Well, It's Wednesday Plus One--Widening One's Horizons

Well, it's Wednesday plus One and I am knee deep in granddaughters, scrambled eggs, home fries, toast, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and noise from three computers as they play their internet games. Hubby is running the vacuum and I am working on the blog and on reviews for The Book Binge. Lately they have been sending me a plethora of novels, novellas, and short stories for review and it has been interesting to indulge in so much erotic romance, contemporary & paranormal as well as a few historicals. It's been a pretty good assortment and that's what makes it interesting and with all the books out there, both print medium as well as digital, there is absolutely no reason anyone -- and I do mean anyone -- should be bored with only one genre.

Perhaps that is the greatest challenge for me in this renewed love affair with books: to expose myself to romance literature and even some non-fiction books that I have previously just rolled over and acted as if they didn't exist. In past years I didn't have a lot of time to read. My kids know that all the way back to when they were little kids I took a "Mom's Reading Day" when I would prepare easy meals that they and their dad could manage, and I would just sit in the bed with a stack of mindless novels next to me -- and just let my brain "rest" from all the stress of being a professional woman, wife and mother. Perhaps that is where my kids learned to appreciate books--mom was putting her nose in a book at every chance as well as the monthly reading day.

Even then there were lots of limitation, mostly economic, so I just got paperbacks on sale and with a fairly limited subject matter. Of course I had--and still have--my library card and that was a life-saver. Even out here in the boonies we have the book mobile once a week and if it is the end of the month and my book budget is exhausted or there is a book that I want to read and my daughter isn't finished with her copy yet, I will hit up the library and about 70% of the time I can get the book I want.

So my challenge for 2010 is not so much seeing how many books I can read, but trying at every possible opportunity to read books whose subject is one I would not ordinarily gravitate toward. At my age I don't indulge in too many challenges except "one foot in front of the other," "warm and walking," etc. But I have found that so far I have read some books that have pushed the parameters of my mind and I have found that good, even stimulating.

So . . . have you read some books so far this year that have introduced you to a new author, a new subject, a new genre? Share your experience. And thanks for stopping by . . .