….one of my favorite past times.  I’ve always loved to read.  Guess it began young.  My mom used to take us to the library when we were young and she even passed down a few books of her own to us.  I had saved several books from my teen years, but during one of my move’s they got misplaced in my aunt’s basement and I never saw them again. 🙁  I think a lot of my sister’s books though will be going to her daughters.  My sister recently posted a picture of my niece after she had fallen asleep while reading her book.  It was so cute and makes me feel good that my niece is turning out to love reading at an early age also.

It is also one of the things I love about my husband, that he’s a big reader.  ((He reads a LOT faster then me – can sometimes read a whole book in a weekend))  I enjoy times where we can both just sit around and read our books together in silence.

How do you choose what books you read?  The cover is usually a big thing for me.  Cover and/or title.  That is what usually gets me to pick up the book in the first place to read the back to see if it sounds like something I’d be interested in.  I also used to get book club ad’s in the mail and would read through them and make lists of what I wanted to read.  I still have lists of books sitting around the house.  If I see articles about books I usually stop and skim through them also to see if there is anything to add to my list.

I’ve been told by a lady at work that I always have the most strange and wide variety of books that I read.  Yeah, I like strange.  I guess a lot of the books I read have a bit of a dark element too.  I like crime and history based novels.  I also like the vampire one’s….yes, my husband gawks at me for that, but it started early with Anne Rice.  I have always liked Horror and the Supernatural, but when I discovered Anne Rice books in my teen years, I fell in love with them!

Recently the “book readers” have become popular.  I’ve resisted getting one, because I do NOT like to read large amounts of stuff on a computer screen.  BUT recently I caved and I had enough points with my Discover card to get a free Kindle.  I got it last month and have already finished two books on it and am starting on my third.  I LOVE it!  It’s so easy to download books, and my husband has even found free books for me to download and read.  I can also check out library books on it for free from my local library. The thing with the screen on the Kindles (except for the Fire) is that it doesn’t have the gloss of a computer screen, it’s like you are really reading the print on a book!  So easy on the eyes.

I wonder how much this will hurt the printed book sales. I like the idea of having books I love and being able to pass them down to the younger generation of the family or to loan out to friends to read.  In the past with my printed books, if I really loved a book or had a series of books I’d keep them in hopes of sharing them with other book lovers in my life and the one’s I just thought were OK I’d donate to my local library.  So the e-readers sort of take away from that aspect of it.

What are some of your favorite books?  What should I add to my list of “Must Read”???