cedar_grove | Bookworm

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Only when I stop collecting evidence
do the stones begin to speak.

-Close your eyes, and bring into focus one thing you know from reading or studying that has helped you. Note where it comes into your awareness. Does it come alive in your head, in your heart, or in your stomach?

The reading for this entry is indeed very lovely, but as the man himself said, we have touched on the subject of 'knowing' many times before in our journey of discovery… but since the overarching thing in this is reading, indeed he says 'I've always been a reader,' I want to take about reading and books and things… just because… I feel… I need a break from all the deep stuff I've been looking at in the last few days… so pull up a chair into the reading nook, and lets have-at it. :D You might want to bring a drink and a snack too, because I suspect this might be a long entry.

First of all though I do want to take a moment to talk about a book that is perhaps one of the ones that has touched me the most through the years – (though I find truths and teachings in most things I read, somewhere along the line) – to the point that, even when I 'lost custody' of the books in when I split up with Alex, I went out of my way to find and buy the books again for myself, so that I could have them, and read them over again. The book series I'm talking about is the Duncton Series, by William Horwood, and I have reviewed the first book here. There has been much talk of love, and unconditional love and the nature of love, and of faith in these journal, and you could do worse than read these books for a beautiful exploration of these concepts. In writing this series, Horwood had a flash of genius, in my opinion.

I love reading – between reading and writing I could quite easily become a hermit in a cave… doing a little of both each day. As well as a library that covers most of my bedroom walls, (well, the bookshelves around the walls anyway), I'm enrolled in Librarything's Members' giveaway program as well as the Early Reviewer program too… as such, members (usually the authors) and publishers give books for free so that real readers can review their works. I make requests of books that seem interesting to me from their blurb, and sometimes I 'win' a copy of the book, and sometimes I don't. When I do I read and review. Most of these books are in electronic format, and that's just fine with me. I have hardly any space left for print books anyhow – and the ones I do have, I either haven't read yet, or are keepers that I know I'll want to read again at some point. Me… I have a book problem.

And right now, it is a bit of a problem too… because I don't do nearly enough reading, (there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do), and I've fallen very behind with what I want and need to read. Just because I can – Here is a list or two behind the cut:

Currently reading

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Crescent Dunes by Steven Barclay
Riever's Heart: Guardians of Light, Book 5 by Renee Wildes
Star Trek: Destiny #2: Mere Mortals by David Mack

Two of those are books I need to review; one for librarything, and the other for another website that specialises in 'romance' genre. The other two books are books from my own library that I wanted to read, and one that I borrowed from Mir because I wanted to catch up on the ST series of books.

Books waiting for review

For a Dancer: The Memoir by Emma J. Stephens
Shaman's Blood by Anne C. Petty
That Which should not Be by Brett J. Talley
Summoning by Debi Faulkner
The Curse of Anna Greene by Mary Aris
Beneath the Shadows by Jarius Raphel
Tales of Ever: #1 Banished by Jen Wylie
Dirty Litle Angels by Chris Tusa
Sunset Lavaflies by Scott Niven
Legacy - Book One of the Balancer Chronicles by Chris Adonn
Sultana by Lisa J. Yarde
The Eyes that See by Chris Adonn
Vestal Virgin--Suspense in Ancient Rome by Suzanne Tyrpak
Vallar by Cindy Borgne
Run From The Reaper by Cristian Young Miller
Alice---a wild, super-intelligent, street-wise kid, who can twist space and time by Ernest Kinnie
Convergence by Joseph Gellene
Daphne and the Silver Ash by Joss Llewelyn
Divine Intervention by Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Pale Queen's Courtyard by Marcin Wrona
Anathema (The Causal Enchantment Series, Book 1) by K.A. Tucker
Gravity by Abigail Boyd
Shelter (Blood Haze: Book One) by Tara Shuler
The Tale of Asha, Volume 2: Rebirth by Joseph Robert Lewis
LS: The Beginning by Kelvin O'Ralph
Psychomancer by Alan Ryker
Blood Faerie by India Drummond
Heirs of Mars by Joseph Robert Lewis
Progenitor by Christopher John Chater
LilyPad Princess by Debi Faulkner
Skirting the Gorge — A Novel by Gerald R Stanek
Verita by Tracy Rozzlynn
The Eighth House by Gerald R Stanek
The Burning Sky (Book One of the Halcyon Trilogy) by Joseph Robert Lewis
Cassie Draws the Universe by P.S. Baber
Children of the Elementi by Ceri Clark
Two Graves by D.A. Graystone
eFiction Magazine by Doug Lance
The Traveler's Companion by Christopher John Chater
Rippler by Cidney Swanson
The Story of Solomon Bear by Phillip Laird

Phew – quite the list. To be fair, I read very quickly when not constantly disturbed by parental visits about faulty PCs… so two or three days at most will see a book devoured – but it would make my life a whole lot easier if the Kindle for PC reader had text-to-speech like the actual kindle.

While we're on the subject of books and book reviews, I'd encourage everyone to take a look at the way

mirrani formats the book reviews that she does when she posts them to Livejournal. I'm impressed by the amount of information she includes. She is far more organised than I, in these things :D

So… I have a lot of reading to do… plus the books around my room, which number somewhere in the hundreds – and the books I have on my kindle too. I did mention I have a book problem, right?

Happy reading, folks… oh, and recommendations are always welcome.