Wow… last month of the year already!  I would have liked to be able to say I read more books that I had planned this year but alas, time is just not on my side.  Or, rather, reading time was not given the respect it deserved!

I did, however, manage to read one book this month!  The late, lovely Maeve Binchy’s last novel:  A Week in Winter was, as expected, a joy to read.  I shall so miss Maeve (though I haven’t read everything she’s written yet so I still have some to look forward to!) and cannot believe she is no longer around to entertain us with the lives of people in and around her beloved Ireland.

I tried to take my time, to savour each moment, each chapter but as always happens, she draws you in to a world where you just feel like you could be one with the characters!  At the end I was sorry to not hear about the rest of the lives of Chicky, Orla, Rigger, Winnie, John, The Walls, Henry & Nicola, Anders, Freda and even the grumpy, old Miss Nell Howe!  Each of these people either worked in creating the inn known as Stone House, in the town of Stoneybridge, on the West side of Ireland; or were guests of the very first week it opened.

I so wish I had a room there for a week!  So, so, so enjoyable.

Now, what to choose for this month?  I mean, I’m still caught up in the goings on of Stoneybridge!  Oh well… one must, eventually, let go and move on to something else.

That something else is actually going to be two books.  One recommended by my new friend Safia Moore, (a lovely blogger I follow, originally from Northern Ireland, now living in the UAE) “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler.  Other than what the front cover says, I am completely in the dark about this one!  I like that.  I am basing my choice solely on another’s recommendation.  Will keep you posted!

My second choice is “Finding your Way In a Wild New World” by Martha Beck.  I have this habit of buying all sorts of self-empowerment books that just sit on shelves, collecting dust because “I’ll get to them eventually”.  Well, eventually has arrived.  I have decided to include one of these inspirational books per month as well as a novel.  I have many of them and must justify the expense! I remember going to a seminar once and the animator said that he insisted on reading not only novels and not only books on personal growth or other “teaching-type” books but at least one of each (usually at the same time!) per month.  Hmmm.  So I’m trying that.  I don’t usually have two books going at the same time… well not often anyway.

Are you a “serial” reader or do you have an “open” relationship with books?