Let's Read A Book!

I love to read.  There is something magical about getting lost in someone else's life, in another world, in another time through the pages of a book.  I love falling head over heels into the life of a character... and hating to see the end of the book because it means my relationship with them is over.

Few things in life are as a lovely as a hot bubble bath, a glass of red wine, and a good book.

Or a weekend where I can tear through a book in a day.

Those things don't happen too often anymore.

I enjoy reading but don't seem to have much time for it.

I also know that one of the best ways for kids to become readers is for kids to see their parents reading for their own enjoyment.  Reading to your kids and with your kids is important - but one of the biggest influences is parents who have their nose in a book.

I am currently reading "What Alice Forgot" by Liane Moriarty.  It's about a woman who hits her head and suddenly forgets the last 10 years.  And her life is very different than she had imagined it would be.  So the story is kind of working backwards... how did things get to this point?  I'm enjoying it and am about halfway through.  I have a small stack of books to read... "Overextended and Loving Most of It" by Lisa Harper, "Starter House" by Sonja Condit, and there is a book club at church that I would love to be more involved with so I will have to review their list for this year.

On my list of "want to read or reread:"
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
The Ocean At The End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani
Give Me Everything You Have by James Lasdun
We Are Water by Wally Lamb
After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

And actually... my list of "want to read" on Goodreads is 60+ (some for me, some for Teagan).

Teagan is a reader and tends to have a couple books going on at once.  She is a big fan of Geronimo Stilton (a series of chapter books about a mouse detective) so she almost always has a Geronimo book somewhere.  For Christmas, she received "The One and Only Ivan" by Katherine Applgate.  It's about a gorilla who lives at a small circus in a mall and is friends with an elephant and a dog.  Ivan, the gorilla, enjoys art.  That's about as much as we've learned so far.  We're reading this one together simply because this book has been on my list for a while so I was thrilled that she got it for Christmas from a family member.

Zach enjoys being read to and is getting stornger in reading on his own.  He likes to deny his reading ability.  He will read something on a sign or on the TV screen and if we say "Zach! Did you read that?" - he claims he just knew or he guessed.  But he is steadily moving through the reading levels at school and is starting to share that more and more at home.  I'm hoping that Teagan's love for Geronimo Stilton will pass along to Zach - they are books that can easily be enjoyed by boys and girls.

Jeff is currently reading "Divergent" by Veronica Roth.  It's been made into a movie which comes out in a few months.  I'd like to read it when he is done since there is a chance we will see the movie.  I almost always prefer to read the book prior to seeing the movie.

What are you reading right now?  Or what have you read recently that you recommend?