Unplug the tube

For a few years in a row, I use to compile a summer reading list, soliciting input from my friends and then creating this lengthy document that had quite a few solid suggestions. I stopped doing it for no real reason.

As August approaches, our friends Bob and Dennis at Family Life are challenging us to a TV free month. Unplug the box, and pick up a good book, they say. Its about getting back to a decluttered mind and soul and also reconnecting with each other as families and friends without a reality TV show in the background.

I don't watch TV that much in general, but in the spirit of TV-fast, I'm going to cut myself off from checking CNN.com or Google News every second at work. I have a subscription to a couple magazines and I'll pull the plug on that too, since I love vegging out to some Entertainment Weekly. And then, there's just something about Wife Swap and House that I can't pull myself away from.

I certainly don't read as much as I use to, say, as a student in grades K-12. My mother likes to proudly remind me that I tore through Gone With the Wind as a third grader, and I remember checking out so many books at the school library that I got busted when they weren't all returned (I wasn't done with them!). And then there's nothing like the feeling of getting lost - truly lost - in another person's world, their circumstances, feelings, joys and fears. Somewhere in between ink printed on pages and our eyes lies a whole different world activated by our imaginations. These are the places I found in Hugo's Les Miserables, Doestoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and yes, even Margaret Mitchell's Gone with Wind.

If you'd like to join me in this TV fast, let me know! Also, what are some of your favorite books? I'll be blogging about what I'm reading intermittently and my thoughts on its contents.