I’m on a bit of a summer reading rampage. As usual, my reading is indiscriminate and runs the gamut from the great, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Well, no. I haven’t found anything really bad at all. All of these books are ones that were either recommendations from friends, whose opinions I value, or titles that have been referred to within other books I’ve liked.

Currently, this combination of borrowed, owned and library-loaned books, are piled in various strategic spots; on the throw rug by the bed, heaped on the coffee table in front of the futon on the deck, on the kitchen table and on the little stand by the big red reclining chair – my morning  cocooning spot  – where I drink my first cappuccino while writing my morning pages.

I just finished William Styron’s Memoir of Madness. It’s a short personal essay and an interesting book to follow-up from Noon-Day Demon by Andrew Solomon.

I finished Roopa Farooki’s book, The Way Things Look to Me, just after midnight last night.  If you’re not familiar with Aspergers Syndrome, this piece of fast fiction is a great way in.

I’m enjoying Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, sort of an Australian Grapes of Wrath-ish novel, and have been rereading bits and pieces of one of my favourite memoirs,  A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel.  

The other memoirs that beckon are, The Woman Who Watches Over the World by Linda Hogan and The Sum of our Days by Isabelle Allende.

For a tried and true how-to book, I’m reviewing – yet again – Writing the Memoir by Judith Barrington.

I’ve started The Stranger by Albert Camus, and think I might have to try again with The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. It feels like it might be a book that requires more concentration and a slower pace than the speed read I did through the Farooki book last night.

My girlfriend recommended An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark and though I’m halfway through, it’s starting to feel like an obligatory read more than anything. Not sure if that one’s going to make the cut.

The days have been hazy and hot, the sea is calm and I’m pretending that I’m working on a self-directed (albeit random) reading program instead of just being a summertime slug.