What books are on your summer reading list this year?

This question popped up on my Goodreads author dashboard recently.  I’m not sure if it was distributed widely or if they targeted a few of us recalcitrants who ignored months of prompts to sign up for a reading challenge.

Hey, Goodreads, I’ll be reading some books, but do I need to give a figure?  I do?  OK, how about…23?  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to give a number, but rather, I didn’t want to explain it.  So, here goes.

First, there’s The Obsidian Chamber, number 16 in the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.  Yeah, guilty.  I’ve read the other 15, plus the short story, Extraction.  So, that makes Special Agent Aloysius Xingu L. Pendergast one of my oldest acquaintances, along with Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, Jack Ryan, Oliver Stone, and Lucas Davenport…among others.

Then, I have my eye on a few works by rising stars.  I have to get the sequel to Body on the Barstool by Lolli Powell, which I understand will be called Whiskey Kills.  The original cracked me up.  And Lincoln Cole’s World on Fire series (Raven’s Peak et. al) was some great storytelling, but it’s a post promising a book in the technothriller genre that has me waiting impatiently.  That’s my preferred genre.  And of course, there’ll be a dozen new, yet undiscovered favorites along the way.  (I’m not into planning my reading life too carefully.)

So now, if you’re counting, you’re thinking I’m about 10 books short…but not really.  I’ll make up the difference reading my own words.  Actually, it’ll add up quite quickly, with me re-reading and re-working those the sections of the next manuscript that come together well only 3-4 times, and the parts that don’t, like 63 times. 

There, like I said, 23 book equivalents…but who’s counting?

So, what’s on your summer reading list?

Image by Ramchand Bruce Phagoo (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons