How Not to Read

Sparklers, while Dan has been blogging Twilight and now New Moon, you've been writing plenty of posts suggesting things that you could be reading over the summer (in addition to SparkLife, naturally). Now it's time for a check-in.

Have you been working your way through every book on your summer list? Or maybe with summer jobs, summer love, Harry Potter 6, friends, sleep, and a million other daily distractions, William Faulkner hasn't been so much on your mind. And maybe, if you're anything like us, you're starting to get that icky under-accomplished feeling every time you look at the teetering book tower in the corner of your bedroom.

So what's to be done about those nagging feelings of midsummer underachievement?

1. Read the longest, slowest, most confuzzling book you can get your hands on
That’s it! Your epic summer reading quest beings today! Put your nose to the grindstone with one of the following: Finnegans Wake, Infinite Jest, The Brothers Karamazov, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. After an ordeal like this, you'll feel like school is your vacation.

2. Focus on your non-reading accomplishments
So maybe you haven’t gotten very much reading done, but you did work on your overhand serve, learn how to crochet, go salmon fishing, or level up your Elf Priestess.

3. Eat the coldest, sweetest, most delicious ice cream you can get your hands on
Feel better fast with one of the following: mint, chocolate chip, soy-based cookie dough (for the lactose intolerant)

4. Compile a list of excuses for why you’re behind schedule
Sometimes it’s best to organize your thoughts on paper. Write down all of the things that have kept you from the summer reading you planned to do. Feel free to go into as much detail as you need and don’t forget to include the list itself among your many distractions. (This task is particularly important if you don’t plan on doing the assigned summer reading for class.)

How’s your summer reading going so far? Have you found any of these strategies helpful?