Still devoted to the printed word.

I'm getting ready to depart for a week of (hopefully) sun, sand, and surf in that lovely summer oasis known as Ocean City, MD. My bag is packed, and aside from getting together the necessities such as beach chairs and towels, as well as assembling the bike rack, my major concern is with beach reading.

I've decided already that I'm not going to haul the current tome I'm reading, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, for two reasons: first, it's really thick and, second, I'm not sure that I want to commit to that book just yet. I'm about fifty pages deep in it, and it's intriguing but not absorbing.

So what to take.

One of the books I will be packing will be Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland. I'm teaching early American in the spring, and I have to get up to speed on that book. For that same reason I may bring the Franklin's Autobiography, although I just taught it earlier this summer.

However, I also have some newer books I want to read before the semester begins and my dreams of leisure reading are dashed. I want to read the Patti Smith memoir Just Kids. I want to read Brock Clarke's Exley. I'd like to read Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic.

Of course, it being the beach, I'll probably pick up some books at the discount book dealers down there, and so add to my deficit of books purchased v. books read.