O Canada: Or My Summer Reading Plan

After years of bitching and resisting, my best friend has convinced me to do the impossible. This summer I will dedicate a significant portion of my reading to the works of Margaret Atwood. I read The Handmaid's Tale in high school, and I didn't love it. It didn't ruin Atwood for me, but I  never pursued her novels. My friend, on the other hand, loved it. She's been all Atwood all the time since that novel, and has been grinding me down to give Atwood's other works a chance ever since then. I've resisted, partly because I didn't relish my first encounter with Atwood, and partially just to annoy the living daylights out of my bff, but when a package arrived on my doorstep, filled to the brim with Atwood books, I gave in. I'm going to read my way across Canada this summer, and hopefully I'll enjoy the ride.

This will also be a summer of series for me. I want to reread Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. I'm looking forward to slowly working my way through the Song of Ice and Fire series as well.

I have a few non-Atwood, non-series books also looking forward to, and you'll get to read all of my literary misadventures here. I basically just want to read as much as possible when I'm not working or sleeping.

Wish me luck.

Rating System

I know that the standard rating systems are the Five Stars or the Letter Grades, but that doesn't quite cut it for me. Giving a book 3 stars doesn't tell me much about the type of book that it was, I need more detail than that. So, for my purposes on this blog, the rating system will be Carolina Basketball players. I've mostly gone with more recent players that you guys will have a better shot at being acquainted with, but I feel like these lovely gentlemen, and the descriptions that I've given them will give a little fun to the traditional rating system. So, without further ado, the "Who reads for fun?" Rating System, I've added the number ratings in parenthesis, just to give you a comparable figure, but I don't like to think of these ratings as numbers.

Kendall Marshall (1 star)

This book had potential, but I needed it to give me more. I quit on this book like Kendall Marshall quit on the University of North Carolina. The only thing to do is to try to forget about this one, and how great it could have been, and instead look to the next book in your queue hoping that it will live up to its promise.This book fractured your dreams, leaving you alone, and somewhat bitter, wishing that it had lived up to the promise and hype. I honestly wish I'd Passed Fir5t and left this one on the shelf. (And yes, for you savvy readers, this picture is of Kendall falling and fracturing his wrist in the 2012 NCAA tournament, I'm still not over him leaving Carolina)

Bobby Frasor (2 stars)

Let me preface this rating by saying that I absolutely adore Bobby Frasor. He's one of my top five favorite  UNC players of all time. I was lucky enough to meet him out and about in Chapel Hill one night, and he's a great guy. He talked with us for a while and was an absolute sweetheart. Everything I say about him in this post is lighthearted and teasing, and in no way a shot at him. That being said...

This was an OK book. It gave a solid effort, but just doesn't have enough game to make it to the NBA (or the top of your favorites list.) It was memorable, if you remember every book you've read, and it may have won an award or too, but it just lacks the substance to be a book that will be a long term player. It might bounce around your bookshelf (play a couple of years in Bulgaria or Cyprus,) earn a reread or two, but at the end of the day, it'll end up buried on the back shelf, overshadowed by books that were just a little bit better.

Tyler Hansbrough (3 stars)

This book had the Psycho T intensity that drew you in. But, like Tyler Hansbrough, it has a hard time getting off the bench in the big leagues. It was as refreshing as a dive off of SAE's roof into the above ground pool would be (Yes, Tyler and his sidekick Bobby did this.) Enjoyable at the moment, but maybe later you look back at it as a mediocre experience. You did like this book, though, and you'd probably recommend it to a friend. It's a book that will be a benchwarmer on your shelf, and maybe, one day you'll pick it up, give it another try, and it's intensity will win you over enough to make this one of your starting players (or at least bump it up a few notches on the favorites list.) 

Tyler Zeller (4 stars)

Tyler Zeller is one of my favorite Carolina basketball players. I've been lucky enough to watch him play for the past two seasons, and he seems like a really great guy (I've never actually met him, so this is speculation, but I'm sure he's wonderful.) This book, like Tyler Zeller, was an Academic All American. It was well-rounded, it was entertaining, you're really glad that you picked it up off the shelf. This was a book you'd read again, it might not be an instant favorite, but it's a solid go-to that will hang in the rafters (or on your bookshelf) and be remembered for a long time. 

Blue Steel (5 stars)

Blue Steel is the nickname for Carolina's benchwarmers. These guys only come into the game when it's an absolute blow out. Carolina fans love to see them, because it means that there is no way we're going to lose the game, and it also usually means that it's biscuit time. When Carolina hits 100 points Bojangle's has special priced biscuits, the next morning, and Blue Steel's time on the court is usually accompanied by a "We Want Biscuits!" cheer. How does that translate to a book rating, you might wonder. This book was great. It was a home run, you loved it, you can't wait to tell everyone you met how great of a book (or game) it was. You hope they make a movie of this book, you want a sequel, it was fantastic. 

Michael Jordan (5+ stars)

You might wonder what could be better than Blue Steel? The answer, the Michael Jordan of books. These don't come along very often. This book was an instant classic, or it was a time tested classic, either way it was unforgettable. This is a book that you'd put on your Mt. Rushmore of all time great books. You'd bring this as one of the 5 books that you could have for the rest of your life if you were stuck on a deserted island. It will probably be rare to see this rating, after all, how many books can really be considered The Greatest Of All Time? 

Who Reads for Fun?

This is the question that you will hear asked around the world, with equal parts wonder and contempt by thousands of young adults in their teens and early twenties. This is one of those questions that could mean a million things. "Who reads for fun?" could mean "I have 85 17th Century Spanish love poems to read before class at 9:30 tomorrow, no I haven't picked up A Game of Thrones." It could also mean, "It's Trivia Night at TopO, no I'm not staying in to see how The Night Circus ends.

It's one of the defining questions that puts those of us who do read for fun on edge. What's wrong with reading for fun? I often want to ask, belligerently. Yes, there have been nights where I've neglected my homework to crack open my the newest book I've bought from the used bookstore I love on Franklin Street. And yes, there have been nights where my girlfriends have had to wait an extra 30 minutes for me to see how a book ends before we go out for the night.

I love to read. I love to read everything, fiction, nonfiction, the newspaper, poetry. I love to read books that make me cry, and books that make me laugh, and books that are so awful they should have never been written.  I'm as guilty as any college student of sometimes not reading as much as I should. It's hard when you have 3 midterms and two papers due to pick up a book you're reading for fun. When I've slept 13 hours total in 4 nights,  the first thing on my mind isn't "great now I can start The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." But, I always come back to books, because I need to read like I need to breathe. I'm not the same person when I don't have four paperbacks stacked on my nightstand. I love to escape the stressful world of college to slip into the fantasy of The Hobbit.

So, I invite you to join me on my journey as a renegade college student who spends long days, and long nights reading for fun. Yes, there are days that I curse my mother for instilling this love of reading so deep within me that I can't stamp it out, and yes there are weeks (sometimes months) that pass by when I don't finish a single reading that hasn't been assigned to me, but I count myself firmly among the few, the proud, the bookish.