Books on the beach--a lovely combination

Usually Chicago broils in the summertime (although I understand you're having a cooler-than-normal summer in 2015. Here in the 1920s, believe me, it's broiling.) I love relaxing with a good book, but it's too stifling to sit at home in the two-flat, especially since Dot and I have the upstairs apartment. Heat rises, dontcha know. So I love to take a good book or two (or five) to the beach.

The above picture could be me, if you replaced "Sanibel Library" with "Oak Street Beach, Chicago." And if you darkened the woman's hair a little bit. And my bathing costume is blue with white dots, not green. Green makes me look a little jaundiced. But otherwise it's like looking in a mirror.

In the summer of 1925, I'm reading The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter--you might know her better for writing A Girl of the Limberlost, which made a splash several years ago.

I'm also reading Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. Back home in Kerryville, some folks got annoyed with Mr. Lewis a few years back for making fun of small-town life in his book Main Street. I tried to tell then that Gopher Prairie is a fictional town and has nothing whatsoever to do with Kerryville, but they don't believe me. You know how people are. Anyway, Arrowsmith is about a medical doctor. My author Jennifer asked me to warn you not to confuse Arrowsmith with Aerosmith, which apparently means something else entirely in your century.

I love reading on the beach, but the dear folks at the Chicago Public Library might not appreciate sand falling from the pages of their books. We just won't mention it to them, will we?

What are you reading this summer?