GORGEOUS illustration by Abby Wright found HERE
All I want to do in winter is hibernate, and by hibernate I mean drink tea, read books, and watch The Lord of the Rings. Since this isn't a perfect world, I settle for re-reading my old stand-bys: a bunch of rumpled tomes I've read a dozen or more times each. I call them Literary Comfort Food. I crave them like a hipster craves Fair Trade coffee.
Have you ever craved a book? I mean you're in the middle of reading something new, something fantastic and then, you see it: The Old Favorite. You can't get it out of your mind! You dream about it. Finally, you cave; you close the New Shiny and start reading Old Faithful. Sure you know how it ends, but you always (ALWAYS) get something new from this well-worn stack of pages.
December is when I begin. I start with Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence. From there I dive into Greer Gilman's unbelievable linguistic waltz in Moonwise, all the while reading Susan Wittig Albert's The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Running the gambit, aren't it? MG fantasy based on Celtic folklore, breath-takingly beautiful fantasy based on old (OLD) British folklore and cozy mysteries based on the life of Beatrix Potter.
Aside from Moonwise (which takes a LONG time to read), I stop feasting on these pantry staples and start experimenting with exotic cuisine. It's time to step out of my reading comfort zone and start reading the stack of books on my shelves I've never read. Yes, kids, I own books I've never opened! I'm starting with the two bottom shelves of my living room stacks. You see, I brought these books on purpose when we moved. I on purpose left a lot of my favorites back in Atlanta because I KNEW if I gave myself no choice, I would read something new.
That starts on February 01st. I'm not sure what I'll read yet. Maybe I'll just close my eyes and grab and see what happens. I plan on reading at minimum of 52 books this year. So far, I'm at 3. Yay!
So hear goes! I'm excited, truly. I haven't read anything NEW, new since college. That was two years ago. Sure, I read some stuff for my book club but I wasn't excited about it. Don't ask me why. I think I was in withdrawal from all that "read this or else" of school. Now I'm reading "new" because I want to!
What about you? Do you have any reading goals for the year? Do you tend to return to the same books again and again or are you the type who can't stand reading ANYTHING more than once? What book have you read more times than any other? Me, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. If my old favorites are comfort food, Wrinkle is a dozen, gooey chocolate chip cookies and an extra large steaming mug of rich, cocoa topped with whipped cream in the shape of a kitten. Seriously. It's that good to me :D
Happy Wednesday!
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