About books

I've been enjoying a lazy Saturday morning of laying in bed dozing, followed by sipping a cup of tea and browsing the blogs. On Erica's blog I came across the following meme and thought I'd give it a whirl.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
(His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
(The Secret History - Donna Tartt)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Atonement - Ian McEwan
(The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

Part of the reason I was interested in this meme is because it's about reading books, something that until recently was a very important part of my daily life. Ever since I learned to read (at 4 or 5, I think), I spent time every day reading for pleasure. (My mom is fond of telling the story of how I received special recognition from my first grade teacher for reading more books than any other student she'd instructed.) As I've noticed the pile of books on my nightstand growing, however, I realize that I'm not reading every day anymore.

I think part of the reason I'm not reading as much is that I've quit smoking. I used to sit and read and smoke every night. Every time I wanted a cigarette, I'd pick up my book and take it with me outside or to the smoking area in our house (the basement). I'd bring my book to bed with me and read before I went to sleep. Now, I'm not smoking so I'm not reading every evening. I'm usually half asleep already when I get into bed, and I'm also reading very little during my commute, and instead spend the time knitting.

I've been getting more interested in audio books lately since I would be able to enjoy a book while doing something else like knitting or housework. While I'll miss the tactile sensations of handling a real book, I'm thinking the audio book option will allow me to enjoy the story, which is the most important aspect of reading. So, Audible.com, here I come!