You know how it starts. You decide sometime in May that you’re going to read a novel or a memoir, and before you know it…poof! It’s August and you’ve read nothing on your list. This summer was different—deliciously so.

Among my favorites:

Flash Count Diary by Darcy Steinke

Go Ahead In The Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib

Daily Rituals, Women At Work by Mason Currey

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden

The Recovering by Leslie Jamison

I rarely read for the sheer joy of it. I’m usually snowed under with work-related reading. This time I was serious, because I felt my creativity flagging after a long writing jag. What made this summer different? I used a new practice that helps me make and keep promises to myself when I follow it.

Ray Bradbury had it right, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Read on!

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31195974@N05/4666840431