While I don't feel I am getting nearly enough reading done in general, road trips have afforded me some blocks of time to dig deeply this summer.  As so often happens, all of these titles found me by way of serendipity. 

Spiritual:  In This House of Brede  This has been sitting on my shelf for perhaps 20yrs now.  Such a shame!  It is now dog eared and beloved.  I have filled pages in my quote notebook from this novel. There is tremendous application for all of us in the domestic monastery.  

Social/Memoir: In Contempt  Our son convinced us to watch the OJ documentary.  We did a bit of wiki searching during which was enough to whet our appetite to know about some of the main players.  I grabbed this Chris Darden memoir from the thrift shop and am about a quarter way through now.  The goal is to  finish in time to drop it off to the Denver boys at the end of the month.  It reads much like the tone his character portrayed on the documentary – quiet, even, insightful. 

Home Ec:  The Science of Good Cooking - People, this is saving my backside.  Over and over and over.  I bought this for my oldest daughter one Christmas and it sat for a year or more.  We dug it out last month and decided to taken the time to really learn the science of food preparation.  Admittedly most of my focus has historically been on ingredients versus process.  Because I don't enjoy it I have always rushed through the process.  We are taking one recipe at a time and trying the techniques.  EVERYTHING has worked so far. I am buying one for all my big kids' households.  

Education: Ordinary Children, Extraordinary Teachers  – because…. Marva Collins.  Enough said, right?  Just found this one and it is probably a good sign that I have already turned down the corners of pages in the introduction. I love this woman.  She was one of my first teaching mentors and continues to inspire.  

How Lincoln Learned to Read - This one jumped out at me from the library shelf while waiting for the children at chess club. It is a collection of cameos of the unique educations received by a handful of famous folks.  This is my favorite sort of educational theory volume.  It describes a variety of experiences and you are left to consider which common threads run through them all. 

What are you reading this summer?  I am looking for new novel suggestions and hoping to begin a classic.