Sometimes I forget things. As I grow older, that’s becoming more and more common, much to my dismay. Fortunately for all of us, I didn’t forget that today’s Memorial Day, the start of the Summer Reading List challenge!
I was talking about it over the weekend, and I commented that I started doing it "maybe around 2019". That’s the forgetting part, because I didn’t start it in 2019. No, the original post is dated 5/30/16. 2016. That means this is the 10th Annual Summer Reading List! Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for a decade.
In that time, I’ve read a lot of interesting books, and a few that were…not very interesting. I’ve enjoyed the experience most of all, however, whether I’m reading Jules Verne, Marcus Aurelius, or some random book I spotted on Libgen. My self-imposed rules (which I’ll recap below, as always) are great for pushing me to try new things, and my changing tastes are evident in the "safe" picks I use each time around.
Looking back on the last ten years has also shown how I’ve changed. Early on, you can see the excitement of finding new things, of discovery and exploration. During the dark years of the fake pandemic, my bitterness and despair showed in both what I read and how I talked about it. And the most recent entries paint me as a curious mix of romantic and cynic, which isn’t far from the truth, I’ll admit.
Anyway, on to the rules. They’re a familiar sort by now, with only minor changes as I’ve tweaked them over the years.
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The goal is to read 3 new (to you) books between Memorial Day (May 26) and Labor Day (September 1) in the US, the traditional "unofficial" bounds of summer. Southern Hemisphere readers get a winter challenge, probably a better idea because of the long nights.
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A "book", for the purposes of the challenge, is anything non-periodical, so no comics, serialized graphic novels, or manga. Anything else works, including standalone graphic novels and light novels. If you’re not sure, just use common sense. Also, audiobooks are acceptable as long as they’re books, not something like a podcast.
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One of the books should be of a genre you don’t normally read. For example, I’m big on fantasy and sci-fi, so I might read a romance, or a thriller, or something like that. Nonfiction, by the way, also works as a "new" genre, unless you do read it all the time.
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You can’t count books you wrote, because they obviously wouldn’t be new to you. Even if they’re still being edited. Before you ask, this rule exists solely to keep me from just rereading my books.
That’s really all there is to it. I’ll post my thoughts on my selected books here, as usual, and on whatever fediverse account is actually working this summer. (Seriously, I’ve gone through 5 of the things since I started this challenge!) Feel free to post on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever you like, too. Use the hashtag "#SummerReadingList2025" to spread the word. Most of all, have fun. This isn’t an assignment.
Enjoy your summer, enjoy your books, and keep reading!