Dear Fellow Reader,

I have a confession to make. I have not been reading as much lately. I started knitting again and took a little break to knit in the evening rather than read. But then I realized that my Goodreads annual goal was coming up and I needed to read.

So, I kinda cheated. Yep, I picked out some books that I knew I could read quickly to get to my goal for the year. Now, I suppose that isn’t really cheating but with so many books surrounding me, to pick up (from the library) books that I could quickly read seemed like cheating.

Are you wondering what I picked up? I went to Carolyn Hart’s Bailey Ray series. They are light and easy to read. (As in – can be read in one evening) While they are fine, I found that reading two in a row was a bit much. There is something about reading the explanation for the premise of the book twice in a row. That didn’t do much for me. But the stories are about what I expected and they were fine.

Sometimes, it isn’t bad to read something that is a bit formulaic. You know what I mean; the situation will be different but in general there will be a problem and then another problem and then it will all work out. At times, it is comforting to read those kinds of stories.

I’ve been thinking about the books that I have read in the last year. I am sure you also find it hard to remember when you read a particular book. Was it this year or last? That is why I do like keeping track of the books I have read on Goodreads. I can see when I read them. And I do like to have a goal – it pushes me to get reading at times that I just don’t feel like it. (Yes, there are those times.)  In looking over the list from this year, I see a few favorites and a few new series that I plowed through. One of my favorite books of the year was City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Oh, I didn’t want to read that book but then I loved the writing. Luckily, I had picked up a used copy of the book because I didn’t feel bad marking it up and putting notes in it. I also discovered a local author, J.F. Riordan, and even had the pleasure of meeting her. One of my favorites, Elizabeth Berg has two books on my list this year. Near the beginning of the year, I read The Confession Club, which is the third book in the Mason series. And then recently her memoir about her parents, I’ll Be Seeing You, came out. I read Karen White’s Tradd Street series. Her protagonist is annoying at times, but overall the books were good.

But I have piles of books to go. It is amazing that there are always so many. I swore last year that I was going to finish my physical book pile – in contrast to my eBook pile- by the end of the year. Now here is it a year later and there are more books there than there were before and some of the same books are there. I really need to put in a concerted effort in to get that pile down. It is a good thing that Silent Sam can’t see how many eBooks there are to read on my Kindle. I could probably go for a year without going to the library between my physical stack and my eBooks.

The problem is that there are always new books that sound so good. Books that I just have to read. Odd books (Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald), Biographies (Promised Land by Barack Obama), The author’s next book (Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey by Kathleen Rooney), and many more that I will come across in the next year. (And book group books and books recommended by friends, and on and on and on.)

Thank you for joining me on this journey. We have traveled to some far-off places and found our hearts lost to good guys and villains. We have had a chance to have our outlook grow and learn something new. What a great opportunity we have when we read.

Wishing you the best holiday season.

Thanks for reading!