Ahh, summer. Time to relax in the hammock, cool drink in one hand, book in the other. Not! I don’t know about you, but I find summer to be the most unrelaxing season of the year. Whether I'm trying to keep the lawn from burning up, the garden from going to weeds or cramming as much outdoor fun as possible into my days off, there just doesn’t seem to be much time left for reading. I did manage to sneak in a few books, however, and hope you did so too.

Ever wonder what it's really like to work in a library? I'll give you a hint: you don’t sit and read books all day. In his laugh-out-loud memoir Free for All, Don Borchert, an assistant librarian in a suburban Los Angeles library, exposes what really goes on behind the scenes (and in the stacks) of a modern city library. You'll never look at your local library the same way again.

I originally picked up John Price's memoir, Man Killed by Pheasant, because of the title. I mean, who could resist? It conjures up all those odd headlines you read in small town newspapers. Indeed, the title essay describes Price's close-call encounter with a pheasant on a rural road in Iowa. Beyond the title, I was won over with Price's honest, funny and deeply-grounded look at growing up in "flyover" country.

If you've ever dreamed of owning a small farm in Vermont, complete with stone walls and a sugarhouse, you’ll want to check out the latest addition to the "Person Rural" series by Noel Perrin. An English professor at Dartmouth College, Perrin bought an 85-acre farm in Vermont in the 1960s and wrote four collections of essays about his life there. The fifth book in the series, Best Person Rural, was published after Perrin's death in 2004 and contains a compilation of the best essays from his previous books. Even if a Vermont farm is not in your future, Perrin's lyrical prose and self-effacing humor is not to be missed.

All summer, reading lists need some "fluff," and mine was the Bad Girl Creek trilogy by Jo-Ann Mapson. Bad Girl Creek is the small waterway that runs through the 40-acre flower farm inherited by Phoebe DeThomas from her Aunt Sadie. Unfortunately, the inheritance did not include money to keep the place running. To make ends meet, Phoebe advertises for boarders and soon she's sharing her house with a cowgirl/farrier who is HIV positive, an ex-con who did time for killing her husband and a Southern belle recovering from a failed romance. Their evolving friendship and reinvention as a family make for delightful reading. Bad Girl Creek, Along Came Mary and Goodbye Earl make up this feel-good trilogy.

What did you read on your summer vacation? E-mail me at jdeming@jefferson.lib.co.us and let me know. We might include your books in a future column. You can check out these books and more at any Jefferson County Public Library location. Talk to your librarian for more recommendations.