Another start

This is another attempt at creating a blog about the book I read. I average about 2-3 books a week and quite frankly it gets hard to keep track of them all. I tried doing a blog with a posting on each book I read, but that was difficult because I felt like some books I really had nothing to say about.

I love to read pretty much everything except science fiction. I'm not real big on mysteries either, there are some I really like though. I like to try different types of books and I go through phases with them. I will read nothing but historical fiction for a while, then I switch to contemporary. I started reading with mostly romances, but that did get old after years of reading them. I currently have about 160 in my want to read list. I keep a running spreadsheet going of all of them and I also use the Visual Bookshelf on Facebook to keep track.

I'm also addicted to buying books. I have to force myself away from Barnes and Noble's website. Although they have a great selection under their clearance, especially during the month of January. I currently have 44 books waiting to be read at home. That should keep me for a few months! :)

This will probably just be a rambling, but oh well.

Tonight is my book club and I am quite excited as we haven't all met since November so we have three books to discuss!

The current months book is The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards. I will be honest that I wasn't looking forward to reading this book. The thought of the father just handing over his handicapped daughter and lying to his wife held no appeal to me at all. With that being said, once I started reading I really enjoyed it. I had it read in one day, yes I am a fast reader. I will say that the whole subject to me was reprehensible in thought. But once you start reading more the context of it, the era in which it happened, and his history with his sister you began to not condone, but understand.

We also will be discussing Grace by Richard Paul Evans. That was a fantastic book and I would definitely have to put this in my top 10 of all time. It was tragic but very well written.

The third book is Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Another book I really had no interest in reading but did enjoy when I was done. I actually listened to this book on CD. I really felt that it went very slow and was at times repetitive. It was one of those I wasn't really sure I liked while I was listening, but once it was done I really did like it overall.

So those are my book club books. I just finished on my own, The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. Man he is a fantastic writer. This book is definitely one my favorites as well. Its a long book, but worth every moment. It starts with Columbine and has me bawling for the victims, not just the ones who died, but for all the victims. I won't give anything away, but I also bawled at the end for the characters. I love the characters Wally creates because they are so realistic. They aren't heroes in the traditionally literary sense. His books have a sense that they could be biographies. There were times in this book I had to remind myself that I was reading fiction.

Yesterday I read Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom. It was a decent, quick read. I think it suffered in my eyes from my having just finished The Hour I First Believed. It was a decent book, but not really the right book to follow the other.

I am a voracious reader. I usually have three books going at any given time, an audio book in my car, a book at home and one going for lunch at the office. I'm currently only reading two, so I feel a bit behind. I am almost done with my audio book so I need to pick the next one at the library.

Well I guess that is enough for the first post.