Back to the Beach

I’m off on vacation starting tomorrow and this time I intend to go cold turkey and not blog while I’m away. I really mean it this time. I’ve lined up a stellar group of guest bloggers to fill in on occasion, so keep checking this space to see what they’ve posted. I’ll be back on July 9^th — you’re all in charge while I’m gone.

As usual, I’ll be spending my time back on the beach at Fire Island. My main goal is to do a lot of reading and thinking. I’ve got a few thesis chapters to read and a grant proposal to write, but mostly I’m looking forward to a hefty bag of beach reading. I’m going to start with the latest volume of Robert Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, and follow that with John Gaddis’ recent biography of George Kennan. Then comes David Kang’s East Asia before the West, which has been sitting on my desk for months. And if there’s still time left, I’ll probably go to Miko Peled’s The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.

Man does not live by non-fiction alone, however, so evenings will be spent with some lighter fare. I’ll pass on Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’ve still got to finish Joseph Kanon’s Istanbul Passage before I start Alan Furst’s Mission to Paris. And the beach house where I’m staying is filled with old Rex Stouts and other decomposing paperbacks, so I won’t run out of brain candy while I’m there.

That ought to keep me out of trouble for ten days or so. Here’s hoping that the next two weeks are an unusually dull period in world politics so that I won’t be tempted to chime in. And I hope all of you get some time off too; even workaholics need to take a break and let their thoughts run down different pathways for awhile.