Confessions of a Life-Long Read-Ahead

School, school, school. We certainly have a love/hate relationship. Then again, who doesn't?

In the more optimistic view, though, the love part: before this year, I'd never been absolutely required to do outside reading for any class but English (and only English in a few rare cases). 

But by the middle of September, I suddenly had my own personal study library.

I kid, I kid. But really, there are quite a few of them; the ol' Nook-ster has a whole shelf for 'em. 

Luckily for me, they aren't too bad (in fact most of them are very good), but of course I'm not supposed to have read ahead, so let's keep that between us, shall we?

My biology class has a whole reading list in itself: a proposition I once thought impossible.

The first book, however, was one I'd already considered (briefly) at reading personally called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A true story that encompasses over 40 years of narrative, it follows the life, death, and immortality of Henrietta Lacks and her famous HeLa cells. 

The way it's written is a huge drive for me in the reading of this book. The narration is pretty much always by the author, Rebecca Skloot, but the story itself frequently flits amongst Lacks (and her extensive family) in the 1950s, Skloot in the 1990s, and a cast of scientists/researchers in-between. 

Which means in order to get to the story of the family, you have to wade through some (more often than not) pretty dense scientific research. It's always worth it though.

I'll admit it here and now, I'm one of those people who watches 20/20 or pretty much any "true crime" media and is paranoid for weeks afterwards. This is pretty much the same. A collection of interviews and narratives by Truman Capote, it outlines the entirety of the murder of a family in Kansas at the tail-end of the 1950s.

It's good reading, but if you're jumpy at all, I probably wouldn't suggest it.

Alas, the beast. The American Pageant.  I would call it the bane of my existence, but that sounds really melodramatic. It's only my history textbook, after all. It's huge and heavy, but it occasionally provides a good joke or two for between lectures.

I got this one today, and I nearly exploded from sheer glee.

Look at it. I've waited a year for this book and I'm already four chapters in.

Sure, it's a personal reading assignment, but the mythology helps me with trivia, so it

all works out in the end. I've been reading the Percy Jackson/ Heroes of Olympus series for a few years  now, and I have to say that even though they're technically "children's lit" they're really good for readers over the age of 12 too.

Really, really good.

And that's what's dominating my Nook right now, carrying me into fall.

What's on your must-read list this season? Leave me suggestions below!

-Riley