Memorial Day Weekend is the traditional start of summer here in the U.S., and I usually celebrate the occasion by planning my goals and entertainments for the summer. I’ll discuss my goals some other time. My major entertainment is reading, an activity which is hard to find sufficient time to do during the school year. But in the summer I usually read a book a week, which might not be much by other fans’ standards, but that’s relatively quick for me.

I like to select my summer reading ahead of time, not for any obsessive-compulsive reason, but because I enjoy picking out books to read. The list does change somewhat during the hot months, but right now these are the books I hope to read the next three months:

Year’s Best Fantasy #3 edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
The Last Light of the Sun, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, by Ross King
The Birthday of the World, by Ursula K Le Guin
The Light Ages, by Ian MacLeod
Star of the Sea, by Joseph O’Conner
Best Short Novels of the Year #1 edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
The Citadel of the Autarch, by Gene Wolfe

Since I have been too busy to read so much as a single word of fiction for the past two weeks, I am really anxious to make up a bit for that this three-day weekend. So I have decided to ignore the fact that school does not end for another three weeks and start my summer reading tonight! Hopefully I’ll have a review for you within the next few days.