What do you like to read in the summer?

NPR did a poll and came up with what they call the 100 Best Beach Books Ever. For the record, I’ve read 47 of these. It’s over 50 if you count the ones I didn’t finish (yes, Snow Falling on Cedars, I’m looking at you).

What do you think of the list?

Personally, I’m not sure I want to visit the beach where The Road by Cormac McCarthy is considered light summer reading. Just sayin’.

Things that make sense to me for summer reading:

• Series. I’ve torn through the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. I noticed he didn’t make the list, but the Harry Potter series did. Also good summer reading.
• Big, fat books. I first read Gone With The Wind during the summer.

I think there’s something about the stretch of uninterrupted time (vacation from school or work) that lends itself to getting immersed in either a series or a big, fat book.

Poll time! What do you like to read? Leave a comment or vote in our (finally) updated poll (see the sidebar).

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Austen-inspired first line contests. We really enjoyed reading your fun, funny, and universally truthy first lines.

It was hard to pick a winner, so at long last, we went with the geekiness factor of the entries. Without further ado, our winner is:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who lives in a home with bare white walls has married an engineer.

Congratulations to Donna Maloy! I have a very geeky day job as a technical writer. (Oh, sure, that sounds glamorous. Not.) I’ve worked with many and engineer (and software developer, and programmers). I’m pretty sure I exclaimed out loud when Donna’s entry landed in my inbox–it is a truth universally acknowledged.

Thanks to everyone for playing along. Donna, we’ll be contacting you via email, but if for some reason we don’t land in your inbox, you can contact us at: geekgirlx2 @ gmail.com (remove spaces).