RandomCAT July 2021 Summertime

RandomCAT July 2021

“Summertime, and the livin' is easy.”

These lyrics from “Porgy and Bess” describe the dreams we all have for summer. Let’s make July RandomCAT easy too!

Your challenge is to choose a reading selection that relates in some way to the summer season. Your selection might feature a summer-themed cover or title, a story set in summertime, or an event that occurs in summer. The possibilities are endless!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Activities: going to the beach, visiting a park, sunbathing, barbecuing, water skiing, picnicking, attending a fair or festival, swimming, going to an amusement or theme park, working a summer job, camping, surfing.

Summer words: sun, heat, tan, sunbathe, play, vacation, travel, beach, fun, outdoors, swimsuit, sandals, flowers, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, pool, lazy, lounging, ladybug, lakeside, rain, thunderstorm.

Holidays: Independence Day (USA), Flag Day, Dominion Day (Canada), Dog Days of Summer, National Flip-Flop Day, Summer Solstice/Midsummer Day, Juneteenth, Father’s Day, Summer Olympics, Perseid Meteor Showers, Pride Month, Black Music Month, and many more!

Foods: hot dogs, barbecue, lemonade, snow cone, ice cream treats, corn on the cob, cotton candy, strawberries, melons.

Have fun and relax, be creative with your reading choices!

Oh, this would have been perfect for me (and Cora, if she's following the RandomCAT) for this month's tag over in my main GR group: beach reads! Ah, but the two themes/tags just miss each other by a day!

I have several books with "summer" in the title. Right now Ikm leaning towards The Greengage Summer, but I need to look at some other ideas as well!

Oooh, I have 2 summer books staring at me from my shelves:

The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim --and--

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

Both would be perfect lazy summertime reads...

I'm thinking of Wedding Season, part of Mark Abramson's Beach Reading series.

I've got Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland. The cover shows a summer scene on the beach so that will be one. I'll look for a fluffy summer beach book too.

Hey wow, I still have Long Summer Day to read! That would be a perfect fit for this challenge :)

Oh, lovely! I think I'll read Do Not Become Alarmed--the cover has a beach (which always makes me think of summer), and at its center is a holiday cruise gone wrong...

I'm going to read Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger which not only has summer in the title but has a baseball player too. I took this as a BB just a couple of weeks ago from Katie (katiekrug) - how fortuitous.

Although I was hit with the same book bullet as Betty above, I think I am going to read a book from the 1,001 List. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.

On a quick look at the tbr, this one is set during summer:

Hana / Lauren Oliver

I'm thinking of The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher -- "shell" always seems like a beach word (and therefore a summer word) to me, and my copy has seashells on the cover.

I will be reading People We Meet on Vacation for an online book club. I am not eager to read it, but this at least makes two reasons to do it! I hope to fit in several others.

>6 clue: Florence Adler Swims Forever is on my TBR as well. I'm looking for something fluffy though and that seems heavy to me. I'll be curious to see your comments if you read it.

I'm looking at Haven Point or Malibu Rising both family sagas. Sounds like beach reads to me. I'm exploring lighter reading for the next few months. Some of my other book club reading is heavier so I need a balance. Whatever I choose this is a fun topic! Thanks >1 LadyoftheLodge:

Thanks for all the ideas! I am glad this is a good topic for the summer. I am still thinking about my topic. I am sure my Agatha Christie selections have some travel or beach or resort settings.

>10 DeltaQueen50: I'm not sure if I'll have enough time to take on another challenge, but if I do then I'll read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson too. It was a birthday gift last year.

>14 LadyoftheLodge: Evil under the Sun and A Caribbean Mystery both are set at beach resorts.

>15 Jackie_K: I'll be glad for the company, Jackie.

I got tagged by a book bullet for Summerwater so I'll try and get to that one in July.

>10 DeltaQueen50:, >15 Jackie_K:, Enjoy, it really is a perfect summer relaxing read.

I won't have trouble finding something for this category. The question is which one will grab me in a couple of weeks when I'm selecting the book!

>16 NinieB: Thanks for the reminder about Dame Agatha mysteries! I read A Caribbean Mystery recently and enjoyed it.

I plan to read Summer at Fairacre by Miss Read. This will help with my own personal challenges which seem to be going down the tubes lately.

I thought I had posted here, but I see that I didn't. I will be reading The Summer Wives.

