All this month, the Paper Lantern Writers are celebrating Summer Reading.

I had a splendid post (coming together in my mind) about my favorite types of summer books: novels taking place on the islands along America’s Eastern Seaboard. I was also going to include some festive links to posts by other writers who had already published their “Best of Summer Reading” posts.

It was going to be a great post, Dear Reader, but my enthusiasm for celebrating summer reading evaporated quickly as sh*t got real this weekend in America.

So instead of writing eloquently that you’d enjoy reading Mary Kay Andrews’ Sunset Beach or The High Tide Club (contemporary stories both set in the island south), or Elizabeth Ogilvie’s Image of a Lover (a 1974 historical thriller/romance set on an island in Maine which you probably couldn’t find anywhere anyway), this post will be about the next thing I’m going to read this summer.

It’s the United States Constitution.

Yeah, I didn’t see that coming either.

I haven’t read it in decades, but something about our current unrest and our upcoming election make me think that it’s time to read it again.

Our friendly National Archives is providing a transcript, complete with original spelling and punctuation, and links from/to the parts that have been amended.

I’m still too wound up about the weekend to write more except to add that I expect a further evolution of my 2020 summer reading, and you’re invited to join me.