June is here... and while I'm extremely excited about June and it being the month of our big move, deep down I know my reading will be cut to practically nothing now that I don't have a ridiculous commute.  My reading time was the only thing that made the time en route tolerable... and, I will miss plowing through books in record time. It was the only benefit of this commute.

So, the first book I finished this month was  A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler.  I picked this one up at the Germantown Flea Market for a dollar a couple of weeks ago because I've had good luck with Tyler's novels. This one, I thought, was a better one. Her characters are flawed and real... this time, a gentleman who made mistakes as a teenager that he has never quite been able to escape. He meets a woman and develops a relationship and seems happy for the first time in his adult life... but, his past creeps back in and things go a bit awry. A quick and satisfying book - a great way to kick off the summer.


Next, in preparation of my new job, I bought The First 90 Days in Government by Peter H. Daly and Michael Watkins.  This was a very quick read with excellent stories about folks who have taken on new government jobs - some got it right; some royally messed up. I liked the book because it gave real, concrete suggestions about what to do when taking on a new position, like developing a list of what you need to learn, how to learn it, how to "diagnose" the situation you're getting into, and then how to best be successful. More than anything, it emphasized that the employee is responsible for the relationship with his/her supervisor. I took that to heart and will be more proactive this time around to better assure my success. If anything, it gave me a few tools to approach my new job and having some strategies in hand is helping me reduce some of my anxiety. This one I'll hang on to... no paperbackbookswap.com for this one.


And, the last book I read via commute was Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. This one has been on my to-be-read list for years. Jon reminded me we saw the movie that was made based on this book (I had forgotten about it)... and, it was a great read. It did a great job of describing how ridiculously smart MIT student gamed the game and won millions playing black jack. A highlight for me is they played at the Mohegan Sun, where Jen had her bachelorette party, so I had been to that one :)  


I finished Bringing Down the House mid-month, and started reading My Life in France by Julia Child. Needless to say, once we moved, I didn't make much progress into the book. The year prior to us moving from Tennessee, one of my new year's goals was to read one book a month. I think I'll be revisiting that goal just to ensure I'm working some reading in... how different my monthly book posts will be from now on!