I kicked off the month of July with the delightful book by Tove Jansson. The Summer Book was a 5 star read for me!

I'm thinking of reading The Last Book Party and/or Malibu Rising for this challenge.

>23 DeltaQueen50: Excellent. I did enjoy that when I read it in the depths of November!

>23 DeltaQueen50:, >25 Helenliz: Oooh---BB for me! Just put my hold in at the library!

>26 kac522: I hope you enjoy the book. :)

I'm reading Killing with Confetti by Peter Lovesey that I'm really enjoying. Sounds like a cosy mystery but no, it's a police procedural with Peter Diamond.

I just read Called to Justice by Edith Maxwell in which Quaker midwife, Rose Carroll, helps solve a murder mystery in which the police have jailed an innocent black man. This mystery novel, occurring in the late 19th century in a small milltown in Massachusetts, also involves a rape, thefts, and extreme danger to Rose herself and several people she is with including a baby.
In the summers particularly when I attend a Quaker conference, I enjoy reading Quaker mysteries written by Quakers.

I have finished Elizabeth and her German garden because I love to visit gardening shows held in summer, usually in the grounds of a castle or manor house.

>30 MissWatson: I went on a garden tour at Colonial Willamsburg historic site a few years ago. It was interesting to see the recreations of the historic gardens and how they would look during the time period being portrayed.

>29 sallylou61: I have not read many Quaker mysteries, but this one sounds intriguing. Is it part of a series?

>30 MissWatson: I enjoyed that von Arnim and I'm planning on reading the sequel The Solitary Summer this month.

>32 LadyoftheLodge:. Yes, this is the second in the Quaker Midwife Mystery series by Edith Maxwell. As far as I am aware, all of the volumes take place in Amsbury, MA. Unfortunately, this is a short series of only seven mysteries, the last of which has just been published. Ms. Maxwell was a featured author at the FGC (Friends General Conference, an organization of approximately 15 yearly meetings plus a few monthly meetings) Gathering (i.e. annual meeting) last week, and announced she will not be writing more in the series because it is not selling very well. Apparently Quaker mysteries do not sell well, probably because of a generally small audience; an earlier series, the Elizabeth Elliot Mystery series by Irene Allen written in the 1990s includes only 4 volumes.

>34 sallylou61: That is unfortunate that the author will be ending the series. I will look for them. Thanks for the heads up on this one.

Here is a book that fits; The Summer Book by Susan Branch. A cookbook that was done on the island of Martha's Vineyard in water color and handwritten notes. The book was inspired by ocean breezes blowing through the window of her studio, wafting the fragrances of flowers. The recipes feature foods from farmer's markets, grilling, beach and backyard meals. It's a beautiful book even if you never cook a single recipe, filled with quotes from Hans Christian Andersen, Richard Le Gallienne, Samuel Bagster, and more. The art work is delightful. Such a wonderful book to take out during the summer months.

>6 clue: >13 beebeereads: I recently read Florence Adler Swims Forever and loved it. Particularly interesting as it was based on true events in the author's family's past.

>37 JayneCM: Thanks! Moving it up my list for later this month--fingers crossed.

I finished Killing with Confetti by Peter Lovesey a couple of days ago but just remembered to post here.

This is what can happen when a top cop's son plans to marry an influential criminal's daughter. Peter Diamond was to keep an eye on the convict while he attended the wedding in case one of his enemies tried to bump him off but it turned out that the murder victim was someone else. Lovesey writes a good police procedural and Diamond is always worth a few good lines.

The bride's cat was named Claude, an appropriate feline name even though he kept his claws sheathed.

>34 sallylou61: The Quaker Midwife Mystery series sounds interesting. I see that #4 won the Agatha Award.

Honolulu / Alan Brennert
4 stars

Named “Regret” by her parents, this little Korean girl so wanted an education but it was forbidden. As a teenager, though, she managed to get permission to travel to Hawaii as a “picture bride”. Immediately upon arrival, along with four other Korean girls she met on the ship, and now self-named Jin (meaning “Gem”), they married their new husbands before being allowed entry into their new country. Jin’s hope had been that her husband would be able to get her an education in Hawaii, but she was sorely disappointed (to put it mildly), not only with this, but with many other things, as well.

