My Love of Books

I was recently asked to name my top 10 books and this was hard. It would be easier to name my top 100 or 200 to be honest. The following is the list I came up with.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Onion  Field by  Joseph Wanbuagh

Day Of the Triffids by John Wyndham

King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine

A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson 

Armadillo by William Boyd

To Do List by Mike Gayle

Killing Floor by Lee Child

A strange and eclectic collection I know but as I read 70 plus books a year I need a range of genres to choose from. I mainly read fiction with the odd factual book thrown in. If I had to choose just one genre it would be thrillers, or maybe classic horror or even general modern fiction. Ahhh, too many to decide.

I am very anti electronic books. If you want to read them it is up to you but I love my proper books. Normal books have soul, fantastic covers and a comforting feel about them. I would say that the only use for electronic books is for huge factual volumes or out of print books. I still would personally prefer the real thing. 

If you love reading there are some fantastic reference  websites. Fantastic Fiction is amazing if you want to look up the other books an author has written and get suggestions for similar authors. Goodreads is a great place to track what you have read, follow and join in book related conversations, read quotes and find new authors to read. You can track what you have read on the Goodreads challenge. You set how many you want to read for the year and add them when you start them. At the end of the year you see what you have read and how many. It is very interesting to look back and see what you have read over the year.

Reading goes very well with my love of organisation and Filofaxes. I do have 4 pocket size Filofaxes where I catalogue, alphabetically the books I have enjoyed. I am also hoping to start doing book reviews too, this is something I have been meaning to do for some time.

I read while eating breakfast, on the train, in my lunch break, in the evenings and weekends, so really anytime I have a spare five minutes. You can escape into a book and get lost in a world different from your own, you can learn new things and find the answer to endless questions. There is always another book to read, a new author to discover and different worlds to explore.