A favorite passtime... that helps me avoid the cold and snow:)

After 5 years of studying to gain my teaching degree, I am now enjoying the fact that I have the time to read something other than scholarly articles which are as dry as week old bird shit on your windshield generally! America has some great bookshops too which has lead to me hoarding (maybe there is a bit of my mother in me) books for 'one day when I get time'. It is probably a lifetime supply already and i keep adding to it every time I am at Barnes & Noble or The Tattered Cover.

Colorado and cycling books as well as a shelf of lower priority reads

These books are the slightly higher priority reads

And these are the 'I am busting to read' books

 I also go to book club once a month at the local library and borrow the monthly book, this month it was a book that fits into the genre of 'Apocalyptic Fiction' not a genre i was even aware existed until this month! Last month it was Catherine the Great which was a little long and boring. Before that I read these three book club selections. I adored True Sisters by Sandra Dallas and the Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom they are definitely amongst the best books I have or will read in 2013.

 I have also managed this month to finally finish reading the Shades of Grey Trilogy, book 1 was okay but 2 and 3 were pretty boring and repetitive, it is definitely an over-rated romance novel!

 These three books are currently in my bedside drawer, which is the 'I want to read this next' pile:

 One is an American historical fiction novel, a dog book (as a dog lover I love a good dog book), and a light and funny Tina Fey book. These will get read in between book club books so each book can take a month or two as I have to put it aside for a few weeks to finish my book club book on time.

Brett is having a fad on Agatha Christie books and I am sure we'll have the whole collection eventually, so they are in the one day pile as well. He probably has half a dozen of them now, and several dozen to go!

And when I feel like something lighter to read there is no shortage of that either, I buy quilting magazines for inspiration occasionally.

 And these are the magazines I have subscribed to - because it is just so cheap here! I think the 2 yr subscription on all these cost me a total of about $30. So there is plenty of glossy print here for my mother-in-law to vacuum read whilst she is visiting later in the year, we are always teasing her about her love of 'comics' and habit of vacuuming print. She reads stuff so quick she can't remember what it is about 5mins later LOL

So then we come to what I am currently reading to put myself to sleep whilst Matt is in Nevada on and off. This book is historical fiction and is about a deadly slave revolt. It is quite readable and I am enjoying American historical fiction at the moment as I have a lot to learn about American history if I am ever going to teach it, and it is amazing how much you can learn even from fictional stories.

I also run two book clubs for my grade 5 students at work, so I have some grade 5 historical fiction books (just short 100 page chapter books) that I try to read along with them so I can discuss the books with my students.


So that sums up 5 months of reading. As the weather warms up I am sure i will get outdoors more and read less but I have certainly managed to fill the wintery days with some interesting reading since arriving here in late November.