Things to do with your free time this summer (Part One)

Note: This is the first part in an ongoing series of posts throughout the summer.

Read a book.

I hear the same thing over and over. “I just don’t have time to read.” We all know that’s not the truth. It’s not that there isn’t enough time to read, it’s just that sitting down and reading a book, as opposed to a blog or other website or a magazine or watching television, is something most people just aren’t willing to do often enough anymore. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the aesthetic, backlash against academia or simply the idea that there is something more exciting they can be doing. If that is the case I have a few suggestions to spice up the idea.

First of all, don’t go to a book store and buy a book. Chances are you probably have purchased a few books over the years that you’ve never gotten around to reading or finishing, just sitting there on the bookshelf collecting dust. That’s a much better place to start than a Borders or Barnes & Nobles with their coffee house décor and rows of pop culture etcetera products getting in your way. If you must go to a book store though I recommend a used book store, preferably not a chain either because then you just end up with the same set of distractions.

I like the idea of reading something that has already been read by someone else. Imagining what the previous readers had thought while the read the same pages I was now reading. It’s like the beginning of the school year when you are handed your text books for the year and they made you write your name inside the front cover below the names of all the kids who had the same book in the years before. Sometimes it would be somebody you know, a friend or maybe someone you had just known about like a former star athlete, a troublemaker who had been kicked out of school or that gorgeous brunette Senior who made your heart thump.

In a similar vein you can ask a friend, neighbor or co-worker if they have a book to recommend and would be willing to let you borrow. I love to let people borrow from my personal library and vice versa. It makes the experience more social, less book club and more personal.

My final suggestion would be the often forgotten public library. There’s probably one closer to you than you think. As far as choosing a book to read I have another fun idea. While most libraries have switched to using computerized Dewey decimal systems you might be lucky enough to find an old-fashion version with the index cards inside of wooden drawers. One of my former college libraries had the high-tech set-up front and center on the first floor but had moved their large old wooden one to back of the stacks on the second floor. So even if your library does have the robotics going on just poke and maybe you’ll find the relic still sitting around.

If you are able to find one is pick a drawer at random and then just start flipping through the cars until a book title or author’s name catches your attention. Or you can always just peruse through the aisles searching for something that piques your interest. Maybe you saw a movie that was based on a certain book that you’ve never read or you just like the cover art. Doesn’t matter, whatever gets you started. You never know what you might discover.

Of course once you have a found a book through any of these scenarios or not the most important thing is that you actually read it.