On rainy days like this week, I like to think about when the slugs have slithered or been salted away, when my garden will be all lush and beautiful, full of flowers in bloom and meticulously cultivated organic juicy red tomatoes whisper, “eat me, eat me,” (yours say that too, right?).  Yes, these soggy days I drift in my mind to when I will finally feel the tickle of perfect, pesticide-free, native grasses beneath my feet, and I will lord over my bounty, a steamy cup of morning joe in hand, gently brewed from individually selected, hand-picked, shade grown, fairly traded, equally exchanged, peacefully planted coffee beans lovingly smuggled from some distant corner of the globe, when bounty bursts forth from each bud in each hand-painted, Gaudi-inspired mosaic-print pot.  Well, maybe not all that.  But I do get through these days without a trowel thinking about what, other than gardening, I will be doing with my long summer days (besides pecking away at my desktop under flourescent glowlights, day in, day out, thinking about what I could be doing with those long summer days).  And that, naturally, turns to reading.  

Assuming those weird Canadians (thanks for the link, Bronwen – see Armagarden post comments below) are wrong, and no one will be whisked needlessly away into the unfeeling blue yonder by an unloving god, I think it’s time we talk summer reading list.  Top of mine is “What Would Google Do,” by Jeff Jarvis.  I’m only twenty pages in but I’m hooked.  I think it’ll be a perfect subway read (being realistic, for those of us not fortunate enough to have a home in the Hamptons or anywhere but our concrete slab of this city, it’s just more practical to think in terms of a subway read rather than beach books).  More on this later but the skinny is it’s about Google, the first “post-media company,” what it’s doing right, and what other companies can learn from it.  Although it’s early to tell, I’m pretty sure he’s also sending out a warning signal to all the rest of the companies who think they can keep doing business as used-to-be: we’re in a new era, folks.  And the old ways just aren’t cutting it.  But, it may take many a more company to flounder and sputter about before that message gets through.  I’m also putting on my list Just Kids, the Patti Smith memoir, just ‘cuz, and maybe…not sure what else.  How about you?

QUESTION: what’s on your list?  What will you be reading this summer?  What’s the last book you read?  Are you glad you did?  Was it on a  Nook, Kindle or in your good, old-fashioned hands?  What are you reading now?  Any suggestions for a good gardening book (tall order, I know, but one worth filling). 

(I just picked up How to Grow Practically Everything by Zia Allaway and Lia Leendertz, DK Publishing 2010, which is a great book to have on hand, easy to peruse & good how-to photos, and also am flipping through, courtesy of my most very cool neighbor, Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich regarding how to give the earth a break and grow above ground, like on newspapers and clippings – inneresting but not sure it’s for me.  I like to dig in the dirt, what can I say?  We’ll see. )

LINKS: http://www.buzzmachine.com/,/ (Jeff Jarvis’s blog)