The summer reading challenge set by Amy from The Messy Middle has been quite the companion these last couple of months. Being terribly padantic I chose to wait until the official start of Summer on June 21st to begin (only 20 days late). August 17th is the official end and rather than end with summer in September I’m throwing in the towel on the official end and stopping my book log.

I learn a lot through reading within set categories; I learnt how history would like to be told, how space apart not only pulls bonds but can strengthen them, how stories are dangerous and nursery rhymes holy. I recognised that when I’m reading fiction I devour books in a few days but feel more fed by the longer hauls through non-fiction. Overall I’ve realised that reading is a blessing and a wormhole that can suck me in. While useful to have a season I’m going to slow down. I’m expecting to polish off the last chapter tonight as the deadline of August 17th dawns.
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I was tired and grumpy, seeming to have lost my spark and with the boys only just recovering from being knocked down with horrid summer colds we were overdoing binge watching, facebook vortex and general screen time zombie-ism. August had dawned and summer stretched unending ahead. With the 7th book reached in the summer reading challenge I decided to ease up and stop reading in bed for a few days in the hopes to get my mornings back after sleeping later and later. It didn’t stop me diving into a chapter here and there when life went quiet.

The next two books on my potential list were both ones I was looking forward to, a lighthearted tale of night-shift doctoring and a book by my friend Mina about young children in the church. I’ve never been to great at keeping multiple books on the go and true to form I read a couple of chapters of one then polished the other off. I then went off to find some more fiction to keep the balance and got sucked into a deep tale that I’d probably have ruined for myself if I’d lazily watched the movie.
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