Whatchu reading?

I love summer reading when I actually get to do it. Last summer I was in New Jersey because my mom was really ill, and I read an entire composition book and a bunch of true crime books that my brother got from the Bergenfield Public Library. I had a copy of Mark Doty's Dog Years with me in NJ, and I would read to my mother from it every day when she was in intensive care. I had that book and a novel with me, and I asked her each time which one she wanted and she would say (well, not really say because she had a big respirator in her mouth) that she wanted the dog book. So, one day I got to a passage in which Doty talks about the death of one of his dogs, and I didn't know what to do. I read on and cried through part of it; today my mother told me that she doesn't remember any of it. But of course it made me think about how much texts can move us and help us through those times that are tough, to say the least.

So this summer my mother's doing great, and I'm happy to say that I'm reading all kinds of good books. Here are a few of them:
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
The Pajamaist by Matthew Zapruder
A Parade of Hands by James Hoch
Leave the Building Quickly by Cynthia Kaplan
Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
Collected Poems Kenneth Patchen

So what are you reading?