Happy Presidents Day. Well, I guess that's what this non-postal delivery, non-school attendance and non-working day for many foks is - a holiday...of sorts, in the United States. Let's see, Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12 [belated Happy Birthday] and George Washington on Feb. 22 [Happy Birthday in advance] and, in a bit of a stretch to get included for this holiday day, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13 [Happy Birthday next month]. So, no gifts just the day off - which is a gift in itself.
What are you [those for whom this is indeed a day off] doing with your gift of Time today? Me? I'm actually doing some housekeeping things like laundry and vacumming and getting caught up with correspondence. See, I've been ill for almost two months. The flu that has swept through the country hit me [and yes, I did get a flu shot] and opened the door to a few other microbes. Sigh. So I'm rather overjoyed to not be confined to the sofa with a cup of hot tea, a blanket over my feet and books on the table and old movies in the dvd player. Funny thing, normally I love that scenario, but a month or more of it is getting just plain old.
The bright spot since New Year's however has been those books I mentioned. I love to read and in the past six to eight weeks I've read six books and started two more. Back in December I wrote a post listing seven books I'd like to read this year. Of those I've read one and started another. I also got a bug to re-read...I love to re-read my favorite authors. First, let's mention one on the list, "The Lost City of Z." In my previous post I wrote of the book: "...Seems reporter David Grann was curious [as most reporters are] to find out the truth of a story of an explorer who was searching for a 'lost city' deep in the Amazon rainforest - an explorer who disappeared and was never heard from again...."
Okay, I loved it! David Grann wrote in an interesting way - he wrote of his own journey into the myth and he wrote of British explorer Percy Fawcett's quest way back when. Fawcett indeed did disappear and has never been found. However, the Lost City of Z was discovered and...you'll have to read how for yourself as it's a good read.
The other book from the list I've started is "Bright Lights No City" by Max Alexander; "...An African Adventure on Bad Roads with a Brother and a Very Weird Business Plan....two Americans in the back country of Ghana. Looks interesting...." And it is, so far, very enjoyable reading! Max Alexander sprinkles much humor in his prose.
I've titled this post "Art of Living and Loving to Read" for a reason. First, I believe there is art in crafting your life and, for me, reading is part of what brings quality to my life. Our grandson is five years old and learning to read. It thrills me to hear him sounding out words and making baby steps into the world of reading. Being able to read is a gift I treasure. Again, for me, re-reading is also a joy.
One of my collections is by author Sue Grafton. Back in September of 2010 I wrote a post titled "Painting with Words-so beautiful" in which I featured this talented author. In looking back at that post now I realized that I had then begun to re-read Grafton's alphabetic series starring heroine and PI Kinsey Millhone, but didn't get farther than "'D' is for Deadbeat." Something must have grabbed my attention away. Now, however, I'm up to "'F' is for Fugitive" and plan to plow through to the latest, "'V' is for Vengeance," which is not yet on my shelf [or in my Nook reader]. Am looking forward to W, X, Y and Z.
What do you re-read? What author's works do you collect? Are you a 'book in the hand is worth two on a reader' person or does it matter?
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