Guidelines.

Another teaching year finishes this week, and I'm trying to think hard about what I'll read over the summer. I haven't settled on a concrete list yet, but here are some guidelines I've been thinking through, to hopefully make my summer reading as rich as possible.

1. We only have a relatively short amount of time to use well or waste in this life. So I'm going to try to read important things, that I know will be beneficial. I also want to read things I enjoy, and/or work by authors I like. I'm realizing more and more that real, honest-to-goodness reading happens with the stuff that interests and excites us. This is the stuff that we won't regret having read (most likely anyway).

2. I want to write more in the near future, so a couple books on how to write well will be in order. A re-reading of The Elements of Style may be a worthy choice, among others.

3. I'm sure I'll end up picking away at more books than I should probably have going at one time. But I'm trying to convince myself that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Multiple perspectives, multiple subjects, multiple voices. However, one does have to be careful not to lose track of the content of the books one has going.

A hearty "three cheers" for summer.