The Sunday Salon (Summer Challenge) -- June 6, 2010

Another week over, but I hope it is back to normal from Monday onwards. After typing so much for Armchair BEA the previous week, visiting fellow participants' posts and then checking out all those updates from the BEA attenders, I had reached a burnout during the initial half of last week. The latter half was spent mostly on clearing up my Google Reader (still getting there), and finally, finally, focusing on my work at university.

Overall, I had a good bookish week! Usually end-of-months and beginning-of-months can be especially sweet for me. That's when I obsessively head to those famous "lists" and start tracking how much reading I did during that month, how I have been faring in my challenges and what picks I would love to see on my reading log for the next month. For this reason alone, I love the month-ends. That's just the reason I need to tempt myself with different books and predict where my reading tastes would take me during the next 30-odd days.

I know many of you have signed up for summer challenges. So far, I haven't been able to come across one that I really wanted to do, mainly because my summer is going to be crazy busy, and I don't want to commit to books I may or may not have access to over the next few months! Moreover, I have a stack of ARCs that I want to get through right now. So instead, inspired by Mary's post @ Bookfan, I have decided to create my own list of books that I want to read over the summer (between now and August 31, 2010). While choosing my books, I liberally picked a few that were on my 2010 challenge lists, plus I added a few books that I've always wanted to read.

1. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
2. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
3. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
4. Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell
5. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
6. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Except for Leviathan, I own a copy of the rest. Again, except for Leviathan, all the other books are in some challenge list for this year. I wanted to finally read these books because I have been told time and again that they are good. I am sure I would read them at some point this year, but I guess this way is better. I will also be (definitely) reading The Passage by Justin Cronin and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, but figured that I would be cheating myself by including them in the list above.

What are you planning to read this summer?