Reading Again...

There is something undeniably special about books.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been big on reading: I like all kinds of books but for now, I’m just talking about fiction. There’s something about reading that you can’t get from doing anything else and a good book has magic dust sprinkled between its pages (if you can't see it, that's because it's invisible) If you're not so into books, you may be easily tempted to just wait for the film – don’t. Obviously not every book becomes a film and those that do may or may not do the book justice. Films are great of course and they excite your senses in so many ways but it’s a completely different experience: no matter how good a film is, there’s always something more in the book.

I was absolutely fascinated by books as a child and saw them as a doorway into another world, invariably a world a million times more exciting than my own. I have so many fond memories of reading as a child, most notable perhaps are Roald Dahl's very humorous and heart-warming characters and the awe-inspiring, rich world described by C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for which I see definite parallels, what with my love of Harry Potter as an adult!

Being an adult now, I read my fair share of ‘serious’ books – fiction is actually a great place to learn new things and see through someone else’s eyes. I like books that can make an impact on you and get you thinking but reading is still very much a form of escapism for me and I’ll always enjoy a good old sweeping adventure story, preferably one with a sorcerer or spy thrown in for good measure. Oh, I love to lose myself in a good book, I really do.

And now to what has prompted this blog post… For someone who loves reading books so much, I really haven’t been reading much at all lately. For whatever reason for the past two years or so, I’ve been going through a phase of sorts where I’ll start numerous books only to give up half way through: the ones that do cross the finish line will have taken an extraordinarily long time to complete.

Maybe it’s the kind of books I’ve been picking up… maybe I haven’t been in the mood to read a book  or maybe quite simply, I’ve just been too busy to ever really have the time to lose myself in the chapters of any book, good or bad. 

I’ve always thought book clubs are a great idea but I didn’t think I could commit to going to meetings. So, back in August this year, when one of my twitter buddies started an online book club, I took it as an unwavering sign to get back on the straight and narrow: no more having five books on-the-go and not finishing any one of them. I’ll review all the books I read for the book club and any other books I read that are worthy of mention, right here on my blog.

You can join in the book club chatter at any time: just get a hold of the book of the month and get reading!  The book club is moderated on twitter by @icklebabe_com #bloggybookclub – each month it’s a new book hosted by one of the club members – we all review at the end of the month.