The Stack

The reading stack on my bedside table is getting out of control!
This is it...

I want to read all of them right now, but they are patiently waiting for me to get a minute.

There is another one I want to add to the stack soon...

That will make 11.... *sigh*
If only I could wing a week long holiday in a tropical resort...all by myself.
No make that a month long... *heaven*

But that ain't gonna happen...any time soon...or ever.
So I'll just keep snatching a minute or two to finish the book I'm currently reading (you can see that one on my side bar...eyes right and scroll down) which I am LOVING by the way.



Long gone are the days when I would wake up and read until I got hungry enough to get out of bed for breakfast.

Then I'd laze on the trampoline and read until I snoozed.

And later I'd finish off the day by reading in bed until the wee hours.

That was how I spent much of my school holidays.

School holidays are a little different for me these days.

How about you?

Pass the Book

Last night I finished a book that I was given by Anj after she wrote this post.

She had a giveaway of books from her bookshelf and asked for her readers to say which book they'd like.
I couldn't decide so I left it up to Anj. She sent me this one...

I enjoyed it, it was a good read.

Here's the blurb...

While 30-something Londoner Tessa King questions her no-strings-attached lifestyle, she also witnesses her friends' difficulties in marriage and parenthood while playing godmother to their broods. Nick and Francesca battle to keep their sullen teenager out of serious trouble; Billy, a single mom, can't break ties to her now remarried ex-; Helen and Neil, fairy tale parents to twin boys, are hiding something; successful Claudia and Al struggle to conceive; and Ben and Sasha have no plans to have children. But Ben also happens to be Tessa's best friend, and perhaps the love of her life. When tragedy eventually strikes the group, bonds are tested, and Tessa is forced to re-examine what she thinks will really make her happy. A painful look into the fears, doubts and desires that make and break marriages, this debut novel from Londoner Adams is notches up from the usual chick and mom lit fare.

But when I finished I thought, "Uh oh, another book for my finished book pile, because I have no room on my bookshelf!"

Then I had this thought...

What if I pass this book to someone else in the same way Anj passed it to me?

I wonder how far it will travel and how many hands can hold it??

So, if you'd like to keep the book moving, all you have to do is say so in the comments and promise to pass it on in the same way when you have finished.

I have added a Linky to this post so that you could add your post and we can follow the book on its travels.

If you want to be next...you know what to do.

Thanks Anj for passing this one onto me.

I'll put the names of anyone interested in a hat and draw one out next Tuesday.

Why Do You Read?

Last night on Twitter I tweeted...

@TheaTweets To read or to knit?? If only I had 4 hands and 4 eyes......

I had two similar replies suggesting I needed audio books.

And my sis said she wanted 2 brains and 4 eyes, so she could read and write at the same time!

But the audio book thing got me thinking...and you know how I like to think!

Does an audio book defeat the purpose of reading?

I guess it depends what your purpose of reading is.

If you just want to know the story, then an audio book would be fine.

But that is not why I love to read.

Of course, I love the story.

But I also love sitting or lying in a cozy spot, in a quiet place away from everyone.

I love the weight of the book, the black words on the white pages, the smell of the book.

I love turning the pages and using a bookmark.

I love closing it at the end, although that is always a bittersweet moment.

I love reading, doing it myself, with my own eyes, using my own voice in my head as I become immersed in another world...a world of silence, yet full of voices and noise.

I don't want to listen to a book,
I want to read a book.

If I want to listen to something I'd put on some music or the TV or a movie.

Listening, to me, is not the same as reading.

What do you think?

Why do you read?

Must Have Classics

Last night was the parent information night for the Prep classes at our son's school.
I have been to many, many of these before.  But last night I got to sit in the chair and just watch and listen which was soooo much easier than being the one standing out the front.  I loved it!

On the way out we collected a handout about developing literacy and on the back was a list of 20 'Must-have classics' for Australian children aged from birth to four, for suggested reading at home.  I'm embarrassed to say we have not one in our house.  But many of them are ones I loved reading to my classes when I was teaching.  So now it is my goal to starting buying up these classics until we have the whole list, well, most, OK, some.

Here are the books...

Do you have any of these?