It’s looking to be a busy summer for me, but I still have a long list of books I want to read. Here’s what’s at the top of it.

• The Tripods trilogy by the late John Christopher. These were serialized in Boys Life magazine when I was a kid and it took me forever to find a complete set. Now that I have them, I’m tearing through them. They are just as good as I remember them.
• The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is the sequel to Shipbreaker, which means I need to reread that one first.
• Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I have students screaming at me all year to read these books, so this is the summer that it’s going to happen.

For some odd reason, I’ve been craving a lot of old-school science fiction and fantasy, so I will spend some time on Project Gutenberg, looking up the classics. I remember that when I was in high school all of my friends were reading and enjoying the Shannara series by Terry Brooks, which I had somehow missed, so I decided to give it a try. I got to page 100 before I gave it up. It came across as an obvious Tolkien knock-off (and a poorly written one at that), so I let it go. I’ve been told the writing gets better, but I just don’t have that kind of time. There are too many other good books out there.