Never judge a book by its movie.

After 9 straight weeks of travelling and company, it feels good to have some time to myself. Time to catch up on work, spend time with people I haven’t seen in months, work out again, sleep in…but I have to say my favorite thing of all is the chance to read again.

It has been such a long time since I have been able to pick up a book and read it straight through. My parents instilled literature into me when I was extremely young. My dad read Little House on the Prairie to my sister and I every night for years, and my mom taught me to journal when I was 4 years old.  I documented everything, and because I was so shy, I actually took to writing things down as a means of communication. I walked to and from school with a book in front of my face (which I still get teased about to this day) and even got my books taken away from me as a form of punishment. (My boyfriend told me last night that he can always tell the kind of book I am reading by how I act. The example he gave is that I sometimes speak in Old English when I read classics. How embarrassing.)

Some of the many books that captured my heart when I was young include the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Eragon, and Inkheart series. I religiously read each of these books every year. One series I am now able to add to this list is The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  A fascinating Sci-Fi about a dystopian society where kids are forced to kill each other off for sport…it consumed my life for 3 days straight.

I heard a lot of weird but good things about this next children’s novel. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is a book made up of 50% text, 50% illustrations (it even won a Caldecott.) My curiosity peaked and I bought a copy for myself and read it in just a couple of hours. Beautiful and creative, and in my mind a brilliant twist to literature, even if it is just a children’s book.

The last book I read this week was Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult. She is the only author I know who can make the reader love and hate each character so much. Every book of hers has blown my mind, and this was a definite favorite. 

 Happy reading!

(I realize that the title has almost no relation to this post, I just really like the saying.)