So Many Books...So Little Time

My dear pal Rozel recently mentioned on her blog that the reading club she had joined up with had fizzled. For a long time now I have been longing to get back into a reading club again. I had a wonderful group that I met with monthly when I lived in Ohio. Alas, that was 20 yrs ago. Where does the time go?

I have allowed my life to get over busy and not carved out enough time for the sweet delicous luxury of reading for fun. I listen to books on CD nearly every day during my commute to and from work, which helps fill the niche somewhat. But it is not the same as curling up in a blanket with a cup of herbal tea with no other distractions, allowing myself to get lost in the language of characters and plot. Or, just as important to me, is to take time to dig deep into a good non-fiction read with the freedom to fully focus, reflect, and consider WITHOUT having to look out for other cars and pay attention to where I am going.

One of my goals for the coming year is to make more time for meaningful reading. But the reality is my life IS very busy. The chances of me meeting on a regular basis with people in the physical world is not likely.

Besides - there are people I know and love who share my passion for reading who do not happen to live where I live. And there are people I have never met who might have something WONDERFUL to contribute to discussions. So Rozel and I decided the best approach would be to fire up a new blog to begin a sort of virtual bookclub.

Obviously we could each just read what we want to read on our own. But both of us enjoy the sharing / discussing part as much as we do the reading itself. I used to work with Rozel at a college we both have left for other options. I miss her. This will be a way we can continue the quirky conversations we both so valued when we were colleagues there. This will also give us both a chance to meet some new friends to kick around thoughts about what we are reading.

We will be reviewing some books, and talking some about general issues related to literature, literacy, genre, and whatever else comes up. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

Rozel will invite a few of her friends and I'll invite a few of mine, and of course the comment section will be open to anyone who wants to put their two cents in.

We are still kicking around ideas for which books we will be reading for 2009. We've decided to start with Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (mostly because we both have the book and neither one of us has read it yet.) We want to do a mix of different kinds of things...

These are some we are considering:

NON FICTION:
They Poured Fire on us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan by Benjamin Ajak
Dark Horse: A Political Thriller by Ralph Reed
We the People: A Story of Our Constitution by Lynne Cheney
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
Escape by Carolyn Jessop
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis


FICTION
The Wednesday Letters by Jason F Wright
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Ringworld by Larry Niven

This is just a start - the list is deliberatly open for suggestions.
We'd like to mix it up between light and dark, meaty and fun. This will give us each a chance to read books we might otherwise have overlooked.

So here we go on our maiden voyage of the Page Nibblers. I'm most definitely looking forward to it.