This month's LitSoup question:

What's on your summer reading list?

Some summer-reading plans from The News-Herald newsroom:

Tricia Ambrose

On my list of must-reads for summer is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I’ve read great things about it and am totally intrigued by the idea of exploring a marriage gone horribly awry.

Jean Bonchak:

Just finished reading “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan. Admittedly, I wasn’t crazy about the premise, which is based on Frank Lloyd Wright’s career and illicit love affair with a married woman. However, the author relates the tale in such a compelling manner, and the lives involved were so interesting, I have to admit I enjoyed it immensely.
I’ve just picked up “The Paris Wife” which talks about Hemingway’s relationship with his first wife. Because I very much trust the person who recommended it I’m looking forward to it as my vacation read.
And for the little guys? My grandson is just crazy about “Clifford to the Rescue” and absolutely anything relating to the Berenstain Bears. Also, he never tires of the “Five Little Monkeys” series which we have read repeatedly over the last year..

Jeffrey L. Frischkorn:

I’m STILL trying to get through “1491” but keep getting interrupted. Including by a very funny Kindle e-book called “Mr. Hawkins’ Humorous Adventures,” written by Edger Franklin way back in 1904 or so.

Nicole Franz

I plowed through “The Hunger Games” trilogy, and I’ve been reading Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books lately. They’re light, entertaining books that inspired HBO’s “True Blood.”

Cheryl Sadler:

I'm finishing up "A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail," and next on my list is — dare I say it? — "Fifty Shades of Grey," which Community Media Lab blogger Amy Lauria encouraged me to read after blogging about it. I'm either going to hate this, or it will be my newest guilty pleasure read.

Other responses from the Twitterverse:

@nhcheryl Finishing A Feast for Crows and hopefully at least starting A Dance With Dragons (Game of Thrones series)
— Danielle Capriato (@DCapriato) June 26, 2012

Jason Lea:

I've been trying to read more poetry lately for both academic and practical reasons.
Frankly, it's a big gap in my knowledge. If you mention a poet who was born in the last 100 years who isn't Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou or Sherman Alexie, I haven't heard of them.
Also, my free time tends to come in snatches of 15 and 30 minutes and it's easier to digest a poem in that time than it is a chapter of prose.
I'm wading through the Selected Poems of W.H. Auden now. It's a lot of reading, re-reading and not fully grasping his meanings.
Before that, I was reading Meg Bogin's compilation of extant poetry by female troubadours. It's interesting how grounded the women's poetry is when compared to the men of that era.
In addition to having some good poetry that even a dilettante like I can understand, Bogin's collection also looks at how chivalry was used to oppress the women of the time. Bogin posits that, perhaps, even romantic love is a tool of oppression.
I'm also reading Avengers V. X-Men because a man can't live on Auden alone.

---

This post is part of a LitSoup, a monthly feature on The Book Club compiled of contributions from the newsroom. Send an email or tweet with your suggestions for future LitSoup topics.

-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

My colleague Jeff Frischkorn just brought a summer seminar series at Mentor Public Library to my attention — "Gander Mountain at the Library." Check out his blog post on the Lake Erie-Walleye fishing program from last week.

Future sessions for "Gander Mountain at the Library" are Fly/Bow Fishing (July 19), Urban Deer Hunting (Aug. 16) and Waterfowl Hunting (Sept. 20).

More information on the series is available through the library at 440-255-8811, ext. 215, or at www.mentorpl.org.

Thanks for sharing, Jeff!


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

If you're looking for a summer read but still have business on the brain, check out Elizabeth Blackwell's "Three Great Summer Reads With an Entrepreneurial Twist."

Quick -  what are the 10 most read books in the last 50 years?
The answers may surprise you - I know they did me.
I asked my colleagues to hazard a guess, and a lot of them guessed the No. 1 correctly.
But the list is not without its share of things that make you go hmmm. (Especially No. 7)
The data is perhaps not the greatest. It's based on books printed and sold, so I'm not sure how that accounts for library borrowing and personal sharing, not to mention that I'm pretty sure some of the books people buy go unread.
In any case, it is interesting.


Check out the top 10 most read books in the world and see how many you've read.

Are you a devotee of "Fifty Shades of Grey"?
My colleague Janet Podolak shared details of a book party set for Wednesday night at John Palmer's Bistro 44.
Good food, a glass of wine and talking books. What could be better?
Get the scoop here.

If you're not familiar with the book,
Amy Lauria chronicled her read of the work on her Playing with Perfect blog:
Fifty Shades of Grey...
Mr. Grey and Miss Steele - the halfway point
Fifty Shades of ...Done (The End)

Maybe today’s kids are all over electronic stuff for their reading/learning/playing enjoyment but nothing beats paper and ink.

Take note that my ringing endorsement is for a just-published 192-page hardbound book from Time.
Called For Kids Big Book of What?” the edition proudly boasts of containing “801 facts kids want to know.” And I am quick to add; adults, too.

It is also the latest volume to be published by TIME For Kids Books, a publisher with an extensive line of informational and entertaining books for young peoples.

Cleverly done so as to make it a real page-turner the “Big Book of Facts” spreads its wealth over a broad tapestry of subject matter.

"Big Book of What?" presents and answers such questions as “What are some food that were invented by accident?” (corn flakes, for one); “What is Poutine?” (French fries mixed with fresh cheese curds and then smothered in brown gravy); What is Mancala? (a 1,200-year old board game still played in Africa); and “What are the most extreme daytime temperatures ever recorded?” (136 degrees as recorded Sept. 12, 1922 in Aziziya, Libya, and minus-126-6 degrees as recorded July 21, 1983 at a Russian outpost in Antarctica.)

The book also details how young people can make their own boomerang; recreate a solar eclipse by employing an orange, flashlight, soda straw and 25-cent-piece; and how to construct an anemometer (wind speed indicator).

Really cool, nifty stuff, if you ask me.

The book’s suggested retail price is $19.95 but Amazon.com is currently listing it at $11.62. For further information, visit the publisher’s web site at TIMEFORKIDS.com or call 800-777-8600.
-
 Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn

Have you ever read a book and imagined you were one of its characters?
I have mentioned before that as the second of four sisters I often imagined myself as Jo in my beloved "Little Women."
But what if I didn't have to imagine myself as another character and instead I WAS in the book.
How amazingly cool would that be?!?
John Grisham is prepared to do just that.
Well, not exactly.
It won't be me in one of his novels.
It will be the highest bidder at charitybuzz.com.
Grisham has donated the unique prize to raise funds to benefit Ubuntu Africa. The non-profit works to better the lives of HIV-positive children in South Africa.
Last time I checked, bidding was at $2,510 with only a week to go.
Check out this once-in-a-lifetime chance to read about "yourself" in a Grisham novel. You'll get a signed copy of the work, too!

- Tricia Ambrose 

Follow me on twitter

P.S. This would make a great birthday/Christmas/anniversary gift for me!

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury died Wednesday morning at age 91. Readers may know him best as the author of "Fahrenheit 451," which I (sadly) read for the first time just a few years ago.

Below, a remembrance of him through Twitter and YouTube in a Storify by the Mercury News:



-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl