There’s still time for themed summer-reading immersion

In the summer of 1978, I walked to the library one afternoon and checked out every single Nancy Drew book they had.

Though I was using my grandmother’s library card, the librarian ignored the obvious deception, as well as the well-posted loan limit, and I spent June, July and August in the fictional town of River Heights solving cases.

My love of both detective stories and reading stunts was born.

Fast forward to the summer of 2018, and I’m working my way through Sue Grafton’s alphabet crime novel series: “A is for Alibi,” “B is for Burglar,” “C is for Corpse” ... Grafton’s alphabet ending at “Y is for Yesterday” with her death this past December. The series is centered around Kinsey Millhone, a grown-up, twice-divorced, dresseddown version of Nancy Drew.

Kinsey Millhone may be older, more promiscuous and more cynical than my beloved Nancy, but they have gumption in common as well as the “Who done it?” heart of their stories.

Reading stunts are my There are plenty of examples: Author A.J. Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica over 18 months. One friend and bookseller reads “Anne of Green Gables” every year as a birthday treat. The Elevator Repair Service theater company read “The Great Gatsby,” word-forword, during a more than six-hour performance, complete with two intermissions and a dinner break.

Or how about these: One former bookseller recalls a customer who sold his car so he could take the bus every day to have time to read the classics. A friend’s brother set out to read all the books on a list of the 100 greatest novels of all time. A longtime friend from my early bookselling days travels to the locations of books she reads in her British literature book club, which has led her to such English towns as Rye, Dungeness and Romney Heath, thanks to A.S. Byatt’s “The Children’s Book.”

Reading stunts are my bookgeek version of extreme sports. Where extreme sports involve speed, height, physical exertion and risk, these involve page counts, time, cleverness and a certain amount of nerdiness.

book-geek version of extreme sports. Where extreme sports involve speed, height, physical exertion and risk, these involve page counts, time, cleverness and a certain amount of nerdiness.

Some stunts have a sense of nostalgia, sentimentality or even guilt: Rereading the classics from your youth, reading your partner’s favorite

books, or getting to all the “required reading” you read the CliffsNotes for in high school.

My favorite time for these reading activities is summer; it’s a way to recapture my youth, with its free time and sense of playfulness.

In that spirit, one friend reads her children’s summer reading list along with them. This can mean reading “Ragtime,” E.L. Doctorow’s classic work of historical fiction, with her eldest, or “Full Cicada Moon,” a historic middle-grade

novel told in poems, with her youngest. Then there’s this summer stunt, Dog Days of Summer, which involves reading canine-narrated novels like “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” “A Dog’s Purpose” and “Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery.”

My favorite summer stunt? A dear friend fondly recalls her Summer of Stephen, the summer she spent reading dark Stephen King books over three months of bright, sunny days, lounging on the porch and by the

pool, figuring she “wouldn’t be quite as creeped out” that way.

And then there’s me, currently at “G is for Gumshoe.” I’m going to need to pick up the pace if I’m going to make it to Y by Labor Day.

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