Well, Danyelle tagged me over at FergusonAuthors.com, so I guess you are getting a real treat—two posts in under a month.
My reading I read a variety of things from sci-fi/fantasy to non-fiction to suspense, romance and other things. I’ve also audio read a pretty good variety since my library has a limited number of books on CD.
Total number of books owned Somewhere in the 500 range, this after we gave away 7 boxes before we moved back to my home town. If I’d had a much bigger budget, and lived in places large enough to hold my books I’m sure I’d have two or three times that many, but instead I’ve been keeping the library busy. I’m about ready to burst my bookshelves at the moment, however, since I’ve been adding at a much faster rate over the past couple of years.
Last book I bought: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I’ve only gotten a few pages into this on the way back from an ambulance transfer and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. My sister said it was really good, so I’ll push on a little further at least.
Last book I read Probably Masquerade by Sierra St. James aka Janette Rawliston. Hilarious book, by the way. I love the way Janette writes and had to buy this one after reading What the Doctor Ordered last year—which my book club loved, even the one who isn’t LDS. If you read my previous post you know I’m currently slogging through an EMT manual, so I won’t be doing a huge amount of recreational reading for the foreseeable future.
Five meaningful books This is a hard one because I try to stay away from meaningful books. Meaningful books require you to think, and thinking is way overrated. 1) The Book of Mormon would have to be number one. It can change your life if you let it, and I noticed a big difference in my life when I study it regularly compared to times when I don’t read much at all. I really love 2) Sheri Dew’s No Doubt About It and 3) Chieko Okazaki’s Being Enough, and always pull them out anytime I have to give a talk in sacrament meeting. 4) Dr. Suess’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go is also on my top list. I think as a society we forget that we have huge opportunities available to us, horizons we never considered and we just have to set our sights and start the journey. Most of the time the only thing holding us back is ourselves.
5) And on that note, I recently bought (I can’t believe I forgot to mention it earlier) Max Lucado’s You are Special. If anyone hasn’t seen this book yet, you have to get a hold of a copy. It’s a children’s picture book, but not only does it have incredible drawings, but the message that we don’t need validation from the people around us, that we don’t need to be better than anyone else to be loved and special to the one who created us is something I think everyone needs to remember. We are special simply because Heaven Father made us and we don’t need more validation than that as long as we are doing our best.
I’m tagging Darvell Hunt because he’s never changed my blog address listed on the LDSWriter’sBlogck blog to my new one. (I’m not sure what happened, but Blogspot doesn’t recognize *any* of my e-mail addresses, so I haven’t been able to delete the old blog). All right, so I probably would have tagged him anyway.