Radvent Day 14: Reading

Did you like to read as a child? Do you read more or less now?

Oh man, this is such an easy question, haha! I LOVED reading as a child. I was always reading books, usually way above my grade level. I don't know if you could find me without a book when I was younger. I loved The Boxcar Children books, as well as The Saddle Club (I always wanted a horse of my own). I also liked Madeleine L'Engle books (I now own and have read The Wrinkle In Time series multiple times). In grade 7, our teacher read The Hobbit to us in class and I loved it. I tried to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy after that, but I just couldn't get through it. Now I own the trilogy as well as The Hobbit and have made it through them multiple times as well.

I've read a lot of Christian fiction from my church library. I was known to always take at least two books out almost weekly and return them by the next week, even up until I left for college 4 years ago. I remember winning a prize when my church library had a reading contest during the summer while I was in elementary school. We had to write down how many pages we read each day for a month or two during summer holidays and the people with the most pages would win a prize. I don't remember what place I got, I think second or third, but I was super proud of myself for it.

These days, I still read quite a lot. And not just textbooks either. Recently I've been making my way through some classics by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and the like. In the past year, I've read Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey, Wuthering Heights, Emma, I've attempted Great Expectations (about half way through it) and I have Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park on my shelf waiting to be read. I've read many more books this year than just those, but that's kind of the kick I'm going through right now. I've also read (and own) the Twilight books, as well as Harry Potter (haven't read those in a while though, I should re-read them again soon), as well as two trilogies that I bought this year, one by Philippa Gregory about 18th Century England and one by Anne Easter Smith that happens in the 13th and 14th centuries in England and Burgundy. I've re-read The Chronicles of Narnia this year as well as a bunch of Ted Dekker books. I've read The Notebook (again), My Sister's Keeper (again), The Lovely Bones (again), Nineteen Eighty Four (again), The Hobbit (again), The Wrinkle in Time series(again), Gathering Blue (first time, but I love The Giver), The Little Prince (first time), The Iron Man by Ted Hughes (not the comic about the superhero, but a book about an actual man made of iron) and countless other books this year.

I don't know if I would say that I read more or less now. Probably about the same, although I do sit up a lot later reading now than I used to. I usually read in my bed right before I go to sleep, though Friday night I spent reading Emma on the couch with LiLi reading another book on the other couch. My bookshelf is so full I have books piled on top of books. Although part of that is textbooks, there are a lot of those as well. I've greatly increased my book collection this year with all the new books I've bought, but some of them I've got some good deals on, like Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. They were only $5 each. And Emma was only $2, so I figure why not :) I would love to work in a bookstore like Chapters or Coles or something as a part time job. Then I could get even better discounts on books, haha.

The second part of today's prompt is:

Make a place to read in your home. A place that welcomes calm and reflection and invites you to transport your mind.

This is a little difficult for me, since I share a house with a few other girls. And soon I'll be sharing my bedroom as well. As I said before, I spend a lot of time reading in my bed and it's really comfortable (I can lie down whenever I want) so there's really no need to make a place in my room to read. If I had a big comfy chair, I would definitely use that, but the real estate in my bedroom is soon going to be taken up with another bed and a chest of drawers and possibly another desk, so I don't really have room for it now, haha. I'm happy enough on my bed though, I have my night table right next to it which has a nice lamp that I like to read by as well as a shelf on the bottom where I can put the current books that I'm reading. Plus it also has my iPod alarm clock/speakers and I love listening to music while I read, so that's really convenient.

So to sum up: I've always loved reading, I love reading still and I read in my bed.