Summer Reads Roundup

I'm on vacation as of 30 minutes from now and I haven't read anything worth recommending to Guys Lit Wire. So I'll let you know what I'm PLANNING on reading while lying on the beach. Check back next month for what panned out and what didn't.

I'm in the middle of listening to The Enemy by Lee Child which is one of the middle Jack Reacher books and one of 2 I haven't read. If you know anything about Jack Reacher it's that he can't be stopped. And the novels are the same way. I ran out and bought I copy of this one so that I can continue the story without hiatus.

I'm in the middle of reading Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. While not nearly as gripping (or well written) as The Long Walk or Hunger Games the theme of kids fighting to the death is just too good to resist. Though I suspect I know how it ends I'm looking forward to getting there.

I'm bringing along Lost City of Z by David Grann a highly recommended story of Amazon adventure, disease, madness and obsession. I don't really know any more about it than that, but really, do I need to?

Also making the trip is Against Destiny by Aleksandr Dolinin. Its about the desperate escape of Russian political prisoners from the Siberian gulag, a plot point I haven't been able to turn down since my friend Jeff Kinyon told me in elementary school about a movie called Gulag where a guy fell in a crevasse and compound fractured his leg. There are probably BETTER reasons to read a book, but this one comes highly recommended.

And I think I'll throw in Reality Check by Peter Abrahams. One, because I'm a Teen librarian and I should at least TRY to read some teen fiction while I'm away. And two, because Stephen King recommended it and I do LOVE The Long Walk. Reality Check is the story of a high school athlete with a blown out knee and a vanished girlfriend who goes looking for her at her prestigious boarding school. I'm not a huge fan of mysteries but the desperation of the protagonist and the boarding school setting pique my interest.

So that should keep my busy the week I'm away. I'll let you know what I think.