New Year, New Blog

Previously unpublished "why I'm starting a new blog" post, which is probably better than the version I chose as my first post of the year on the new site.  Why waste a good thought?

...

New Year, New Blog

I've been studying blogs and blogs about blogs.  I subscribe to twelve outstanding blogs and read them regularly.  Having recently enjoyed the movie Julie & Julia, I couldn't resist reading the original blog, The Julie/Julia Project blog. 

I felt like I was getting a secret message from all my blog exposure: stop with random blogs.  Find a focus - a theme. 

The only thing I enjoy more than writing is reading.

I read all the time. 

I store books in all the places I might find a minute or two to sneak a word - under my hair dryer, in the door of the car, in my office, next to the bed and the living room couch, in the pantry...

I even own digial books that I read with my Kindle iPhone application while standing in lines, waiting for an appointment, or picking up the kids.  Kindle is a guilty pleasure.  I'm a book snob.

I've always been a reader.  My first favorite was Pounding Hooves by Dorothy Grundbock Johnston.  I read and re-read that book.  I rotated with a book about Sarah Boone, lost forever to the Pinewood library archives, and a startling and lovely romance with the word "lillies" in a title I  no longer recall.  Like many early readers, I also loved The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank.  In secret I read my mother's stash of Barbara Cartland novels too.  Nearly three decades later I can see how that unique collection of romance and realism shaped my world view. 

I mark the great milestones in my life more by what I was reading than by dates.  I was reading Jane Eyre when I got my driver's license and mom sent me to the store for "tomata sauce."  I obediently headed to Maus Foods, torn between the first opportunity for independence and my impatient desire to learn Jane's fate.

The summer before I left home for college, I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace.  Not content with one summer of depressing Russian literature, I followed with The Brothers Karamozov between my first and sophomore years. 

I was sick for the first time without my parents while reading Elie Wiesel's Night.  I thought the Holocaust made me physically ill; turned out I had the stomach flu.

I read Shakespeare's Othello to Adam in his infancy.  Jakob was born during my poetry phase.  Lucky for him we had Adam demanding repeat performances of Dr. Suess.  "Left foot, left foot, right foot right.  Feet in the morning, feet at night..." (aka The Foot Book) was his particular favorite, occasionally trumped by In a People House, ("Come inside, Mr Bird, said the mouse.  I'll show you what there is in a people house..."), the Seven Silly Eaters, or Where the Wild Things Are.  My last flight to Florida began with the opening chapters of Diana Gabaldon's An Echo in the Bone; spotting the book on my lap, one excited flight attendent said she'd just completed the book and couldn't wait for book eight of the series.  With a relieved sigh, I replied, "Thank God it's not the last one!" and we shared that delighted secret sister reader grin two readers share when they connect over a favorite read.

Saturday I opened a new book, The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle.  Worried it would be too similar to Phillipa Gregory's novels, I wasn't sure I'd like the book.  Hooked by the end of the first paragraph, I'm doing my best to make this one last, so I'm only reading it while drying my hair.  I predict I will be able to wait until the weekend to finish the book.  Maybe.  Either that or my hair's going to be extra clean this week.

I love books.  I love blogging.  I love historical records.  I'm combining those three loves this year with this new blog.  I plan to chronicle what I read and what I think about what I read here.  I consider it my own nod of acknowledgement to my early desire to be a literary critic.  I never would have succeeded as a critic; I find myself liking everything I read for one reason or another. 

On my current reading list:

The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle
The Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
Touching Wonder by John Blase
A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
Joshua, Old Testament