There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation and School Comes Along Just to End It.

"So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it."
Thus are the immortal words of the Phineas and Ferb theme song. And they couldn't be more true, even for a college student. Free time is on a premium especially in college, and now that the semester is over I have all this time on my hands that I definitely do not want to squander. In addition to doing re-writes and editing of my book. I have an ever increasing stack of books I'm hoping to accomplish reading over summer break. And oh yeah, start working on my thesis. That would be good too.
Currently my reading list consists of these titles in no particular order:

Bone, Fae Myenne Ng

Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros

Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis

Perelandra, C.S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler

A Sound Of Thunder, Ray Bradbury

The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie

I'm sure it will be added to as I find more books, but I think right now this is a manageable list and I don't want to get too distracted and not finish some of them like last summer. (some of these are actually left over from last summer's reading list).
I've tried to keep a balance between more literary titles, short stories, and fluff books. I do want to keep up on reading good literature but also it is summer break, so fun silly books are a nice respite. Plus I have a good amount of more serious books to read as I've received several books from Professors this semester.
As a writer and an English major it's important to read a wide variety of genres and not just get stuck in the rut of what you are more interested in. For instance, I write fantasy, so I try to read some current and classic fantasy just to keep up with the trends and tricks of the genre, and because I enjoy it. However, I also try to read outside that genre in more literary or general fiction type books. Recently I've been on a kick of reading books that are retellings of stories from classical mythology. I think reading Orpheus Lost by Jeanette Turner Hospital sparked that interest. As the title would suggest, that novel is a modern take on the Orpheus tale. Two of the books on my list also retell myths, Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, by Salman Rushdie is another retelling of Orpheus. Needless to say I am really excited to start tackling this book list.