couch.  There's something peaceful about the quiet early mornings around here.

On an unrelated but exciting note, bears have been seen in my neighborhood the past two days.  And by "neighborhood," I mean within 1/8 of a mile of my home.  I don't know why, but I find that very exciting!  For those of you who don't know, Guinnie is a little bit nervous of bears, but she figures she could outrun a bear or at least run faster than Polly.