They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but you don’t necessarily remember how to ride it well.

Since my first apartment at the age of 18, I have lived someplace with a set of stairs between my bike and the ground. And if my bike was a pair of boots, they’d have steel toes: it’s a solid and hefty business, even when you’re just walking around with it. 

Even when it wasn’t a problem to heave it up on a shoulder and climb up or down a flight of stairs, it wasn’t fun. Over the years, I perfected the art of excuses-for-walking instead.

But now we can store our bikes indoors, and at ground-level: no more excuses. Just habit. And laziness. My body had forgotten that round kick that gets you on and off unthinkingly. It had forgotten the moments in which a slight shift of weight—more or less in your arms, more or less in your legs, or a tilt—could ease the bumps in a road or alleviate a sudden cramp or stitch.

Now, in my third month of riding, I’m beginning to remember what I’d forgotten, but I’m still an awkward rider. Which is mainly because I’m not just remembering how to ride a bike, I’m learning how to ride a bike with six or eight library books. And I haven’t yet figured out the secret of balancing my saddle bags. (Which is actually only complicated because there’s usually food involved, as well as books: y’know… all the essentials.)

Here are five of the books I’ve borrowed just for fun this summer. In other words, I chose them mostly out of whimsy: either the covers caught my eye or the stories suited my mood in that instant. I’m actually almost finished One Summer in Savannah and The Chow Maniac, but the others I haven’t started yet.

Walter Mosley’s Ghalen sounds like quite a change from his Leonid McGill mysteries and his short stories, but I’m looking forward to it.

Stacey Abrams’ Rules of Engagement I am cautious about, but I think it will be perfect for those extra hot evenings, when I’m actually thinking more about staring into the distance and less about words on the page.

I won’t start Natsuo Kirino’s Swallows until I’ve finished Out (which somehow I’ve been saying that I would read for more than twenty years, long enough for a cute little anniversary edition to come out—even though there is nothing cute about this story).

Terah Shelton Harris’s One Summer in Savannah landed here because I heard about how she approaches endings to her novels and it intrigued me (I won’t tell you because it’s a spoiler, but she’s well-known for it apparently, so perhaps you already know).

Vivien Chien’s The Chow Maniac is my second of hers, both mid-way in the series, (breaking my rule, but it’s fine); the puns and covers caught my eye. But, also, one category in The New York Times Summer Reading Challenge is a genre you don’t usually read; I once read a lot of cosy mysteries, but fell out of the habit years ago. Back when I was a most-excellent Rider of Bikes.

Have you been adjusting to a new habit this season, whether summer or winter?
Do you know how to ride a bike, and do you put the skill to work for you?
And/or, have you read any of these books or authors?

BookishBeck hosts #LoveYourLibrary on the last Monday of each month.