Summer has always been a nice balance of work and pleasure, which luckily for me go together like peanut butter and jelly as my pleasure activity is reading which includes the requisite organizing of TBR book piles, interlibrary loaning books, and scouring websites, webinars, and booklists for my next read. Yes I do have other hobbies, but we’re not talking about those here.

Every year I say I won’t join the public libraries adult summer reading program and every year I fall headlong into the discussion, posts, and reading anyway because I’m a sucker for summer reading!

My city’s public library is small so it revolves around documenting my reading and committing to a certain number of reading each day (no issues there!) this year. Last year, we were challenged using a BINGO board.

Then, the city library for the school district I work in is large with multiple branches and a committed group who run an online summer reading program for adults that features weekly themes and recommendations while encouraging participants to chat with one another online. So, read a certain number of books, get a tshirt. Well reader, I am in possession of that tshirt!

Either way, in the summer I’m reading… A LOT, so I might as well see what everyone else is reading and share it as a participating member of my local library and adopted library. Being curious about what other people read is what makes reading a community activity. And as the saying by Edmund Wilson goes “no two persons ever read the same book.” So asking questions and hearing about what they valued in a book helps deepen our connection with one another and provide opportunities for agreement and civilized disagreement.

Why do you participate in summer reading programs (or why don’t you)?