There isn’t much better than sitting outside and reading a good book, but that really isn’t an option come January in Milwaukee. Now that we’ve finally got warm weather, it’s time to dust off that list of books you’ve been dying to read.
For me, the summer means it’s time to read for fun, for once, since textbooks have a tendency to take over the fall, winter and most of the spring months.
To start my summer off, I read "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live," by Tom Shales and James Miller. While I can’t wait to read Shales' and Miller’s new ESPN tell-all book, "Those Guys Have All the Fun," I prefer to support used bookstores (apologies if that sounded as pretentious to you as it did to me), so I’ll wait it out until people finish reading it and it gets to a used bookstore. What I did do, however, was find a great deal on "Live from New York" from a bookstore in Washington thanks to Amazon.
I recommended "Live from New York" in a previous OMC Recommends, but it’s worth noting again that the book spends a lot of time on the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, including a history of that name. This is easily the best portion of the book and only the stories about Chris Farley's stint and Norm MacDonald's firing were as entertaining.
After finishing "Live From New York," I’ve started George R.R. Martin’s, "A Game of Thrones." The book is the first in what will eventually be a seven-book series, the fifth of which, "A Dance with Dragons," was just released on Tuesday. I’ve become a huge fan of the HBO show based on the books, and I can’t wait for whenever the next season begins.
There’s no way I’ll get through all of those books this summer, so my list for next year is already building up. I’ll have to catch up on Martin’s series, and then I plan on reading "Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1."
Also coming out next May is John Green's next book, "The Fault in Our Stars." That might get a bump to the front of the list considering how much I've enjoyed Green's previous work.
Given the size of Twain's autobiography, I've now got a list that should get me to fall 2012.
What are you going to be reading in the limited sunshine we are treated to over the next few months?
Alex is a student at UW-Milwauee and lives on Milwaukee's East Side. When he's not working at OnMilwaukee.com, he writes for the UWM Post sports section and plays devil's advocate to a fault in conversation.
Alex strongly believes that if the reason not to change is, "because we've always done it this way," then change is almost certainly necessary.
In Alex' free time he enjoys catching a movie at the Oriental or iPic, video games, creating arbitrary top-five lists, lobbying President Obama to follow-back via Twitter, messing with Chairman Meow (the resident apartment cat) and continuing his crusade to have Yuengling Lager brought to Wisconsin.
After graduating with degrees in marketing and journalism, Alex plans to continue writing and enjoying all of the adventures that life has to offer. If you see him around, stop and say "malarkey," as he never expects anyone to read these bios ... so he'll probably be surprised.
