The likelihood of finishing 10 books this summer is highly improbable (considering I will have three children expecting me to be Julie The Cruise Director for 10 weeks) – however, I do like to give the impression of being an overachiever!

1. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel – I loved Mantel’s Wolf Hall – can’t wait to find out who is beheaded next!
2. Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielsen – a popular blogger who nearly lost her life in a plane crash, this is a book that should remind me that I need to count my blessings daily.
3. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani — I’ve never read any of this author’s fiction work (best known for her Big Stone Gap series), thought I would start with her most recent book.
4. Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick – because when you complain about the lines at WalMart – author Demick is there to remind you that in North Korea, there is no WalMart.  Or food for that matter.
5. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trent Stewart – this is our Mother/Daughter book club reading choice for the summer.  If I don’t read it, my daughter will ban me from our meetings.
6. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard – because this is leftover from last year’s reading list.
7. A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd – I’m not much of a mystery reader, but this mother/son writing team has created a mystery series that has been on many “if you liked Downton Abbey…then you will like this” lists.  That’s enough for me.
8. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte – because I need to read at least one classic.
9. The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey – about the strife of an Irish family prior to WWI – this was recommended to me by a friend.  And because it has a pretty cover.
10. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – July book club choice – not sure I would have picked it otherwise.
11. BONUS BOOK — Anything by Jen Lancaster –by summer’s end, I will need something that makes me laugh out loud, because by then, my kids will have taken over the house, my sanity called into question, and I will be running up the white flag of surrender.

What are you reading this summer?

Melissa McCurdy is a mother of 3; wife of 1; daughter, sister, friend, aunt; lover of football, politics, food, travel, walking, theatre and all things literary.  She shelves books for a living and could spend hours staring at book spines. She survived two years as PTA fundraising chair and PTA president and doubts she will ever volunteer again.  Her youngest was born with a congenital heart defect and had open heart surgery at 5 weeks. She knows more about Children’s Hospitals than she ever wanted too.  And when she grows up, she wants to be the first female commissioner of the NFL.  She blogs at Gerbera Daisy Diaries.