When the garden is at its best, I take a rest & read a book. When it's raining, I stay in & read a book. When it's too humid, too hot, or too buggy outside to do anything constructive, I go back in and....you guessed it...read a book.
Whereas some people I know may have a few books in various stages of being read (one in each room in the house, for example) I don't do that since I am trying to simplify my life, after all. (OK. I have picked up another book before I finished reading another only because the first book was left behind in London.)
That was then. Now, I listen to an audio book when I "do" laundry; I don't mind folding 4 loads of laundry at all. When I am outdoors gardening, I listen to another book via an iPod shuffle (which I inherited from Valerie). During a particularly buggy day, I've become oblivious to the mosquitoes because I was so engrossed in the "book"! Not a good thing to discover those red, angry bites when I came in. I think I'd better listen to nature when I'm outdoors.
But, there is something comforting in holding, smelling, and looking at a real book; then, to read and pause in one's own time which one cannot experience when listening to an audio book is part of what it's all about. I guess I am old-fashioned that way,after all.
So, here's my (eclectic, what else?) list for August 2010:
- Austen-Leigh, James Edward, Memoirs of Jane Austen (LibriVox)
- Alcott, Louisa May, Hospital Sketches (LibriVox)
- Demille, Nelson, Spencerville
- Evans, Nicholas, The Loop
- Follett, Ken, Jackdaws (spy thriller)
- Hill, Lawrence, The Book of Negroes (a Canadian historical fiction)
- Grant, Jessica, Come, Thou Tortoise (a humorous Canadian fiction)
- Princess Der Ling, Two Years in the Forbidden City (audio book)
I hope you are all enjoying your summer reading as well!
