Saw my friend Mike, from Brant Lake, last weekend. He knows I host “Readers & Writers on the Air” and the summer and winter reading list call ins. He told me he’d joined a new book club called The Year of Reading Dangerously.<\/p>\n
Wow! That is totally cool. Great name. Who’s in it? (At this point, Mike’s daughter Hannah started smirking.)<\/p>\n
Just me.<\/p>\n
Funny. Very funny. So what are you, I mean, what is your book club reading?<\/p>\n
Anything I can get for free–borrowed, found, given to me. It’s led me to some random and surprising books. (Mike mentioned a title by an author he’s currently reading and liking–I’d never heard of either and I can’t remember them now.)<\/p>\n
I promised to send him some of the books that come across my desk–dozens and dozens each year from publishing houses and authors themselves. I have reached the point in my life where I no longer have any interest in accumulating books. If I like something, I pass it along and advise the recipient to keep the book moving. My shelves are stuffed.<\/p>\n
This is all intended to inspire you to share titles and authors you want to recommend for our\u00a0 summer reading list call-in. As we do each year, we’ll build a list from your suggestions. As soon as I receive a few, I’ll put the list up on our website as a work in progress.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, July 6, my reading ‘hood crew, Chris “The Tome” Robinson and Johnny “Hot Picks” Ernst, will join me in the studio to take your calls, suggestions and comments about books for summer reading. You can email suggestions to me at ellen@ncpr.org<\/a> or leave your recommendations as a comment below. Live dangerously, read.<\/p>\n Here’s Will Smith’s take on a balanced–and successful–life:<\/p>\n