Summer vacation -- bring on the light and fluffy!

Dear readers:

My reading of late has been emotionally intense, and after the recent racial violence in Charleston, doubly depressing and disturbing. I haven't felt this drained since surviving Chris Hedges' Empire of Illusion, and I stand in need of some encouraging, or at least fun, reads. I've mentioned in a comment that once through with the American Revolution series, I plan on taking a summer break of sorts,  keeping my reading lighter and varied. Old favorites like science, Star Trek, trains, philosophy and such will get some much-needed attention.  I had planned on playing with the revolution and politics throughout July, but I can't take it.  As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, which I read recently seeking relief from all this gloominess:

A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind—if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else—then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. 

So, I'll be mixing in other material with the American revolution series, and then keeping things mixed for a while before I do anymore big themes. I've just purchased a batch of books that includes some titles I've wanted to read for at least a year, including Philosophy for Life and Other Situations. Another book, not included in this set but to be pursued later, will be Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City.

So, happy summer, and may my future reading be far more hopeful.