School is out for summer! My students have graduated and have begun their adult lives either with more education or training or by dropping into the world of full time work. I feel pretty strong about this year's crop, a solid gang of kids who by and large are decent types. It has been a good year, my second in my new school, and I'm beginning to get my footing and develop a little bit, the necessary trust in my leadership to be truly and completely effective in such work.
As for me, I once again face a summer sans summer school, and frankly I'm growing to like having relatively lazy summer days to catch up on my reading. Between gigs selected by She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed such as painting the garage and sprucing up the shrubs and flowers around the house, I'll hopefully have many hours on the cool porch reading some of the bounty of books I constantly bring into the house.
I am currently reading a gaggle of Sherlock Holmes pastiches which pit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great detective against Bram Stoker's dark creation Dracula. There seem to be a bunch of these and to that end I'm right now reading again for the first time in decades the original Stoker novel. You'll be seeing reports on these as I wrap them up. I've one upcoming on Sherlock's encounters with the infamous Sumatran rat. Also of course is the usual Doc Savage and Avenger pulp reading. There sure seems to be a lot of stuff on the latter hitting the shelves this summer.
On the comic book front there is E-Man and The Fightin' Five from Charlton I want to delve into again. And I just picked up a Wally Wood collection which looks quite choice. Add to that the Bernard Krigstein collection I got some weeks ago, and a copy of YOe Books Frankenstein and I have a nice heap of comics to plow through. I keep meaning to read through Jeff Smith's Bone sometime too. And there's always the utterly fantastic Popeye.
But I don't want to over plan the reading schedule as likely I will veer off it as some new fascination takes hold. That's the beauty of summer, the sheer randomness and lack of proper order. Sure I've got a couple of books I need to read to prep for next year, but mostly I have a bunch of books I just want to read. And unlike Henry Bemis, I plan on holding fast to my precious glasses.
Rip Off
No comments:
Post a Comment