Sunday, November 15, 2009

My Year of Reading Voraciously




Flashback to
November 15, 2008, Billings, MT. I’d just passed my Title Insurance exam and I called to share my relief with my beloved friend Sherri. I told her I was going to shop a bit in the big city before returning home. She asked if I would pick up a book she had heard was good. It was a Young Adult book about vampires called Twilight. I bought her the paperback and that began my year of reading voraciously.

Don’t get me wrong I have always been a reader. When we moved from
Tennessee to Montana in the mid-1970s my parents made the odd choice not to include a tv in the move. Sherri’s request was merely a resurgence of my already well-honed love of reading.

From
November 15, 2008 until today, November 15, 2009 I read more than I have in years:

I read the entire Twilight saga, even reading Breaking Dawn twice in a row. Then continuing on the vampire theme I heard about a series called the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Oh my! Not YA reading for sure. I read the entire series and even go back and reread passages of those books including my favorite Lover Awakened (Zsadist’s story).

The BDB books were so intoxicating that I had to revert to comfort reads to recover, so I reread the first three books in the Cat Who… series. I have read the series, especially the earlier books several times, but always enjoy the tales of the newsman and his two amazing cats.


I didn’t just read series books, although those have always been my favorites because it is like reading a never-ending story. If the characters are great who doesn’t want the book to go on forever?


I read my first Carl Hiassen novel with the bizarrely entertaining Sick Puppy. I read that one while at one of my many catsitting gigs over the year. Yes, it is true I have a cat friend, Maguire, and I read aloud to her. We just finished Sneaky Pie and Rita Mae Brown’s Catch as Cat Can. Don’t worry, she’s diverse -- we’ve also read a couple naughty books and part of a biography of Abraham Lincoln.


I read a John Grisham, which I haven’t done in years. Playing for Pizza wasn’t his usual genre, but it was entertaining. I almost reread A Time to Kill on it’s 2oth anniversary year, but couldn’t get through the first part again. I still highly recommend his first and many say best book.


I was very happy to accidentally discover another superb series at my mom’s. This one by Laurie R. King is an imagination of what would happen if an older Sherlock Holmes took on a young feminist apprentice. I was hooked from the first, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and bought my first ebook when I needed the instant gratification of the third A Letter of Mary. I would buy an ereader if they came down to $100. I can live without a cell phone, but I am starting feel like I need an ereader!
:)


In the spring when the ’08-’09 tv season ended I turned off my cable, thus rendering my tvs useless for anything but dvds. Now when I’m around tv, I just want to turn it off and read. I am able to watch the shows I really care about – Gossip Girl,
Glee & General Hospital online. I do enjoy listening to music while reading and discovered an awesome website http://www.legalsounds.com that keeps me quite happy with quirky music, new and old.


Also in Mom’s library, I stumbled on the somber but gripping The Lovely Bones which is due to come out as a movie at the end of this year. That book has stuck with me several books later.


I heard online about Dewey’s Read-a-Thon, where readers like me spend 24 hours reading, snacking and blogging about what they are reading and snacking on. I could soooooo do that and am now in training to take part in the next one in the spring.


Right before the voracious year ended I came full circle by rereading New Moon in preparation for the second Twilight movie
11-20-09. I have to say my reading hours of the day are my best hours by far. I have laughed with friends, lost track of whom I lent what book too and delighted when someone has discovered one of the same delicious literary nuggets I have. You can keep track of what I’m reading on Facebook or add buckycatt as a friend on Shelfari.


So, now I’m going back to reading Rudyard Kipling’s Kim so that I can more thoroughly understand and enjoy Mary Russell (& Sherlock Holmes) Book 7 The Game. In case I run out of interesting books to read…


…What are you reading?