Reading Goals

When I was a kid, lo so many moons ago, I used to read like a fiend. The first time I read Gone with the Wind, I read it in about a day and a half, around classes. I used to read three or four books a week. But then I had kids and time became a little more precious (and a lot more of my reading consisted of Goodnight, Moon and Winnie the Pooh.) Little by little, I stopped reading (EEK!)

But then last year I got a Kindle. Since then, I've rediscovered my love of reading. I love that I can slip it into my purse and I've got some fifty books to choose from on it - I'm building my Kindle library slowly, but it's getting there. And it's been a godsend when I go to get my hair colored.

Last winter, I plowed through Sabrina Jeffries Hellions of Halstead series. Come summer, I devoured Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series. On vacation, I brought something like twenty books with me, and didn't have to worry about them weighing my luggage down. Ahh... I missed reading and I'm so glad I came back to it. :D

And it's not just limited to ebooks. I buy Janet Evanovich's Plum series in hardcover - although this year, my daughter gave me the nineteenth book for my birthday. I coveted the Bruce Springsteen bio for weeks, showing remarkable restraint in not buying it because I was sure I'd get it for Christmas. And my husband came through. It took me more than a day and a half to read it, but I savored every last word of it.

I'd forgotten how much reading carried me away. And honestly, part of my reason for getting away from it was simply that I didn't read as a reader any longer. I read as a writer. Plot holes. Grammar problems. Typos. Faulty research. It all jumped out at me until reading became more of a chore than a joy. But somehow, I've managed to rediscover reading as a reader. And while I won't set a goal for number of books I read, I do hope that it will top last year's, which came in around 75 books. That's not a lot for some people, and once upon a time, I'd have scoffed at such a low number, but not now.

So I'm starting off this year with Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels. I'm about halfway through the first one and even though it isn't a genre I usually read, I'm enjoying it. My husband is a fan of True Blood and he's the one who suggested the first book, so I have him to thank. Just like I have to thank my Kindle for rekindling (no pun intended) my love for books. :D