I really enjoyed this. I not only learned about the life of a picture bride, I learned about Hawaii in the early 20th century, and about Korea and the interactions with Japan that I really knew nothing about. I was impressed with how many real-life people Brennert brought into the story.

>41 LibraryCin: - This sounds interesting. I think I'll put it on a list for future book club reads. Our book club recently read White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht which was about a Korean girl who was taken by the Japanese as a comfort woman during the war which was a quite common thing that the Japanese did and I learned a lot about that aspect of the war that I didn't really know much about although I had heard the term before.

>42 dudes22: Oh, that sounds interesting. I'll take a look at that. Thank you!

I've started Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan, about a family's last trip to their summer cottage. I was surprised to find that I have a ton of books that are potentially winter-themed, but I only found four that would fit this challenge. Luckily, I've been wanting to read this book for some time.

I finished Summer at Fairacre which is one of my faves. As a former school teacher (now retired), I still enjoy reading the Miss Read books about the village schools and the inhabitants of the villages.

Read The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams which ended up not being one of my favorite of hers. Liked the main character of Miranda well enough, but the story became a bit too much like a soap opera towards the end. Still not a bad way to spend an afternoon or two,

Like several others here, I read Tove Jansson's The Summer Book. It didn't matter that nothing much happens, it's just a series of vignettes of people, observations, conversations, but it was lovely. I think the meditations on issues like ageing, environmental damage, etc, stopped it from being twee. I loved it, and gave it 4.5*.

I have finished Der tote Rittmeister which is set in a fashionable summer resort on the North Sea island of Norderney in 1913.

And I have continued with a book I bought during a holiday on the North Sea: Die beiden Baroninnen which features a small island off the coast, hallig Oland.

I've just finished The Summer Book by Tove Jansson which I took as a BB from Judy (DQ) earlier this month.

I read Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy.

On the up side, you will not become alarmed if you read it, because the characters are so unlikeable that you really won't find cause to be concerned about them.

I finished The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim (1899). This is a follow-up of sorts to Elizabeth and her German Garden. It's hard to categorize this book--part fiction, part memoir--someone called it an "autobiographical novel." In a series of entries marked May, June, July, August and September, Elizabeth muses about her garden, flowers, her children, books, life and longing for solitude.

At the outset, she requests of her husband (known only as "The Man of Wrath") that there be no visitors this summer--that she be allowed a "solitary summer" on their German estate. Each month is a mini diary/memoir: one topic slides into another, as if you were spending a lazy afternoon with her in the garden, sipping a cool drink. Books are important: mornings are spent with Thoreau, afternoons with Goethe, evenings with Whitman. This is only a taste of this little book, but it was a wonderful summer respite for me.

>52 kac522: That sounds like a blissful way to spend a summer!

I read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and just found it OK. I guess my expectations were pretty high, both as the author is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and I really loved the story idea.

And I have found the first of a series of mysteries set in a summer resort: Die Tote in der Sommerfrische quite an enjoyable read.

I've just finished Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan, which is about an extended family's last vacation together at their lake house. O'Nan is such a great writer of ordinary people's lives. This one was just wonderful.

I'm a big fan of O'Nan's work, which means I pick up copies of his books when I find them. I picked this one up in 2011, so a big thanks to Cheryl for getting me to finally read it.

I chose the first English Cottage Garden mystery for this challenge. Deadhead and Buried by H.Y. Hanna. It has a beautiful garden cover, very summery.

I read Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson. A 35 year old widow with two children takes a summer job as a cook in a touristy cafe near a small village on the sea. A good quick summer escape read.

I did read People on Vacation early in the month for another book club. I liked it and it has stayed with me which is always a good sign. It's not my typical read, but was glad I made the effort with a little push from this challenge as well. Unfortunately, the other books I wanted to read have not risen very far on the long hold list. Hopefully I'll get to them this summer!
Haven Point and Florence Adler Swims Forever I could have done all my reading from this topic alone...too many challenges and book clubs to keep up with though! Next year I'll tame my goals a bit. :-)

>56 RidgewayGirl: Glad you were motivated to read!

A little late for this challenge, but not too late for summer, I finished The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, and like others have mentioned, it was a wonderful read. The island setting of the book is so important--in fact, I read the last 50+ pages while sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan, to sort of get that feel of water and shoreline (although it was hardly rough surroundings: the Northwestern University campus).