"Envious of Belle" by Sharon H.

I am happy to add to the blog and share my enthusiasm for reading.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to read!  It is one of my very favorite things to do!

When I was growing up, in the summer my girlfriend and I used to walk many blocks up and down hills to go to the library.  I remember being filled with the desire to read every book in the library!  I must confess I still get overwhelmed with that feeling to this day.

And the scene in Beauty and Beast when the Beast gives Belle the library!   Can you imagine - a room full of books top to bottom?!  It would be like heaven!   :)

Watch Belle being given the library.

I am always looking for a new and exciting book to read.  I am always looking to see what people are reading - in the airport, at the beach.

I love attending the night time book group.  Due to the diverse interests of our group, it allows me to be exposed to a wider range of books than I would normally seek out.  And I find that I enjoy them!

I found some quotes which aptly express reading and its importance.  I will share a few:

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.”
- A C Grayling, Financial Times (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)

 "Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” - Austin Phelps

"He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.” - Barrow

“We read to know we are not alone.” - C.S. Lewis

“You're the same today as you'll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.” - Charlie "Tremendous" Jones

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."- Robertson Davies

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your tv set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall." - Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Here are some of my favorite books:

Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes
A love story about Mary and Joseph.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Classic tale of good vs. evil during the French Revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Story also set during French Revolution.  Setting is Paris and London.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott
Series about Welsh vetinarian.

Fannie Flagg - Southern author (I Still Dream of You, Can't Wait to Get to Heaven,  A Redbird Christmas, Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, Fried Green Tomatoes)

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom
Story of a Dutch woman who helped Jews escape and then was imprisoned with her sister.   Her story of the power of love and forgiveness and belief in the Savior.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Series of letters between an author and citizens of an island that was occupied by the Germans during WWII.

Harry Turtledove
Series about "alternative history."  (What if)

Mitford series - Jan Karon    
Stories about an Episcopal minister in NC and his flock. (At Home at Mitford; A Light in the Window; These High, Green Hills)

A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute
Story of an English teacher forced on a "death march" by the Japanese, her meeting an Australian soldier, her search for him after the war.

James Michener
Historical fiction (Hawaii, The Source, Centennial)

Thank you Sharon.  Enjoy her list.  You didn't even have to go to the airport or the beach to see what others were reading!

"To Kill A Mockingbird" -- A Meaningful Book to Carolyn M.

Having been asked to share one book that I really like or that really means a lot to me is like asking me to share my favorite scripture: it changes from day to day! But it has been nice to think back on so many of the books that I have loved reading through the years. (I really only started reading when I started having children and had all of this time while nursing babies! And right after moving here – 26 years ago- we formed a book group that I have loved attending as I’ve read books that I’m sure I would never had read otherwise! And I’ve loved discussions with sisters that have become dear friends because of the time we’ve spent together reading and discussing books. I love book groups!) 

I was not an avid reader in my youth but was required to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” sometime in my early teens. Although I grew up in the 60’s I lived in a small town in Utah and knew very little about segregation or the civil rights movement. The only black people I’d ever seen were at the airport in Salt Lake. I was very sheltered! So reading about Atticus Finch, raising two children alone in Alabama during the depression was quite an eye opener for me. Atticus is a model of any character I love to read about: someone with great moral decency, who is determined to admire the good in everybody; is not judgmental but very forgiving; who doesn’t lose faith in humanity in their capacity to do good even when they are surrounded by the evils of the world; teaches his children compassion and understanding and sympathy as found in the following quote: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”. And isn’t that what we are all trying to do here on earth? : To learn to love and appreciate people – all people – by looking for and recognizing their goodness! 

I love any book that leaves me feeling uplifted for having read it. I love a book that makes me want to be better; to try harder! I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” again last summer, as it was the 50th anniversary of its printing and was happy to see that I still loved it for those very same reasons! Even though my perspective has changed now that I’m “grown” and actually live in the South, I still found those values Atticus Finch was teaching his children are just as important today as when I first read them.