I ♥ Reading

I love to read.  I gobble up books like I gobble up fast food breakfasts (I'm addicted to that too...but that's a story for another day).  Books are so wonderful...and there are so many of them out there!  If there is one thing that I can be sure of, it is that I'll be busy reading for the rest of my life.

I have a yearly goal to read one book per week.  I haven't quite reached that goal (in July 2009- June 2010 I read 48 books, in 2010-11 I read 44), but I keep trying.  I don't have a particular reason for setting that goal, it is just something I keep in mind.

I have to keep a journal listing the books I read because I used go to the library and check out a stack of books and then get home and realize I had read most of them.  The journal helps me keep track of the goal I mentioned, but also helps me avoid duplicates.

Speaking of the library, I am a library fanatic.  The librarians at my local branch don't necessarily know me by name, but they definitely know my face.  I am there at least every other week checking out books.  I've started requesting the books that I want to be sent to my favorite branch and then I just have to pop in and pick them up.  I love that I can do this!  Browsing the stacks is fun, but I don't always have time for that.

The hardest part for me is finding titles that I want to read.  I look at online lists, lists in magazines, Oprah's book club, Today Show book club, etc. to find titles that appeal to me.  It is hard work sometimes.  The other thing that helps is looking at the comments about the book I am currently enjoying.  Authors who have commented on their own enjoyment of the book are good leads for me in finding other novels to read.  Sometimes I go to the bookstore and just look at the popular titles, write them down and then go to the library to get them.  (I should tell you I don't buy books.  I read them once and don't really have the budget to buy the number of books that I read every year.  Not to mention a place to store them!)

This week I read three books.  Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Moon in the Mango Tree by Pamela Binnings Ewen, and Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo.  They were books that I was sort of saving for my vacation next week...but I didn't have others, so I plowed through all three.  Now I am trying frantically to get my hands on 7 or so titles to take with me to the beach next week.

I would love to make reading and making lists of fabulous books into a career.  Maybe someday I'll figure out how to do it.  In the meantime, I'll just remain a voracious reader.