Over at That Artsy Reader Girl, it’s time for that favorite quarterly Top Ten Tuesday topic, the top books I hope to read this season. While I’ve done poorly with both my winter and spring lists, hope remains bright for a higher success rate for the summer:

1. Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
2. The Even-Handed Booksellers of Edinburgh by Garth Nix
3. Most Ardently Yours by Freya Sampson
4. Bump, Set, Sparks by Jennifer Moffatt
5. The Parisian Heist by Jo Piazza
6. After the Forest by Kell Woods
7. A Letter from the Lonesome Shore by Sylvie Cathrall
8. Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary by Stefan Fastis
9. The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne by Summer N. England
10. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

How about you? What are you hoping to read this summer?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Our first beach day of the year

2. Ducklings at Constitution Gardens (safe from the bleaching next door)

3. A friend and I meet at the Dupont Circle fountain for an overdue catch-up.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Fireflies in the park

2. Frozen Persian mint lemonade on a scorching afternoon

3. Nearly a dozen of the girls I coached graduated from 8th grade, and almost half of them took part in the ceremony, including Sadie, who sang a solo

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A “dirty soda,” in this case Coke with cherry syrup and butterfly pea whipped cream

2. Eight hours of outdoor volleyball on a gorgeous afternoon

3. Time with friends

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl is Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read. Goodreads informs me that I currently have more than 3700 books on my to-be-read list, and Rudi would probably tell you that’s only half the real number. But while some books I mark off and then forget about and others I intend to get around to, there are definitely a smaller subset that I should have gotten to by now. There are ten of those titles, all of which I own:

1. The Odyssey by Homer: Sure, we all know parts of it. But knowing parts and having read the whole thing are two different things.
2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau: Karen and I started reading this some number of years back, and while I’m pretty sure she actually finished, I kept falling asleep while reading it.
3. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler: A classic, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages. I think there’s a local bookshop doing a close reading of it this month. Maybe now is the moment.
4. Paradise by Toni Morrison: I had pretty much read everything Morrison had written when this came out, and then I just couldn’t get into it, although I can tell you the first line.
5. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver: I waited in line for ages to get this signed when it first came out.
6. Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune: I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea. Why have I dragged my feet?
7. The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman: I enjoyed the first two books in the trilogy, but haven’t pushed myself to wrap up the series.
8. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett: Karen gave me what is supposedly an utterly delightful book by an author I enjoy several years back and it sits on my shelf singing to me.
9. The Tempest by Shakespeare: While not the only play of his I haven’t read, it’s probably the best known — and it prompted a whole season of The Librarians.
10. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo: I nominated this for an award (which, I’m pretty sure it won), without having read it. Oops.

How about you? What books are you surprised you’ve never read (and are they currently sitting on your shelves)?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My parents’ cats and our cats, all such characters (Coal is lying asleep on his back in the middle of the living room rug, legs all tucked up, as I write this, inviting me to hurry up and rub his belly…)

2. Lunch and a rainy walk with Karen

3. I ran into some of my middle-schoolers when I stopped by their school this week, and they invited me to their 8th-grade graduation.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?