Summer Reading

I love summer reading lists.  Being the principal's kid, I always had my summer reading done in July, with plenty of time to spare.  Sometimes, I even read *gasp* MORE than the required reading. 

College, sadly, required no summer reading of me.  Of course, that doesn't mean I completely let my brain go to mush.  I recall the summer before my sophomore year, when I was facing a semester of reading "The Classical Roots of Western Literature" that I forced myself to read Herodotus and the Aeneid, among others, in a failed attempt to get ahead. 

And in the summer of 2008, when I headed off for my 3-week research trip to Madrid, my crew coach gave me this book, which I quite enjoyed.  Spain through an outsider's perspective.  Sounds like something an outsider would be very interested in, right?  I found it particularly enlightening, because, although I knew a bit more than your average foreigner about some parts of Spain (ie: Madrid and Andalucia), I really know nothing about Galicia, Catalonia, and the Basque Country, Valencia, Extremadura, Murcia, and pretty much any place that wasn't Madrid or Andalucia. 

This is my mandatory pre-departure reading for NYU in Madrid.  Well, one of three mandatory readings.  Fortunately, I've already read it.  Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), I'll be reading it again.