My daughter has loved to read since the minute she learned how.  Actually she loved to be read to before she knew how and that is probably why she mastered reading at a relatively early age.  She read voraciously all through grade school but something changed when she hit junior high.

All of a sudden she couldn't earn an "A" without doing anything more than showing up for class.   Actual immersion was now required and a lot of that immersion revolved around reading as homework.  So, she would come home every night with a lot of subject reading that needed to be completed by a due date and that kind of reading is not always a lot of fun.  She would repeatedly state that she couldn't wait for summer vacation so she could just read for the pure pleasure of reading.  She was one of those kids that was just fine with the prescribed three or four or five required books to be read over the summer.

Shortly after school was out for the summer she and I would travel together to Tower Books (RIP - we are still bereft that you are gone!) and browse through the tables displaying the books by grade and by school that had been selected by the teachers as summer reading.

Megan would choose from the selection and so would I!  Although Megan had to choose books assigned by the teacher of her upcoming grade at her specific school, I had no such restrictions.  I pored over all the books set out by all the near-by high schools and rubbed my hands together in glee at all the possibilities.

Eventually we would make our way to the cashier's counter heavily laden with our selections.  Besides the required number needed to satisfy the summer assignment, Megan always had several more that intrigued her from various other shelves and tables scattered throughout the bookstore and I was amply supplied with books plucked from this school or that's offerings.  

The books we chose came to be known by the two of us as "mandatory summer reading".  She would read hers and I would read mine and she would recommend to me any that she read that she thought I would enjoy and I did the same.   

Once she started college there was no longer a required summer reading assignment but she still waited all school year for summer to come so she could read for fun.  It was during those years that our personal "mandatory summer reading" program began. Early in June I would pick three books that we would both read over the course of the summer.   It was the equivalent of a for the summer only mother and daughter book club.

We have read some mighty fine stuff that way and the content has been all over the block.  A couple years' ago, we enjoyed Fun Home by Alison Bechdel;  her graphic memoir that dwells a lot with her struggles with the realization that she is a lesbian.  It was my first experience with a a graphic novel and I wasn't sure if I would find the "comic" part of the book a distraction but quite the opposite, the comic drawings added a whole lot to the enjoyment of the memoir.  

There was Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde that was nothing if not rollicking fun and not a lot of brain food.

We were introduced to Anne Lamott through her book Traveling Mercies, Some Thoughts on Faith.  Anyone who knows anything about Anne Lamott knows that she is funny so of course, her books are too; even while she deals with some pretty heavy subjects like her alcohol addiction and the toll it was taking on her life. 

One of my recent favorite finds was Suite Francaise  by Irene Nemirovsky.  The fact that the handwritten notes for the book were found in Irene's suitcase years after she died in Auschwitz in 1942 is astonishing enough, but to then learn that the subject of the book was an accounting of what she was actually feeling and fearing as a Jewish woman in France as she witnessed the Nazi's invasion and occupation of France is downright eerie.  She was writing about her own destiny at the very time it was happening. 

This year's picks have arrived and I am ready to dive in!  There are three books as there usually are. 

1. 

The Outlander  By Gil Adamson

"The Outlander is a breathlessly told tale of a murderess widow who flees into the mountain wilderness, pursued by her vengeance-seeking brothers-in-law. As she makes her hapless way, she meets up with an entertainingly odd series of characters who propel her on her journey, their eccentricities mirroring her sometimes faltering mind. A marvelous adventure in the early 1900s North American West." 

2.   

 The House at Riverton By Morton, Kate

"Grace Bradley, now 98, recalls her time as a young maid working at Riverton Manor at the dawn of WWI. She is witness to an incident during a summer party, the suicide of a famous poet. What happened that night between the poet and the beautiful young sisters of the manor down by the pond? As Grace tells her story, Kate Morton slowly reveals all the mysteries of decades past. A wonderful, evocative novel." 

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Although we consider ourselves a quite exclusive book club, we are also very hospitable and anyone who wants to join us in reading one or all of these books during the "mandatory" summer of 2008 reading period is more than welcome!  No book reports are required.