I can read. . . It's a miracle! Non-readers: skip this post.

Finally, after a two month long hiatus, I'm back on the reading train! I'm usually a pretty obsessive reader, but something about excessive nausea mixed with first trimester depression and lack of motivation made sounding out words seem like too much work (unless those words were, "Dear husband, could you bring me some more cheez-its?")

I started off easy (don't want to get all disoriented) with Sue Monk Kidd's book The Mermaid Chair. I read it. It was fine. Moving on.

But then, the clouds opened up and a voice sounded (via Facebook) saying, "Here is an advanced copy of the sequel to The Hunger Games, should you desire to borrow it."

Me: (Pause to catch breath) "Oh, thank you, self, for deciding to work at a library for 5 years and make librarian friends who have similar reading obsessions and who share advanced reading copies with you."

Oh, it's good. Pretty darn good. Finished in under 24 hours good. And you only have to wait until September to get your hands on a copy!

Once I recovered from a straight day of reading I moved on to The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Gross (loaned to me by Jean, thank you!). It was pretty good. Not insanely good, but good.

And now I'm compulsively checking my library account for the day that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's book of stories, The Thing Around Your Neck, comes in. Her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, was incredible. If I owned it, I would loan it to you.

I'm trying not to make a summer reading list because when I make a list I never read a single thing on it, but I did just find this older list (2006) that Slate put together of good beach reads. You might just find something on there worth reading.