Summer Reading

For a few days now I have been thinking about the concept of summer reading. During my secondary school years, summer reading meant one or two books I had to study while I could read anything I liked during the rest of the holidays. Preceding my first and second years at university, I generally made sure I kept up with titles from within my field of study, but I still could make some detours. This year, however, there is theoretically a very clear direction I should take – the list of academic works I am consulting for my bachelor’s thesis and books from the exhausting list of over 200 works of British and American literature I need to read for my state exams. Well, change of plans brought with it a necessary change of reading. Instead of phonetic studies, I poured over more laid-back books – for my birthday I received a historical novel about medieval Barcelona called Cathedral of the Sea, on the background of which the beautiful church Santa Maria de la Mar is being constructed; I also got the first edition of a travelogue World Pictures. My choice was obvious. However, now that I am back home, I am reading classic titles again and making up for the little detour I took while travelling.

Affluent people such as Barack Obama or Bill Gate annually publish their own summer reading lists which are far away from the kind of relaxing literature typical for vacationing. To what extent they are the actual authors of these lists aside, they are the perfect representation of my inner reading conflict. Every summer I struggle with what to read: I want to learn something new which is exactly what these famous lists offer; I also have my university reading to think of and, on top of that, the wish to relax a little with books just like Cathedral of the Sea.

Time is passing by and there are more and more books to be read. After a month of time off I must go back to my academic work and hope that I will be able to create my own reading list once I graduate this upcoming year. I wish you all a pleasant summer and good luck with reading!